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December 10, 2002
Twenty-one days left in 2002… only five films being released this month that I haven’t seen and I’m seeing one of those five this morning. There are a handful of them that I can’t write about yet, lest I molest agreements between myself and my studio friends. I’ve agreed to do a weekly Oscar column for Movie City News, starting this Thursday, so I don’t want to eat up those ideas. And the one-freaky-theme-column-a-week rule went into effect yesterday. The year end columns have to wait for the year end. An analysis of Sundance would be wan and incomplete right now.
I could write about the $40 million purchase of The Grove theater by Pacific, but do any of you really care? I could get into the threats against Luke Ford by Jeff Wald, but assuming that Luke doesn’t turn up floating in the fountain at The Grove, it’s certainly not a fight I need to get into. There’s Tony Kaye’s battle with Marlon Brando and Tony’s ongoing efforts to get his next picture off the ground, but the next movie talk is still premature and the Brando fight is better off as a stealth enterprise.
AHA! The Adaptation Column!!!
Okay… anyone who hasn’t seen the film probably should be reading this. Sorry. It’s not your day. Go to Movie City News are read someone else for a while. But it’s time!!!
REALLY!
NOT KIDDING! MAKE SURE YOU WANT THIS!
Adaptation
ACT II don’t feel like burying the lead… there is no Donald… there is no Susan Orlean in this movie, with the exception of her very specific voice from the book The Orchid Thief.
Confused? Irritated?
Okay.
It’s all there. One of the genius elements of Adaptation is that Charlie Kaufman tells us what he’s up to over and over and just keeps delivering on those promises.
What’s the first scene in the film? John Malkovich and his multiple personalities on the set of Being John Malkovich. Even when Charlie walks off the set, the first thing we see walking by on the lot are two twin Malkoviches, who are oddly not on the set.
Adaptation works on many levels at the same time. It’s about the impossibility of adapting The Orchid Thief while actually adapting The Orchid Thief quite beautifully.
Second scene. Charlie and Valerie Thomas. It’s real. But also includes more hints. “I’d like to find a portal into your brain.” Seems to be about “Malkovich,” but it’s also about this film.
Charlie says of the screenplay he’s trying to create from the book, ”I just don’t want to make it a Hollywood thing... making it an orchid heist thing… changing the orchids into poppies and making it about drug running. I don’t want to cram in sex or guns or car chases or characters learning having profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end.”
You can virtually stop here. The whole third act has been laid out for you in the first five minutes of the film. A little over an hour from here, Charlie Kaufman will do everything that he just said he didn’t want to do. Everything.
Orlean’s Book. The next sequence is directly taken from Orlean’s opening paragraph describing John Larouche. Kaufman’s screenplay takes us to the Fakahatchee Preserve where the alleged crime that inspired the book is brought to life, fleshed out by Orlean’s reporting and Kaufman’s imagination.
Fantasy. When Charlie gets home, Donald is waiting for him. He is going to become a screenwriter. They discuss screenwriting seminars and McKee’s in particular.
Again, Charlie gives us a key to the end of the second act - “Anyone who says that they have the answer is going to attract desperate people.” When Charlie gets desperate, he will turn to McKee, the man who claims to have the answer.
Donald embodies Charlie’s insecurity by throwing McKee’s stats as a former Fulbright Scholar up to Charlie.
Reality. Charlie and Amelia on their non-date date. Note that Donald hasn’t invaded Charlie’s reality outside of his home yet. There is no mention of Donald at all. We establish that being attracted to a woman makes him sweat… the small life adaptation that is the movie’s only true “answer.”
Orlean’s Book. Charlie tries to write…. He goes back, again, to Orlean’s work, since he can’t come up with his own.
Reality, Charlie & Amelia in one of the film’s greatest scenes – Amelia realizes that Charlie is too frozen in fear to ever make a movie… and Charlie seems to know it too.
Orlean’s Book. Laroche takes Orlean to an Orchid show.
Fantasy. Donald describes his script idea and punishes an insecure Charlie for mocking them by cutting right to the heart of the failure to touch Amelia… “What, did you make the moves on her or something?”
