Umm. Okay. I guess.
So if you haven't actually guessed, I usually write these reviews right after seeing the movie. There are a few exceptions; if I see a film in theaters I have to take time to drive home/complete some other tasks, but generally at least a good 3-4 hours of my night are set in front of my computer with a film on, followed by paragraphs and paragraphs of writing. If I could dedicate this much time to poetry or a script I'd be golden.
I've already revealed my bias here. I really liked this film. I write from time to time. I don't do it because I like it, I actually hate writing, because I really only write - or start writing - when I'm miserable. The only exceptions are when I'm writing some sort of reaction, like a review or a critique. I can do that endlessly. From scratch? I just can't think straight about it. Immediately upon watching Nicolas Cage struggle as a script writer, I knew I was either going to enjoy this film, or really enjoy it.
I have had four hours of sleep. I haven't had coffee. I feel like shit. This is the perfect time to write about this movie, because right about now I know what my smell is. No, not unwashed. Fuck you, I shower daily. Okay sometimes I skip a day, its good for the skin. Focus Egan.
Before I get in to formal questions here, I want to talk a bit about things that the film does right and what it does wrong in ways that couldn't really be removed from the film in editing or with a better director. I wouldn't call them script problems - mostly since I don't actually know the script - so much as just...film problems. Despite my enjoyment, there were a few. Let's start negative.
What are some major problems with Adaptation
First, and foremost, the film has a hard time deciding whether or not it wants to be a film about four people or a film about Charles Kaufman. The tagline says four people; the script at time pulls in the direction of four, but will jump back to the Charles Kaufman semi-omniscient perspective soon afterwards. While that's not inherently wrong, it brings up questions later on in the movie regarding Meryl Streep's backstory and how Nicolas Cage managed to come up with that information.
Theoretically he could have talked to her when she was in prison for the cool crime of murder, but really all he was able to witness was the fact that at some point Meryl Streep snorts a line of green something. He also saw that she was sleeping with Chris Cooper. Somehow out of this, he gets the fact that at some point she had a very specifically worded phone conversation with Chris Cooper about receiving his package in the mail which was her original weird green cocaine thing.
Now, theoretically Nicolas Cage could have just made up the conversation, and that might be the joke? Maybe? But it seems out of character for him to put that in there when he has spent most of the movie trying to tell a story about flowers. Which...I guess the flowers were all of us. The film doesn't end well.
The other major problem is Donald Kaufman. So, Donald Kaufman is an actual person, when you watch the movie don't get confused. He's not a crazed hallucination. I thought he was. Donny acts as a foil to Nicolas Cage, representing everything Nicolas Cage's character isn't. He's confident and free and cool, with a hot girlfriend I vaguely recognize from something. Oh. Jake Gyllenhaal.
Anyway, at one point Donny is writing a script, and in the script he talks about having a character who has multiple personalities. One of the plot points is that the one personality is a police officer, the other is a murderer in prison. Cage comments on how there can't be the same character in two physical locations, because that's impossible and also dumb. Now, I immediately took this to be foreshadowing given the sketchy nature of Donald's existence, and the fact that this movie likes to ignore the advice that it gives in the movie.
Nope. Totally wrong. Donald was in fact real. I spent most of the movie wondering if he wasn't when apparently I wasn't supposed to get that impression at all. While that's not terrible, it blinded me to a lot of other details happening on screen, since I was constantly looking for little clues that would lead up to the big twist where we find that there is only one Nicolas Cage. The only twist, unfortunately, is that Nicolas Cage is killed in a car crash, so basically Donny is Ghostrider.
What did this movie do well?
Its a really interestingly edited film and, despite some problems, the writing is clever. Because of how meta the plot gets, where the story is actually Charlie Kaufman writing a script about Charlie Kaufman writing a script based on a him adapting the script for a fictional book with the help of a fictional brother, there's lots of little details and jokes you get to pick up along the way. There's pay-off for paying attention, and that's a rare thing in movies, even back in the...okay not the good old days, but the much less worse days of 2002.
There's a voiceover gag, where Nicolas Cage gets advice from the evil FBI agent in the Bourne movies. His advice? Never use voice overs. A good deal of the movie uses voice overs. You don't find out that that's the joke until you're more than halfway through the film. I like that. There's a set-up early on and it pays off later down the line. Lots of other little things to, like the fact that there was a dumb action scene at the end, the parts where Cage talks about how narcissistic it is to be in your own screenplay, things like that.
