Actors - Adaptation.

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	Actors - Adaptation.

Adaptation. is a 2002 film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, although the fictional character Donald Kaufman is also given writing credit. It earned Chris Cooper an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Plot

Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage), the screenwriter, is having problems adapting The Orchid Thief, a book by Susan Orlean, into a movie. Meanwhile, Charlie's twin brother, Donald (also Cage), wants to be a screenwriter as well. Where real life ends and adaptation begins is the question, as Orlean herself (Meryl Streep) and the orchid thief, John Laroche (Chris Cooper), are drawn into the story.

Quotes

I was starting to think that the reason it mattered to care so passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.
I want to be a baby again. I want to be new. I want to be new...
Point is, what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain orchid that looks exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live - how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way
You are what you love, not what loves you.

Analysis

The screenplay is based on a true story. Based on the success of his screenplay for Being John Malkovich
, Kaufman was hired to write a screenplay based on Orlean's book. However, he soon realized that the book simply couldn't be filmed. As he came under increasing pressure to turn in a screenplay, the "adaptation" became a story of a screenwriter's attempt to write a screenplay about a book that can't be adapted into a screenplay. Kaufman handed the script to his employers in the firm belief he would never work again. Instead, the backers enjoyed the script so much they decided to abandon the original project and film Kaufman's screenplay instead.

The film is self-referential, in that we see the creative process behind the movie we are watching. At one point, Charlie is unable to think of a satisfactory ending for the script, and asks Donald how he would end it. At that moment, the style of the movie changes to Donald's style of scriptwriting, with intrigue, sex, car chases and guns replacing abstraction and angst.

The self-referential nature of the film raises questions as to Donald's existence: that is, whether he is a real person, or merely an embodiment of one aspect of Charlie's personality (as he is in real life).

An ironic aspect of the film's post-modern self-referencing is the appearance of Robert McKee, a real-life host of screenwriting seminars. McKee is renowned for warning his students about the technique of the deus ex machina. In the film, Kaufman represents McKee as the deus ex machina, as he gives Charlie the solution to his problematic situation.

The movie talks about the "Holy Grail", but all of the characters' quests in the story either fail or turn out to be futile:

Charlie Kaufman wanted to write a movie just about flowers, and to impress Susan Orlean. He failed on both counts.
John Laroche wanted to be a leader in many different and obscure fields. Whenever he accomplished this, however, he would abandon his hobby for a completely new one.
Susan Orlean wanted desperately to see the Ghost Orchid and care passionately about something. When she saw the Ghost Orchid, she remarked that "It's. . .a flower." When she found passion, she devolved into a hopeless addict.
Donald Kaufman didn't really want anything out of life but he lucked into all the things his brother Charlie was desperate for and wrote a hit script called The 3
.

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