The Movie Does the Talking: Adaptation

Well, as I've got a rather busy weekend ahead of me (very spooky term projects and horrifying research papers! How very Hallowe'en-y!), I've decided just to let the film do the talking. So here are some of my favourite quotes from Charlie (and Donald, hee!) Kaufman's Adaptation.

(Which, incidentally, is my third favourite movie of all time -- I'm sure you were all burning with curiousity. My favourite movie of all time being Muppet Treasure Island, followed closely by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter series are just impossible to categorize by such goofy means, and so rise above any favouritism I could express.)

Before we get to the quotes, a synopsis:

From IMDB.com: "Frequently cynical screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicholas Cage) has just taken on a new assignment. That is, to adapt writer Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief" into a screenplay, all of it based on the life of the eccentric John Laroche, an exotic plant collector based out of Florida. While his easygoing twin brother Donald, is writing scripts with ease, Charlie finds himself on a perpetual struggle that never seems to end."

(So, not only is this movie brilliant and funny in it's own right, it's brilliant and funny because it's a screenplay about a screenwriter trying to write a screenplay. It's also brilliant and funny because Donald is often reading bits and pieces of a sort of "Screenplays for Dummies" handbook he's using to write his first screenplay, and the movie itself goes to great lengths to completely disregard everything Donald reads immediately after he reads it. Charlie Kaufman (the screenwriter, not the main character in this case -- confusing...) lays out the road map for us, and then makes a great point of completely ignoring it. Completely brilliant. And funny. Hee.)

(Just one more aside and then I'm done: yes, this will be rather spoilery. And if I could have, I would likely have included two thirds of the movie, so I've tried to be as selective as I'm able, and just chose bits which were particularly funny or poigniant to me -- as a result, a lot of the stuff I'm posting is Donald and Charlie talking about screenplays, which is likely because I (try to) write screenplays myself, so this sort of thing really strikes me. This isn't to say that the John Laroche/Susan Orleane thread of the movie isn't as wonderful or as funny. In short, this is just what I like about the movie. See it yourself -- there's much more than I could ever post.)

And now (finally, I know), the quotes.

---

DONALD
Yeah. Anyway. I pitched mom my screenplay --

CHARLIE
Don't say "pitch".

DONALD
Sorry. Anyway, she loved my... telling of my story to her. She said it's "Silence of the Lambs" meets "Psycho."

CHARLIE
Hey, maybe you and mom could collaborate. I hear she's really good with structure.

DONALD
You think you're so superior, Charles. Well, I'm really gonna write this. And you'll see. And, and... you suck, okay?

-----

DONALD
Look, you wanna hear my pitch, or what? [...] Hey, thanks a lot, man. Cool. [...] Okay, there's this serial killer, right --

Charlie groans, lies down, stares at the ceiling.

DONALD (CONT'D)
No, wait. See, he's being hunted by a cop. And he's taunting the cop, right? Sending clues who his next victim is. He's already holding her hostage in his creepy basement. So the cop gets obsessed with figuring out her identity, and in the process he falls in love with her. Even though he's never even met her. She becomes, like, the unattainable, like the Holy Grail.

CHARLIE
It's a little obvious, don't you think?

DONALD
Okay, but there's a twist. See, we find out the killer suffers from multiple personality disorder. Okay? See, he's really also the cop and the girl. All of them are him! Isn't that fucked-up?

Donald waits, proud.

CHARLIE
The only idea more overused than serial killers, is multiple personality. On top of that you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for examples of this.

DONALD
Mom called it psychologically taut.

-----

CHARLIE
To begin... To begin... How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. So I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana nut. That's a good muffin.

-----

DONALD
Anyway, listen, I meant to ask you, I need a cool way to kill people. Don't worry! For my script! Ha ha!

CHARLIE
I really don't write that kind of stuff.

DONALD
Oh, man, please. You're the genius.

Charlie stares at Donald, rubs his eyes, sighs.

CHARLIE
Here you go. The killer's a literature professor. He cuts off little chunks of his victim's bodies until they die. He calls himself "The Deconstructionist."

DONALD
That's kinda good. I like that.

CHARLIE
See, I was kidding, Donald.

DONALD
Oh, okay. Sorry. You got me! Ha-ha. Do you mind if I use it, though?

-----

DONALD
Charles, I'm putting a song in. Like when characters sing pop songs in their pajamas and dance around. I thought it might be a nice way to break the tension. So, try to think of a song about multiple personality. Hey, where you going?

-----

DONALD
I'm putting in a chase sequence now. The killer flees on horseback with the girl. The cop is after them on a motorcycle. It's like a battle between motors and horses. Like technology versus horses.

-----

DONALD
Also, I wanted to thank you for your idea. It was very helpful. I changed it a little. Now the killer cuts off body pieces and makes the victims eat them. It's, like, Caroline has this great tattoo of a snake swallowing it's tail and --

CHARLIE
Ourobouros.

DONALD
I don't know what that means.

CHARLIE
The snake is called Ourobouros.

DONALD
I don't think so. But, anyway, it's cool for my killer to have this modus operandi. Because at the end when he forces the woman, who's really him, to eat herself, he's also eating himself to death.

-----

CHARLIE
What if a writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens, where people don't change, they don't have any epiphanies. They struggle and are frustrated and nothing is resolved. More a reflection of the real world --

MCKEE
The real world? The real fucking world? First of all, if you write a screenplay without conflict or crisis, you'll bore your audience to tears. Secondly: Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day! There's genocide and war and corruption! Every fucking day somewhere in the world somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else! Every fucking day someone somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else! People find love! People lose it, for Christ's sake! A child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church! Someone goes hungry! Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman! If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know much about life! And why the fuck are you taking up my precious two hours with your movie? I don't have any use for it! I don't have any bloody use for it!

CHARLIE
Okay, thanks.

-----

ORLEAN
[just a bit toasted now] I wish I were an ant. They're very shiny.

LAROCHE
You're shinier than any ant, darlin'.

ORLEAN
That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me.

-----

CHARLIE
I wasted [my life]. I admire you, Donald, y'know? I spent my whole life paralyzed worrying what people think of me and you -- you're oblivious.

DONALD
I'm not oblivious.

CHARLIE
No, you don't understand. I say that as a compliment. I really do.
(beat)
There was this time in high school. I was watching you out the library window. You were talking to Sarah Marsh.

DONALD
Oh, God. I was so in love with her.

CHARLIE
I know. And you were flirting with her. And she was really sweet to you.

DONALD
I remember that.

CHARLIE
Then when you walked away, she started making fun of you with Kim Canetti. It was like they were laughing at me. You didn't know at all. You seemed so happy.

DONALD
I knew. I heard them.

CHARLIE
How come you looked so happy?

DONALD
I loved Sarah, Charles. It was mine, that love. I owned it. Even Sarah didn't have the right to take it away. I can love whoever I want.

CHARLIE
She thought you were pathetic.

DONALD
That was her business, not mine. You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago.

-----

See? Definitely the third best movie of all time. Yup.