Last month, I had the opportunity to meet Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter and director known for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Synecdoche, New York, Being John Malkovich, and a number of other critically acclaimed film projects. He had come up to New Haven with his friend and creative collaborator, poet Eva H.D., to talk about their latest work Jackals and Fireflies at a screening presented by Yale’s film department.
However, as part of my English and film seminar, “Writing Screenplay Adaptations,” my professor Donald Margulies (a Pulitzer winner himself) was able to coax Kaufman into coming into our class earlier that day to discuss his Oscar-nominated Adaptation with us, which was our assigned film to study that week.
As someone who wants to enter the entertainment industry after college, this opportunity to hear insights from someone like Kaufman in a setting as intimate as my 10-person seminar for two hours felt absolutely surreal. Even though the environment could not have been any more casual (Kaufman truly just being a regular guy talking to us), nothing about the experience felt normal to me.
I think this is a common experience among Yale students: to find yourself doing something or entering a space where you almost have to pinch yourself because it feels unreal. For me, this moment in class caught my attention because it wasn’t even something I had to sign up for — my professor just told us this was “going to happen” next week. And stuff like this happens all the time. I have friends who have bumped into Anderson Cooper in their residential college common rooms, or listened to live speaker events from Paul McCartney or MLK Jr. So regardless of what you’re into, from academics to music to TV to sports to WHATEVER, there’s probably an opportunity to hear about it up close and personal from someone you admire at Yale.
