ADAPTATION

Writer’s Block Is Inspiration for Adaptation

New York journalist Susan Orlean was visiting her parents in Florida when she came across a newspaper article about a rouge horticulturalist, John LaRoche, who was on trial for poaching rare, endangered orchids from the Fakahatchee State Preserve. Intrigued, Orlean interviewed LaRoche for a story in The New Yorker that was expanded into the 1998 best-selling book, The Orchid Thief.

The success of Orlean’s book could only mean one thing…Hollywood knocking on her door. Producers sent the book to screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who had just found success with his own original screenplay, Being John Malkovich, and appeared to be the one man capable of transforming Orlean’s tale of flowers and obsession into a two-hour film.

That much we know is true.

The resulting film, Adaptation, is full of truths, half-truths, and outright lies that keep the viewer guessing as to what is what and what will happen next. It is that rare roller coaster ride of self-indulgence for the writer that also proves entertaining for the audience.

Nicolas Cage plays Charlie Kaufman, an insecure, introspective screenwriter, and his twin brother Donald, an aspiring screenwriter with all the confidence and social skills lacking in Charlie. Charlie lands the job of adapting The Orchid Thief for the screen at the same time that Donald is taking a screenwriting course and working on an implausible thriller called The 3.

Adaptation flashes backward and forward quite a bit, letting the viewer in on Kaufman’s tenure on the set of Being John Malkovich, Orlean (Meryl Streep) working on The Orchid Thief, and LaRoche (Chris Cooper) living and poaching plants in Florida. Despite LaRoche’s passion for orchids and Orlean’s passion for getting to the root of her story, Kaufman struggles to find a way of translating the book into a meaningful film.

“I remember being cocky and thinking, yeah, I like this,” said Kaufman later. “I can turn this into a film.” His self-assuredness soon turned on itself as he failed to get a grip on the screenplay’s visuals. “If it had been a script of my own, I might have abandoned it at a certain point. But in this case, though, I had been hired by others. They had expectations of me. So I had to adapt to being an adapter.”

Kaufman’s solution was to write about the whole agonizing process involved in trying to write a screenplay based on a very non-visual book. Kaufman deals with writer’s block, his failure at interpersonal relationships, and his twin’s newfound success as a screenwriter as humorous fodder for the movie, while avoiding the process of actually turning The Orchid Thief into a film. The process at one point hinged upon Orlean’s approval of the strange turns in the script and she found the original take on her tale funny and appropriate.

“This book is a kind of soulful meditation on passion and love sickness and subcultures and belonging,” said Orlean. “Those aren’t very typical Hollywood themes.” When she read the script she realized Kaufman had combined her story with his. “I thought the script was completely strange and yet wonderful. When I read the sections about the Susan Orlean character, I was absolutely convinced that Charlie Kaufman had indeed come to New York and secretly followed me around, studying me. By and large the character is quite different from me. But the initial portrait of me as a writer contained certain details that were startlingly accurate. I could never figure out how he did that. But the important thing is that, in the end, this was the perfect thing to have happened to this book. It became more of a character in the movie than the actual basis for the movie.”

Kaufmans:’s inability to turn the book into a movie culminates with his asking Donald for help with the ending. The shift of gears as Adaptation moves from Charlie’s hands to Donald’s will take some viewers by surprise but is crucial in seeing how the whole screenwriting process works.

Adaptation, like Being John Malkovich, is one of the truly unique films of this short century. It will inspire discussion and arguments and is likely to be one of those films that you either love or hate. It is definitely worth viewing…even if you end up in the “hated it” camp.

Adaptation has earned a number of Oscar nominations including Best Actor (Cage), Best Supporting Actress (Streep), Best Supporting Actor (Cooper) and Best Adapted Screenplay (the Kaufman Brothers).

Adaptation is rated R for language and nudity and is currently playing at Chalet Triple in Boone.