They're simple, clever jokes. Its not elaborately complex humor, its not pretentious name dropping, its not the implication that Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal not only want to have some really creepy incest, but that they have basically the exact same eyes or that Maggie Gyllenhaal could make a pretty good Leia when you look carefully, its just some nice, old fashioned wit. Refreshing. You have to think a little bit. Though, don't go bragging to your friends that you "got" this movie. Its not that complicated.
If you want some bragging, I actually understood the references in "A Haunted House" to the movie "Devil Inside." You remember that movie that nobody really paid attention to? Yeah that. I also saw Apollo 18. Why is Apollo 18 in italics and the other two are quoted? Because Apollo 18 was at least sort of a movie, if a fucking terrible one. Okay back to the review.
Okay, so since it was Nicolas Cage you can assume the acting was orgasmic. How about the camera?
The camera is, oddly enough, actually pretty boring, and for this movie that's fine.
So, a really great film is going to have interesting shots in almost every scene it can fit them in without detracting from the movie. That means shots with great framing, with interesting angles, good lighting, blocking, everything. Especially framing. Nicolas Cage is not known for being in movies with people who understand how to do that shit.
Now, if this movie were a serious drama, I would be bored by this camera. But, this movie is a comedy, sort of. Okay, it's a light hearted drama. Its not actually all that hilarious. Still, it shares enough elements with a comedy that having complex camera angles, where characters are framed in information dense shots that tell you a lot about their motivations, that would be confusing and distracting from the actors.
Framing isn't funny, not really. If you have a character stand underneath a sign that, when shot at the right angle, looks like a dong aimed at their face, its not actually going to be hilarious unless your audience has difficulty spelling words or comprehending that movies are not, in fact, real. Not that there's anything wrong with a dick joke.
Comedy really stems from the actors and their ability to be funny. Yes, environments can help, but an environment left on its own isn't really funny. Well framed shots use the environment to communicate information about a character and their emotions; in a film that has a great deal of comedy elements, this would end up communicating too much about the character and distracting from the performances. Everything is already being communicated through Nicolas Cage's flawless expressions and body language, so telling it twice would be redundant and irritating.
Well that's okay then. Hey so what's the be-
Shhh.
Adaptation makes up for the lack of really creative shots with interesting edits. They're not always great; you can lose track of a scene at points in the film, but they're interesting. You get fast cuts between characters, extra long fade-to-blacks, extremely fast, clean cuts during exciting scenes, and just a lot of really fun stuff done post-production.
Its not perfect, but I appreciate that sort of effort. I like when movies care about being good. Its a nice feeling. I want to like the films I watch. Sometimes its really hard. Next week is going to be one of those hard weeks. Not the kind the ladies like. Not the kind the guys like either. The kind that drives a man to drink, and snort cocaine off of dirty stripper buttholes in the back alley of an IHoP. They can stack pancakes high, but never high enough to cover my shame.
What was that about a big dumb ending?
Man. That ending.
Okay, so I really tried to avoid talking about the big dumb ending. I suppose I can't though. Its pretty long to, I think going on a good 30 minutes.
So up until the end, the plot had been Nicolas Cage trying to find various ways to write a screenplay. It was pretty cool. You get to see him struggle and be frustrated just like a real person. He'd make some headway and then fail. He'd try out some new coffee, masturbate like five times, and fail to make any further headway. He was basically me with my life, with a lot more masturbation and less hair. I do like my hair.
I could spend a couple of paragraphs going over each individual way that he tries and fails, but the ultimate point of it would be to help you understand that this movie does not go places for the majority of the run time, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I actually rather enjoy it. Nicolas Cage has his struggles and they're the core of the movie's drama. There's no progress because there doesn't need to be, and if the resolution ended up being that he wrote a shitty screenplay, I would've enjoyed it.
Nope! It's not at all any ending that you expected because boy does it get stupid. I'll just recap it all here. Jesus christ.
So Nicolas Cage and his twin go to New York. His twin interviews Meryl Streep and he thinks she's lying about not being in love with Chris Cooper. He is, of course, right, so they track her down to Miami. They somehow manage to find her car in the middle of a crowded airport and follow her to an undisclosed and undiscussed address after catching a flight that must have left at the exact time she did since otherwise they'd have missed each other by several hours.
When they get to her house, Nicolas Cage goes off to investigate what is going on. He sees Meryl Streep sleeping with Chris Cooper after snorting green powder off a table. Okay. That's fine I guess.
Then Meryl Streep decides she has to kill Nicolas Cage so that he can never write his screenplay about her secret drug/sex life. She has him drive all the way down to the same alligator infested swamp that she had been to with Chris Cooper before because the budget only allowed for 1 swamp location, even though it would make her and Chris Cooper prime suspects in the murder case. She has a gun pointed at Cage, and is ready to shoot him. Oh no!
