Recently, I saw the film "Adaptation" in the movie theatre. What originally interested in this film was the fact that the screenplay was based on Susan Orlean’s non-fiction novel, "The Orchid Thief", which I purchased a couple of years ago, but for some reason never got around to reading. I figured that I could see the movie, and then eventually get around to the novel. What was also interesting to me was the film’s director, Spike Jonze. Jonze’s only other film was the multi Golden Globe Award-nominated, and Oscar nominated "Being John Malkovich", a film about a portal that people could crawl in and travel into John Malkovich’s head, ultimately seeing what life was like through his perspective. Jonze’s first film brought viewers into a completely different mindset than the usual sci-fi or fantasy films. Sure, what BJM attempted to do was completely unlikely to happen in real life, but also an ambitious task for a freshman film. Jonze’s previous work had mainly been directing music videos—some of which won or were nominated for awards. Those videos include: “Sabotage,” by the Beastie Boys, “It’s Oh So Quiet,” by Bjork, and REM’s “Crush with Eyeliner,” to name a few. You may also remember Fatboy Slim’s music video “Weapon of Choice,” which featured actor, Christopher Walken dancing and even flying—also another one of Jonze’s videos, along with Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” and “Undone—the Sweater Song” videos. Aside from music videos, Jonze also directed several commercials for companies such as: Coca-Cola and Lee jeans. One of his most memorable commercials featured doctors in an operating room singing “Tainted Love” to the beeping of a patient’s heart monitor.
However, Jonze’s film work has earned him far more recognition than his music videos or commercials. And his films could not be spoken about without the mention of his collaborator, screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman wrote the screenplay for Being John Malkovich, as well as for Jonze’s new film Adaptation. However, the screenplay Kaufman was hired to write was not the screenplay that he ended up writing.
Kaufman was originally hired to write the screenplay for Orlean’s The Orchid Thief; however, Charlie Kaufman ended up writing a screenplay about a man named Charlie Kaufman who was struggling to write a screenplay for Orlean’s novel. Kaufman’s character, (played by Nicolas Cage in the movie), struggles with writing the screenplay and through internal and external dialogue, the viewers realize that Kaufman himself is admitting why he chose to write himself into his screenplay. Kaufman, in the dialogue admits that it is egocentric for a screenwriter to write himself into his script, but throughout the duration of the film, viewers realize the reason is true—Kaufman was really struggling with the script and he wrote what was actually going on. His character moves though the struggle of beginning the script and it as if we as viewers are almost there with him, watching him have such a hard time writing the action we are seeing right at that very moment.
I thought the movie was brilliant. It was actually an original idea, which cannot be said about most movies today. And just to keep the audience guessing, Kaufman threw in a little twist—a fictitious twin brother, Donald, who ends up being a main character of the movie. “Donald Kaufman” is also credited as an additional screenwriter for the film. At first, I (along with probably most of the audience) was confused between what was real and what was made up—after all, I knew that this was a movie about the screenwriter who wrote himself into the screenplay because of his writing struggle.
The line between real and fictitious is blurred so many times, that I found myself often wondering what actually was real. Kaufman and his fictitious twin follow Orlean in the movie, to see what she is really like and what she is really up to. And in the movie, Orlean becomes involved with the subject of her novel—the “orchid thief” himself, John Laroche. I could not help but wonder if that really did happen. The novel most certainly was not going to tell me, so I decided to try and research a little more about it.
"I am old. I am fat. I am bald. My toenails have turned strange. I am repulsive. How repulsive? I don’t know for I suffer from a condition called Body Dysmorphic Disorder. I am fat, but am I as fat as I think? My therapist says no, but people lie. I believe others call me Fatty behind my back. Or Fatso. Or, facetiously, Slim. But I also believe this is simply my own perverted form of self-aggrandizement, that no one really talks about me at all. Why would they? What possible interest is an old, bald, fat man to anyone? I am repulsive. I have never lived. I blame myself," says Nicolas Cage, playing Kaufman. However, Kaufman is not old, and he is neither fat nor is he balding. Those are just a few of the twists that make the story more interesting, fascinating and confusing. But Kaufman does admit, “(I’m) a nebbish. Socially awkward.” Even so, Kaufman never would have predicted the success of the movie. “I really did think this was going to be the end of my career,” he said, “I said that to myself every day. ‘This is it. This is the end.’ But I felt like I was doing something adventurous.” Let’s just hope that more screenwriters and directors are adventurous enough to follow suit in the future. It would certainly make for some interesting movies!
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