Thursday, October 1, 2009
Adaptation Post
So after reading the book and watching the film we all know how they are similar and how they are different. We see in the movie a sort of struggle that Charlie, the big time screenwriter goes through. He has trouble adapting the book which is a non-fiction novel into a screenplay. You can see how the studio and his agent are telling him to just not worry and sort of add onto the story some fake and made up scenes just to make the movie more interesting and Charlie struggles with this. However after attending the screen writing seminar we see the entire movie go another direction showing scenes and telling a story that is completely different from the book. My thought is that whether or not Charlie Kaufman in real life truly struggled with this screenplay which made him create his brother Donald who represents the conventional Hollywood writer who makes things up and stretches the truth while Charlie struggles with himself because he wants to make something pure and completely truthful. We see Donald finish his script and have a breakthrough in which Charlie then attends the screenwriting class goes out for drinks with Robert Mckee and suddenly here we are the second half of the movie which is full of fabrications. I would just like to ask do you think that this script was based on his real life experience that it is impossible to write something pure and truthful without adding anything to it and expect to be successful.
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Charlie Kauffman is an interesting character to say the least. His twin brother Donald I feel at some points in the movie was his alter ego, but one cannot say what's the exact truth. I think Charlie struggled so much with his screenwriting ideas because he was set on writing a simplistic script based on nature and the love of it, not of sex, drugs or dramatic occurences. I think it is possible for Charlie to have finished his script and write a simplistic movie about nature and orchid hunting; this would be more of a documentary film rather than a typical money making movie you'd see in theatre. The opinions and pressures from Hollywood and outsiders influenced Charlie highly, causing him to make the other half of the movie "typical." The dramatic last part of the movie shows what Charlie did not aim to create, however, he did. The first half of the movie is what Charlie wanted: truth, simplicity, analytical and informational. The second half of the movie are all of his insight from other people in what they wanted to see: drama, sex, drugs, death etc. If Charlie had continued making the first half of the movie for the entire film, his goals would have been met but not fully enjoyed to the average eye.
ReplyDeleteI think that putting himself in the story is a completely intentional decision that Kauffman made in order to parallel himself with Susan Orlean, the author of The Orchid Thief. In the book the author was writing about a completely different subject from herself. She was writing about a man who is obsessed with flowers and the actual flowers. However, she also struggled with writing this topic without including herself as a major character.
ReplyDeleteI believe that when Kauffman was faced with the difficult task of adapting The Orchid Thief to film, he found it impossible to do so without adding himself in the story.
I think that whether or not the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman put himself into his screenplay is an opinion of each audience member. The entire movie plays on themes of reality and fantasy. In somescenes we are uncertain whether or his twin brother is real or whether or not there was a true sexual romance between Larouche and Orlean. Because it is an adaptation we are going to lean towards many of these events as being added for effect since Kaufman is adapting his own ideas. If Charlie Kaufman were not to have any independent creativity in the film it would simply become a text translation on film. I am sure that every writer deals with struggle when writing a piece such as a screenplay because they are continuously contemplating the influence of other writers, society and different audiences. I think that it is possible to write something completley truthful bhowever it might not be as appealing to a larger audience.
ReplyDeleteI think Charlie ddn't put himself into his own screenplay. The reason I say this is because look at the struggle he put himself through to write a script. He wanted this movie to be a pure and have nothing in it that was dramatic or false. Susan Orlean wrote The Orchid Thief, and Charlie didn't know how to take this book to make into a movie. He wanted to make it as beautiful as Susan did with her book.
ReplyDeleteI think a scriptwriter can write a script without using sex, drugs, and violence to keep the audience's attention.
I would disagree with the idea that a non-fiction story would have to be spiced up by adding different aspects, characters or events in order to make it more interesting to the audience. However, in certain situations it is necessary for the writer to incorperate or expand on a particular scene in order to keep their audience interested. Some scenes can be crucial to a story but there is some dialogue that can make the scene more powerful or influential and that's when the creative freedom of the writer or director comes into play. A story can be very powerful but it has a lot of quick events that would lead to a very short movie so it is then necessary to add in more scenes or expand on the dialogue in order to keep the movie on a smooth and easy flow.
ReplyDeleteCharlie Kaufman is obscure in the way he thinks about life. Kaufman believes he can never write a fabricated story because he wants to stay truthful the simplicity of The Orchid Thief. He then finds it hard to do this when he catches Susan Orlean sleeping around and taking drugs. I believe Charlie Kaufman used some of his real life experience because it is always difficult to write something without action. The Orchid Thief is a pure and truthful novel, and the second half of the movie creates so much contrast to the book. Charlie Kaufman decided to write this screenplay in order for us to interpret whether these fabrication should have been added to the movie. As we read the novel we wondered how the movie was going to be, but the movie then showed us to look at things from a different perspective. We all view movies differently, but it is up to us, whether or not the action should have been added to the movie.
ReplyDeleteI find Charlie Kaufman to be a very interesting character. I also find the fact that the character has a twin brother with an opposite personality is equally fascinating. I do and do not agree with the fact that stories need to be spiced up sometimes to make movies. Usually, a book will have an interesting and exciting story line that does not need to be altered. In the case of books like these, I feel that it is necessary to add extra things. In order to keep the audiences attention, exciting action scenes and gushy romance scenes need to be added so that the average movie go-er will pay money to see the movie.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of the dual roles of a screenwriter are very interesting. Audiences want the truth or a faithful representation of a novel, but at the same time want to be entertained. Whether we admit to it or not, we also want something a little beyond reality, something that will excite us and take us away for a little while from real life. To see a movie about life could be interesting, but normally it wouldn't be enough. There always has to be some kind of brilliant dialogue written in or action sequences so we feel we got our money's worth. For some reason there isn't this expectation as much with books. It is also interesting to consider that Orlean did not write with the intention of her piece becoming a book. Kaufman was asked to write the screenplay, which adds pressure that isn't involved with writing a book. I think one of the motives to make Adaptation was Kaufman's desire to make audiences sympathize somewhat with screenwriters so we can appreciate films more than we do already.
ReplyDeleteI feel there are many possibilities when it comes to the film Adaptation and the book The Orchid Thief. At first, I thought the movie was somewhat representative of how he felt while writing this movie. Perhaps when he made the decision to turn the book into a film, he did think it was going to be a simple task, that he could create something wonderful without adding any abstract ideas into the film. The second part of the film could be representative of his own realization that without added features such as sex, drugs, and all kinds of action, it would be impossible for the movie to be appealing to audience members. However, after further consideration, I believe it's possible that he wasn't trying to make a film based on the book at all. Perhaps he was simply trying to make a film that conveys how difficult it can be to turn a novel into a film, and he used The Orchid Thief as an extreme example so audience members would be more understanding of the problems screenwriters face when working on an adaptation. This could be true especially because people who enjoy reading are often very critical of film adaptations of their favorite books.
ReplyDelete