chaos plus time equals something interesting
Kaufman: I like to live and work in the chaos because that's my experience, and I'm not interested in organizing things into packages that make people comfortable. And I think I have a taste that constructs things symmetrically, too. I think the fact that I'm disorganized and I have to struggle with what I'm writing for a period of time allows for lucky ideas. If I figured something out right away, then the story goes in that direction and I'd never get to that point of being stalled for a week, thinking about it, and finding something later that's going to take the story in a completely different direction. Maybe the first story would have been better? But I never would have gotten to this thing that I'm really happy that I finally found. So maybe the equation is: disorganization plus time equals something that interests me.
Gondry: If you look at Darwin's evolution theory, all the species that are in harmony with their environment stop evolving or eventually disappear. If you look at the species that involve into human beings, we were never really fully adapted to the environment, so we had to struggle and find solutions and simply, evolve. I think this is the same in the work. If you are comfortable in the first stage, if you are happy with yourself, and you don't need to struggle to create something and confront the mess, it doesn't evolve. I think chaos is good, in this way.
When I shot, I specifically tried to create this chaos. Because I notice if everything is too smooth, you might be happier at the moment, but later you will miss something. Everything is chaotic and the actor has to work there, with less self-awareness.
iW: But Michel, judging from the work you've done, you seem to have a very structuralist mind.
Gondry: Yes, sometimes, I do use partitions. I don't know. I don't feel very non-chaotic.
iW: You don't feel...?
Gondry: Non-chaotic.
Kaufman: He doesn't feel not not chaotic.
From the indieWIRE interview "Chaos Plus Time: Gondry and Kaufman on Memory, Methods, and 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'"
neel , 07-01-’05 12:35