Monday 8 November 2010

Postmodernism part 6: Adaptation.

The film we watched for Postmodernism is Spike Jonze 'Adaptation.'.




The movie is a about a screen writer named Charlie Kaufman who is struggling to write a story based on the book 'The Orchid Thief' which is different from what he is use to writing. Having him doing massive research on the book and still have nothing to write. He goes to orchid gardens, writer seminars with a famous writer even asked his brother for some help, until he finally decided to write about himself writing his troubles on working on the screenplay for the film.

To me this movie has a Mulholland Drive feel to it, by that I mean it has many stories with lots of characters, but unlike Mulholland Drive, Adaptation goes in a straight motion without making too many side stories that it confuses the audience.
The number of stories I can see in this film is three. The first being the main character Charlie Kaufman, who is struggling in writing a screen play based on the book that was given to him. The second is the other main character Susan Orlean, who is on a quest in looking for the ghost orchid to see what is so special about it. Finally the third is when Kaufman comes across the love affair between Orlean and her lover John Laroche and she wants to cover it up by killing Kaufman.
What makes this film Postmodern is that it is based on the screen writer's actual difficulty in writing the screen play for the book. From him looking for help in writing his screen play to actually writing something that felt a bit too far fetched to be real, mostly near the end.

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