Its okay though, because somehow Donny Cage got in the back of her car without her noticing, opens up the door on the back of her legs which causes her to fall, then they both run away and hide in the swamp overnight. Their bald spots are mysteriously not covered in bug bites and they aren't eaten by millions of snakes or lizards. When they both wake up, they realize that both Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper spent the night high in the everglades and try and sneak away.
Meryl Streep notices them running and wakes up Cooper, who accidentally shoots Donny Cage in the arm, causing Nicolas Cage to jump in a car and speed head first in to a police officer as they left. This kills Donny, but it turns out that even after she has sobered up, Meryl Streep is still out to kill Nicolas Cage, so the three living people run off in to the swamp. Chris Cooper is ready to shoot Nicolas Cage before he is eaten by an alligator.
Then the movie ends with Nicolas Cage getting the girl sort of and does a voice over about how he's going to end it in a voice over and wondering who will play him in the play.
wut
Alligator.
I don't understand. That's like if the Arrested Development movie just ends with everyone fighting each other in an elaborately choreographed lightsaber fight. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it on an entertainment level, but why? Why is that here? Its conflicting so hard with the way the rest of the film feels that I get the picture that this scene wants to key up the film's car or something. Its like that one coworker you have that you just hate so much and she's such an asshole but something about her, and you can't stop thinking about her and there's all of these confusing feelings and just aagggghh!
I mean. Uh. Review's over.
DONE
Adaptation - Alligator. It's My You Know - That title. Birdemic - This movie was serious. My Bloody Valentine - Poorly received review!
FAN REQUEST FRIDAY
Uh-oh. Look at that guys. The polls closed.
This week, I will accept your meager decisions. The people have spoken. I shall review....
Birdemic 2 no, no, I'm just kidding.
Raising Arizona - More Nicolas Cage, more of it all over my body.
Get Ready for Week 3
'K. Few things: 1) What you call "camera" is typically called "cinematography." "camera work" is generally the purvey of 1st Camera (if it's a single camera shoot) or 1st and 2nd camera (if there are 2 cameras, etc) as well as 2nd unit 1st camera (if there's a 2nd unit, and there almost always is on anything with people whose names you recognize in it). The gestalt of "things that appear on screen" is the work of the Director of Photography, or DP. He's in charge of all things related to the camera, how it moves, what it passes over, and what lights all those things. 2) "blocking" is an interim direction that you, as an audience member, do not see. Once it's in the camera, it all rolls into "framing." 3) I have not seen ADAPTATION, nor will I. I hated the fuck out of BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and hated the fuck out of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND even more. That said, I read the draft of ADAPTATION that got the movie launched. It cemented my hatred of Charlie Kaufman more than anything else, I think, because he turned his own self-referential laziness into parody and got an Oscar nom for it. So here's the thing about ADAPTATION. It is an exercise in duality, not so much a parody or satire as a schizoaffective exploration of the medium of film presented as humor and wit. - The Orchid Thief is a real book. I haven't read it, but I read the article in the New Yorker it was based on and I was fascinated. It's an incredibly interesting tale if you're the sort of person who reads articles in the New Yorker - but a movie based on The Orchid Thief would be a lot like a movie based on Guns, Germs & Steel. Nonetheless, Johnathan Demme optioned the movie rights in 1994. - Charlie Kaufman does not have a brother, twin or otherwise. Donald represents his duality of purpose - Charlie is trying to adapt an unadaptable book and fighting terrible, pussilanimous struggles to do it; Donald is Shane Black (who is an asshole). - Brian Cox plays Robert McKee, one of the guru-est gurus in writing. I have not attended his lectures; a friend did and noted that John Cleese was in his class. Me? I read Story and thought it was 70% obvious truths, 10% insight and 20% bullshit. That said, Kaufman's inclusion of McKee is about as inside baseball as you can get in the world of movies-about-movies. It's even worse than when they mention Nikki Finke in Entourage. - The ending is Kaufman's way of saying "truth and purity die in Hollywood" as the only two real people in the film (besides himself) are killed in a cavalier and off-handed way... after all attempts to adapt the book into something reasonable have been wholly abandoned. Donny's approach has won; Kaufman pierces the veil in order to reveal his fever dream about being incapable of adapting an unadaptable book. He's cribbing heavily from the ending of Takashi Miike's *Dead or Alive* (watch to the end) in which a difficult and intractable situation is resolved through sheer farce. Actually, now that I think about it, he's cribbing from the end of Monty Python's Holy Grail but watch the Miike anyway 'cuz it's awesome. So. The audience for ADAPTATION are all those WGA-w choads who are members of the Academy but haven't worked in a long time. That's why it got nominated. Kudos to you for sitting through it; I fucking hate the man.
