Adaptation

This past week we watched Adaptation by Spike Jonze. I think I enjoyed this film more than any other movie we’ve watched this semester. I was definitely the most excited about it because Charlie Kaufman was one of the writers for the movie (he’s a favorite of mine). The intricately designed screenplay is genius in the way it weaves together reality (what the audience is watching) and the movie reality (what the characters experience).

In the beginning of the movie I wasn’t exactly where the story within the movie began and the making of the movie ended. The ideas Kaufman (played by Nicholas Cage) had during the writing process where included in the movie—even the ideas he discarded. We, the audience, saw every idea that the character Kaufman envisioned as if we were the ones watching his (the character’s) movie. The screenplay blurs the lines between the story within the movie (played by actors) and reality (Nicholas Cage plays Charlie Kaufman, one of the actual writers of Adaptation for example).

The film plays with the ideas of uniqueness and connectedness—between the orchids as well as the characters. McKee’s comments to Charlie on change emphasize human connectedness in that we (he says “character” because he’s giving advice on writing a screenplay but the same idea exists in reality) all change. We all change in a different way and it comes from within us (“comes from them [characters]” as McKee says). However, in this ability to adapt or change we are all connected. The only thing we all have in common is our uniqueness. I think the rarity and uniqueness of the orchids emphasize the idea of connectedness through uniqueness. With this idea in mind, one of the most interesting aspects of Adaptation is the inclusion of a twin brother to Nicholas Cage’s character. Charlie “shares DNA” with his twin brother. They are genetically identical (and physically identical). By DNA, they are the same person—Charlie would seem to be robbed of his uniqueness, his individuality. However, the experiences shape him into a different person than his brother. Change makes them two different people. The rivalry between the two brothers offers a funny and interesting twist to the idea of them being the same genetic being yet completely different people. In the end, Kaufman realizes that he has the power to change himself and with that new power he can “take hold of the movie-ness and change himself” (the character that plays him) within the movie into anyone he wants (as Donna put it).

I think the play between uniqueness and connectedness resonates with a lot of people in that we all have moments in which we question our special-ness as well as our sense of belonging. We seem to want both qualities all at once and the boundary between the two is constantly shifting.

The last bit of the movie (after the meeting with McKee) was packed with events. There was a car chase, an on-foot chase through the jungle, a gun fight, drugs, sex, a crocodile attack…so much as to make you want to laugh because of the sensationalism (just as the filmmakers wanted). The whole movie up to the point in which Charlie meets McKee, Charlie tries to adapt the book The Orchid Thief to a screenplay—an impossible feat because “nothing much happens” in the book. In that impossibility of making a movie about just pure thoughts (not an actual story as in The Orchid Thief), is where the sensationalized ending comes in to “save” the movie. The movie in which “nothing much happens” now turns into a movie in which a lot of things happen, however unrealistic. By the cop out Charlie Kaufman (the character) takes in writing his screenplay, he says that movies need that “FLASH! BANG!” ending to work. Also, by including the over-done ending in Adaptation, the question of whether movies need sensationalized endings to be successful is posed to the audience.

The intertwining and weaving together of stories and ideas is what makes the film both brilliant and slightly difficult to talk about.