Orlean’s Book. Her meeting with Matthew Osceola, which starts to border on fantasy… not detailed as such on the book. Charlie’s fantasy of Susan is taking form in a small way. The Orchid show that follows, however, is in the book.
Fantasy. Susan’s dinner with her husband and friends, mocking Laroche. This – and Susan’s pain – manifests itself in the book, but is mostly in Kaufman’s mind.
Orlean’s Book. Back to the history of the ghost orchid and Laroche’s history.
Reality Into Fantasy. The Restaurant scene – Charlie picks up a girl in his mind, trusting the beauty of orchids to get him laid. But it turns out that it’s a masturbatory fantasy… interrupted by Donald, a fantasy of shame and self-denial.
Donald lays out the core of the movie in his (slightly edited) description of The 3.
“There’s a serial killer (Donald) and he’s being hunted by a cop (Charlie) and he’s taunting the cop, sending clues (like this description) who is next victim is… he’s already holding her (Orlean) hostage in his creepy basement (Charlie’s mind). The cop gets obsessed with figuring out her identity and, in the process, falls in love with her, even though he’s never met her. She becomes like the unobtainable… like the holy grail. But here’s the twist. We find out that the killer really suffers from multiple personality disorder. He’s actually really the cop and the girl.”
Charlie shreds the idea, but he has already created it in the movie. The self-hating screenwriter sees himself as a criminal, perpetrating his ideas on the innocent. He creates a non-existent brother in his mind, who he believes is the only one who can give him the answer of how to “find the girl” as in, doing right by Orlean’s book. Indeed, Charlie does fall in love with Susan without ever meeting her. I would suggest that he never actually meets her at any time in this film.
Charlie says, “There’s no way to write this… did you ever consider that. How can you have someone held prisoner in a basement (Orlean) and working in a police station (Donald) at the same time?”
Donald lamely responds, “Trick photography?”
Charlie continues, “In the reality of this movie, where there is only one character, how could you…”
Charlie gives up and calls the idea Sybil meets Dressed To Kill… both of which feature multiple personality disorder.
Reality. Charlie goes back to the same restaurant for pie and perhaps, a date. But instead of getting either, he gets a real-life humiliation caused by “putting the moves” on the waitress.
Reality into Fantasy. Charlie’s trip to the orchid show is real enough, until he starts projecting on all the women around him and eventually, feeling the pain in his imaginary Susan.
End of Act One
Act Two starts with Donald’s first step into Charlie’s real life… not just at home. Act Two and Three to come as the next weeks progress.
READER OF THE DAY: MR. MINK writes: “I also heard that those advance screenings of Maid in Manhattan mostly sold out. I agree with you that this flick “stinks with money”. Let me also add this: It stinks, period.
I was dragged to this thing this weekend while doing my duty as the good husband. This is “product” in the worst sense of the word. The only thing that got me through the screening was the little game I kept playing; I kept imagining/hoping that Ralph Fiennes would suddenly turn into his Francis Dolarhyde character from Red Dragon and dole out a little justice for the audience. And how about that chemistry between Fiennes and J-Lo, er, I mean,did you see any chemistry between them, cuz I sure didn’t. Just think, I missed out on Solaris this weekend due to this one, and although I generally agree that there’s always room for J-Lo, I would loved to have missed this junk; I want my hour and a half back.
The best movie experience of the past week was seeing TheQuiet American at the Sunset 5 last weekend. Michael Caine really nailed the world weariness of his character, and his growing sense of anger and despair was completely sold through understatement. When he broke down and cried it felt genuine to me. Kudos by the way to Brendan Frasier for participating in this kind of thing. This really whets my appetite for Rabbit Proof Fence. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it and I just saw Ebert and new guy slobber all over each other about it. I didn’t know Noyce was capable of this kind of subtlety and restraint. Good for him, good for us.”E ME: If you are reading this, you probably are ready to respond to Act One of Adaptation. Fire away…
More on Adaptation
Act I: The Joy Of Agony, The Donald Of Defeat
Act II: Charlie to Donald to McKee
Act III: Imagine Me & You ... I Do
