Question for those who've seen Adaptation

[Guest Lord of The Curry]

First off, wow, that is what you call a fucking movie. A few questions, though.....

 

1) I know Charlie Kaufman is a real guy, as is Susan Orlean and John Laroche but is there really a Donald Kaufman?

2) The script that Charlie is writing is based on his real life expiriences involving Orlean and Laroche and the writing of the movie adaptation of The Orchid Theif. Right?

3) Why did Orlean and Laroche want to kill Charlie? I'm assuming it's because he saw that Laroche's greenhouse was full of ghost orchids, therefore negating the whole "Laroche has been searching all his life" thing, but I'm not sure.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Guest WrestlingDeacon]

I've never seen the film and I can answer these questions.

 

1) There is no Donald. His inclusion as screenwriter is a joke as is devoting the picture to his memory.

 

2) It is based on Charlie's real life attempt to adapt the book, although very much blow out of propotion. Kind of like how the Coen brothers take real life characters and elements and surrealistically embellish them for story purposes.

 

3) That's one I really can't answer, but I would say your reasoning is sound.

[Guest MDH257]

2.) I highly doubt the events in the movie bear any resemblece to whatever the real relationship (if any) that Kauffman, Orlean, and Laroche have or had.

 

3.) I don't think it was supposed to matter. The whole point was to have a standard Hollywood thriller ending. I mean you could say it was because they didn't want to get caught (and they were high).

[Guest Downhome]

Here are my thoughts on the movie overall, and the 3rd act specificily...

 

I watched this film a week or so ago, and I loved it. I'll even go as far to say that it's one of my favorite's of all time, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. From the opening monolague I felt a very specific connection with the character. I am an aspiring screenwriter myself, and I could really relate to this film. I felt as if he was describing me, this film was, in ways, ABOUT me. Even his statement about the "thing on his leg" is me, it almost scared me actually. When it was all said and done, I was left with a sense of having learned something. I felt as if the film opened my eyes, as to what and how I need to get things done in my own personal life. Any time a film opens my eyes, and actually in a way CHANGES my life, I am instantly in love with said film, forever.

 

As for the 3rd Act, I thought it was obvious what was going on, but that's just me. I saw the character of Donald being revealed to be nothing more than Charlie's creation of an alter personality. He created Donald in order to feel as if he is living his life as he wants to live, as his escape from his hellish reality. All through the film, it was obvious that he actually WANTED to be as Donald was, and in the end, he became him. With Donald's death, Charlie finally found himself, and became whom he always yearned to be. I think this for various undertones throughout the entire movie, the phone conversation Charlie had with his mom at the end of the film, and the conversation he had with Valerie at the table, when he said "I miss him", and she asked "who?" and looked very confused. Hell, even Donald's idea for his screenplay insists that what we are seeing in their actual world is his idea being reality between the two brothers. Charlie told Donald that it couldn't be filmed and make sense, but in this movie, Adaptation, they did film it. The end where Donald gets out of the car, while Charlie is somewhere else, doesn't make sense with this idea, but that's the thing. Charlie wrote in that scene (which I feel was his script we were seeing, as described in a moment) because it was really his idea in the first place, and was just trying to get it to work somehow. It may not make sense, but it got the job done, lol.

 

I also feel that just about everything from around the moment Charlie met with Robert McKee or the moment that Charlie called Donald to come to New York, was nothing more than the script that Charlie was writing being played on OUR screen. As McKee said, you have to find an ending, and I feel that what we were actually seeing, was the ending to Charlie's screenplay. That explains the sudden change in tone and dirrection, obviously. We know that Charlie began in write everyone he knows into his script, and I feel we were just being shown that for ourselves, if that makes any sense to you.

 

...so there ya go, that's my opinions and thoughts on this film, one HELL of a film, one for the ages, a TRUE classic in my eyes.

[Guest Downhome]

First off, wow, that is what you call a fucking movie. A few questions, though.....

 

1) I know Charlie Kaufman is a real guy, as is Susan Orlean and John Laroche but is there really a Donald Kaufman?

2) The script that Charlie is writing is based on his real life expiriences involving Orlean and Laroche and the writing of the movie adaptation of The Orchid Theif. Right?

3) Why did Orlean and Laroche want to kill Charlie? I'm assuming it's because he saw that Laroche's greenhouse was full of ghost orchids, therefore negating the whole "Laroche has been searching all his life" thing, but I'm not sure.

 

Thanks for any help.

I guess I can answer these dirrectly also...

 

1) There is no Donald, it is his alter-personality, as I described above.

 

2) This film is based on reality in ways, it's like when you look into few mirror's, and the image goes on forever. This is a film which is an adaptation of the real book, The Orchid Theif. The film is about Charlie writing said Adaption, and so on and so on...

 

3) They obviously wanted Charlie dead, in terms of that part of the film, because he found them for what they truly are (or rather, what he ended up writing them being, remember, that last part of the film was nothing more than Charlie's script being SHOWN to us, he wrote all of that in the 3rd act). They didn't want him to tell anyone she was having an affair, doing drugs, etc...