C harlie Kaufman is in a funk. The genius screenwriter behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York , the devastating Buñuelian comedy of mortality that he also directed, can’t get a movie off the ground. “I’m having great difficulty,” he sighs. “I’m not a person that people want to trust with their money. It’s very frustrating.”

Earlier this year, production of a film he was preparing to make – Later the War, starring Eddie Redmayne as a manufacturer of dreams who diversifies into nightmares – was shut down in Belgrade; he hopes it will resume. To make matters worse, he sorely needs some shut-eye. “Not to get into it, but I’m not a great sleeper,” he says, reaching out of frame for his coffee. The webcam is angled in such a wa

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