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Charlie Kaufman Monologue

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Recently I had the honor of shadowing the acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman as he brings to life Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” now titled Rings in Time. A soon to be a blockbuster hit that is out of this word. It should be on everyone must watch list this Oscar season. Before I began my work with Mr. Kaufman I had the pleasure of reading the original work by Ted Chiang. It is a wonderful short story told in the first person about the arrival of seven lagged aliens with a unique view on time and writing called Heptapods. Dr. Sarah Banks, a linguist, is brought in to help the government learn their language and along the way she learns about her un-conceived daughter’s life and death. She finds this out because while studying the Heptapods language she learns about the fluidity of time. How it is not a strict progression of cause to effect, but …show more content…

Similar to the film Adaptation that used internal monologues to show Charlie working through his ideas for the movie of The Orchid Thief. In Rings in Time Kaufman uses a combination narration and internal monologues in Sarah's voice to keep the feeling of a story being told to us and her daughter. When Sarah is in the present day he uses internal monologues to help the audience understand the thought processes when she is trying to figure out the Heptapods language. Then when she is in the future seeing her daughters life and death she is narrating over the scenes. Another style he carried over from Adaptation is the seamless transition between different aspects of the story. In Rings in Time Kaufman ties the scenes together by starting the next scene in the movie to the one before it is by starting the next scene off the last word of the previous scene. He also layers the images over each other and fades them out so there are no jump cuts. I think it brings a fluidity to the story that was lacking in the written

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