Hey folks, Harry here.... Often times here at AICN, I'll flip the ol vcr on and tape the footage and goings ons at various spies' hideouts.... I mean, the Mongo at loose in Moriarty Labs Spa & Resorts... his playing with his various sutures... the mess... hahaha, just good ol fun... Well this time we captured Disturbed talking to himself on the toilet while having trouble passing large amounts of frommage... Disturbing indeed, but what he was discussing in the poreclean echo of the white THX universe was about ADAPTATION... not like of a book, but of a screenplay that is being adapted into film after being a book that could not be adapted by Charlie Kaufman (screenwriter of the brilliant BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Well... here he goes.... please excuse his smell.....
"Hey."
"Hey, what's up?"
"I just read Adaptation."
"Yeah, how'd you like it?"
"I dunno...I thought it was pretty brilliant, but I'm still trying to kind of wrap my head around it."
"Yeah, at first it seemed to me to be sort of the pinnacle of something that had been worked up to for a whole decade, ya know. With every Scream. Every bit of postmodern self-referentiality we've enjoyed and endured has all worked up to this. This bizarre, self-referential solipsistic reverie. But then I realized that isn't quite right. It's also precisely correct."
"It's a really hard script to talk about. I don't even know how I'd describe it to someone who hadn't read it. I mean I can tell you the plot and such, but I can't ever really communicate it as a whole. Anything said would be, to someone who hasn't read it, like the shadow Adaptation casts. Something that gives you a rough shape, but no real detail. Once you go beyond the basics, things get much more... nebulous."
"Yeah, it's like 'It's about Charles Kaufman trying to adapt a book called The Orchid Thief..."
"Which has no plot, and is therefore just about fucking impossible to adapt..."
"And it's also an adaptation of The Orchid Thief. The adaptation Kaufman is writing. It's also about Kaufman's obsession with Susan Orlean who wrote it..."
"And it's also about Kaufman's twin brother Donald becoming a hack screenwriter."
"Right. And then after that..."
"Yeah, you get into all this duality stuff that has nothing to do with the *plot*, but is still an important part of the script. Duality is HUGE in it. And in more than one form."
"Well yeah, there are the motifs of the twins, and the mirror thing."
"Which also reminds me of another theme. I'll get back to that, I don't want to get derailed. See, those themes...mirrors, twins, split personalities...Kaufman makes fun of them all, but then uses them in his own script. They're heavy handed, and yet he makes them subtle in a way. It's like, everything he does, he doesn't. And vice-versa."
"Yeah, he manages to both flaunt and follow every "rule" of the McKee screenwriting course Donald takes."
"Right, and then there's the theme I just alluded to... the rift between reality and fantasy."
"Which in and of itself is sort of another duality."
"Right. It's like...well, first there's that postmodern thing you were talking about. And how it seems sort of self indulgent for Kaufman to write a script that's partially about himself...until at one point you realize that there IS no Donald Kaufman. That's made up. In all likelihood a lot of it is made up. It could be completely fabricated. Hell, the real Kaufman could be svelte and confident."
"Yeah, the script is constantly fucking with your expectations."
"Yeah, you have to adapt to it. Adaptation."
"Both meanings of it."
"Another duality."
"Heh. This script does that kind of thing a lot. Still, it manages not to get muddled."
"Well it works on a surface level if you don't really pay attention to all this other stuff. Though, I was expecting it to be funnier."
"I don't think it's a comedy like Being John Malkovich was. It does have some very, very funny stuff though."
"Yeah. Kaufman's insecurity is pretty funny at times. His interaction with the waitresses is really pathetic, and funny, and...I dunno. The repetition of Kaufman insulting himself is also both funny and sad. And his brother's a fucking idiot. Him making fun of his brother is great."
"There's another rift between fantasy and reality. Even a contempt for reality shown. The Body Dysmorphic Disorder thing, where Kaufman sees himself as uglier than he is...and his contempt for his twin."
"Let's not forget also the rift between the book and its adaptation, as well as between Kaufmans fantasy of what Orlean is like, and the reality."
"No, not the reality. His reality. See, that's why the postmodern thing is sort of a sham. You think it never lets you forget you're reading a script, and in a way it doesn't. You think it doesn't let you suspend disbelief...until at one point you realize you've suspended it fully."
"Everything it does it doesn't."
"I love Kaufman's gleeful disregard of all the "principles" or "rules" of screenwriting, and then his final acceptance of them in the end. McKee says keep the number of characters and locations small, Kaufman jumps around like a madman."
"McKee says that voiceover is lazy and flaccid writing, and excuses you from having to actually show what your character is feeling. He can just tell you. But the script is absolutely full of voiceover, probably more than any script I've ever read. Somehow Kaufman both proves and disproves what McKee says. And when he accepts the rules at the end, he doesn't even accept them halfway. He goes all out bizarro in true Kaufman style. I love the monster thing."
"Ya know, I couldn't quite see Cage in the role(s)...but I sort of think he could do it."
"Oddly enough, I think Malkovich would be totally perfect."
"Wow, yeah, agreed."
"I also saw Paltrow as Orlean. Even though I'm not much of a fan of hers."
"She seems like she could bring the right sadness and loneliness to the part."
"I think Adaptation may be one of the best scripts I've ever read. It makes me want to read Kaufman's other work even more than BJM did. I think I'll work on getting Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind."
"Me too. Any writer owes it to themselves to read it. It's one for the ages."
