Wait... who is this a picture of? I thought I was blogging about the movie Adaptation. This doesn't look like anyone who was in that movie, does it? Maybe he was a minor character. No, I don't think that's it. Where have we seen him?
Actually, the answer is quite interesting. He was in the movie. He's the main character. -No, that was Nicolas Cage! Well yes, Nicolas Cage was the actor in the movie. But this is the guy he was portraying. Yeah, that's Charlie Kaufman. In the flesh.
To me, they hardly even look like the same person. Wasn't he self-described as fat and balding? The real Kaufman doesn't look that way, not to me. And we all know that he doesn't really have a twin brother--that was just a creation for the movie.
So my question is: how much of this movie is based on the real life of Charlie Kaufman, and how much is just made up?
There is an interview with Susan Orlean in which she says, "I did have real
concerns that people wouldn't understand what part if
this was real and what wasn't." She seems to suggest that most of it is real, but that at some point in the film, it turns fictitious. (You can watch the entire interview if you would like:)
This film actually reminds me a lot of Memento and the narrative ambiguity in it, except in this movie, it is more like veridical ambiguity. Where Memento leaves open the true events within the story of the movie, Adaptation leaves open where the fact from outside the movie coincides with fiction. What's interesting about this is that in Memento, one may never be able to know if s/he has the truth story figured out, and I believe that is done on purpose. Adaptation, however, since it borrows fact from outside the story, is open to being "figured out." One may be able to decipher fact from fiction.
So I guess we'll all have to go find Charlie Kaufman, befriend him, and figure out the truth! I know that I don't really have an answer. Sorry guys. :P
I would like to hear even more about how these two films compare in terms of a 'search for truth.' Why do you think Orlean had such a concern about the film adaptation in this way? What is the film communicating that the novel isn't? The film seems to offer a critique about how Hollywood tends to treat literary sources -- by adding car chases and excessive action. Many movie viewers aren't going to be careful enough to know that the end of the film is purposely 'fiction.'
It's interesting that you chose to contrast Memento and Adaptation. I wouldn't have made that connection myself, but I think you are definitely right in saying that Memento is deliberately ambiguous and "unsolvable"--it's designed so that we may never be able to tell fact from fiction. In Adaptation., however, we are meant to notice (upon reflection, even if not right in the moment) that things have taken a turn for the ludicrous and fictitious.
I would like to hear even more about how these two films compare in terms of a 'search for truth.' Why do you think Orlean had such a concern about the film adaptation in this way? What is the film communicating that the novel isn't? The film seems to offer a critique about how Hollywood tends to treat literary sources -- by adding car chases and excessive action. Many movie viewers aren't going to be careful enough to know that the end of the film is purposely 'fiction.'
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you chose to contrast Memento and Adaptation. I wouldn't have made that connection myself, but I think you are definitely right in saying that Memento is deliberately ambiguous and "unsolvable"--it's designed so that we may never be able to tell fact from fiction. In Adaptation., however, we are meant to notice (upon reflection, even if not right in the moment) that things have taken a turn for the ludicrous and fictitious.
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