1. Ah neat.
2. Also neat. The director's lab I'm in at the moment is for the stage, not for the screen, so improperly used terms are because I'm not in film skill. Hey, if I use enough wrong stuff and you keep commenting, I might never need to. I'll print out a kleinbl00 diploma. It'll help my employment opportunities exactly like a regular diploma. 3. So I have to admit an embarrassing secret. I've never actually seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Steve Carrel or Being John Malkovich. Period. There are actually a whole bunch of movies that I haven't seen, mainly because I really started getting in to film only maybe 4-5 years ago at this point. Part of the reason I review so many films a week is because I've got some catching up to do. I also have to admit a equally embarrassing secret. I subscribe to the "Death of the Author" mindset. Once a work leaves the author's hands, it is the audiences to interpret, based on the event presented in the work. I don't mean that everyone's interpretation of a work is valid, but if the interpretation can be defended by aspects of the work reasonably well, then its valid, and if the author meant differently, well they can suck it. First thing I didn't do was view this film as a parody. I have no clue what it would be parodying. I guess itself? The process of script writing? Okay? I don't know almost anything about how to write a script, but I know vaguely how to write and how frustrating that is, so if the movie was trying to tell me about how awful writing a script is then it's going to fall on the ears of a person who doesn't even know the language. I don't know the first thing about writing a script. I can write a poem. Or an article. Scripts? Fuck that. Maybe I enjoyed the movie because I didn't know a great deal about the process going on behind it, so I just got to watch it as a movie about writing. Writing I can understand, art I can understand. The sheer number of writers I am friends with, combined with my passing interest gives me a bit more of an insight in to that world. As a movie about writing in general, its actually pretty good at capturing how frustrating it can be to realize what you have inside your head on a page. Problem is, if Kaufman intended the movie to be viewed differently, then I do have to look at it from that perspective. As a movie about duality in script writing, it's kind of trite. Writing a script will twist your original vision? That's been done. A lot. We get that Hollywood is corrupting. We got it in 2002. We've known that for ages. That kind of shit was in Citizen Kane its nothing revolutionary. I am also glad I didn't know how seriously people took this movie, because that changes how I view it immensely. This movie is not Oscar-nomination material. Well, okay, it is, but only because movies-about-movies tend to get in to the Oscars alot because of self-congratulatory bullshit. See Argo. The wit and humor in the script is cute. Its small self-referential stuff that makes me chuckle a little bit. It is not mind blowing quality and its certainly nothing amazingly clever or insightful. It is a slightly above average intelligence movie. It is not Brief Interviews with Hideous Men or anything similarly cerebral. If Charlie Kaufman thought he was being really clever or original with his jokes, then I am very sorry for him, because he wasn't. He was just being above-average. Taken as itself, just a movie about Nicolas Cage trying to adapt a script, then the above-average intelligence is fine. Its still clever enough that I can enjoy it. Its just a shame that Charlie Kaufman adds so much backstory to the whole thing that it sort of ruins an otherwise perfectly acceptable movie. Also, yes. Dead or Alive has a fantastic ending.
I won't criticise you for liking a Charlie Kaufman film. Lots of people do. I enjoy these reviews, which is why I add to them - this one included. Adaptation, to me, is a giant missed opportunity. I see Kaufman the way I see Crichton - a guy with clever ideas who sucks so hard at characters and humanity that you're better off not reading or watching.
I not a Kauffman slappy (for example, Synecdoche was one of the most torturous movies I've ever sat through), but I do love Adaptation. I'm not sure I agree with your assessment that the ending is "Kaufman's way of saying 'truth and purity die in Hollywood'". (Maybe the original script was changed for the movie). But in the movie (spoiler, so for anyone who's interested, don't read on), Donny and John LaRoche both die, LaRoche by an alligator attack. Earlier in the film, McKee chastises Kauffman to not ever under any circumstances use deus ex machina as an ending, which obviously having an alligator pop out of nowhere is an extreme example of deus ex machina (even, as you point out, absolutely ridiculous like Monty Python). Kauffman systematically violates every one of McKee's "rules" except for his central tenet that characters have to change, or else what's the point of even having characters? Donny dies, and Charley is finally able to get over himself and confess his love for Amelia. I don't know anything about insider stuff, or any of that, but to me, it's just a really interesting and beautiful story about the struggle to find beauty, love and passion in a world that doesn't always reward those things.