Adaptation

[El Vez]

Recently, I got around to renting one of last year's most talked about films, Spike Jonze's Adaptation. To be honest, it was a letdown. Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, etc. all gave good performances and I thought that Nicolas Cage was sensational....but it seemed to me that the film itself lost any real, compelling narrative thread after about an hour. Not as in "Charles Kaufman and Spike Jonze creating an intellectual comedy which skewers Hollywood's simple formulas" but as in.....why should I give a shit? For all its twists and turns, it wasn't anything new. A friend of mine who also saw it commented how she dislikes films that pretend to be art, that use "Art" as a come-on without delivering more than she dislikes tripe where Jim Carrey gets to play God and give Jennifer Anniston bigger boobs.

Anyone else care to comment on the film?

Oh, and just because I am a listmaking geek....

Top 10 American Films of 2002

1. About Schmidt
2. Punch-Drunk Love
3. Far From Heaven
4. The Quiet American
5. The Hours
6. Narc
7. The Pianist
8. The Weight of Water
9. The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers
10. Catch Me If You Can

....I still have not seen Confessions of A Dangerous (Yakuza B Movie Actor) Mind, Personal Velocity and a handful of other highly regarded American films from last year.

[bobster]

Actually, I believe in giving films extra points for ambition, even if they don't achieve it. I've had this argument for years but, assuming a film isn't merely stupidly pretentious (which I hate as much as anyone), I prefer that people over-reach rather than under-reach. I'll take a "bad" and pretentious movie that attempts something new without restraint like "Eyes Wide Shut" over a "good" movie that aims extremely low yet hits the mark like "Legally Blonde".

----

I really enjoyed "Adaptation" last year, in fact a lot more than I liked the unassailable but also somehow non-enjoyable to me "About Schmidt".

"Adaptation" can be accused of being a bit glib and tricky (and that might have been my reaction if the script had been pitched to me), but it's done with such an odd kind of sincereity that for me it was even more effective than "Being John Malkovich" Also, as someone who's tried his hand at screenwriting, I may be prejudiced, but the dilemma the movie deals with is a real one.

On the one hand, it's easy to dismiss people like Robert McKee and their followers(and I have, frequently) -- but on the other, while they definitely don't provide recipes for writing interesting movies, they do provide ways to avoid making writing ones that are excruciatingly boring one and have a better chance of making it up the Hollywood greased poll. There's also something sort of seductive about these guys and some of what they say actually makes sense, on occasion. "Adaptation" shows this in the most straight-forward way possible.

Also, script aside, Spike Jonze is a truly amazing director. By way of contrast with "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." (also written by Kauffmann), George Clooney actually did a good job directing it, but there's definitely something missing and I found the last half hour or so pretty boring. A couple of critics said they thought that the extremely straightforward style of Spike Jonze fits Kaumann's scripts better. Not sure if that was the problem, but maybe.

(Also see Jonze's Fatboy Slim video with Christopher Walken, easily one of the best pieces of musical film in the last two decades, I'd say.)

[DrJ]

Adaptation just reminds me of killing an afternoon after a very big job interview before finding out I didn't get it.

the film itself lost any real, compelling narrative thread after about an hour... as in.....why should I give a shit?

Yeah, the first 45 minutes fly by, then you figure that you might not give a shit, and it's all very well but where's the explosions/nudity. I think the film has shortfalls but in the same way as a new Radiohead album has to be heard, Adaptation has to be seen. It's better seeing a movie like that that fails than wasting your time in, say, T3 which will obviously both suck and blow.

I might not be making sense coz i'm tired...

DrJ

[Richard]

Innocent question. But why would you consider The Pianist or Lord Of The Rings american films?

Rings was directed by a New Zealander, filmed in New Zealand, based on a book by a British author, starring actors from many countries.

The Pianist was based on the life of a European with a Polish director etc.

Both had american actors in them & most likely american funding. Is that what defines them as american?

[costellopunk]

i thoroughly enjoyed adaptation. i liked the concept and the performances were great. i just felt there was so much going on on so many levels and that last scene, to me anyway, is just so the way things are. brought a tear to my eye.

[miss buenos aires]

I really liked Adaptation, too. The part where Donald is trying to think of movies about flowers and says, "What about Flowers for Algernon?" cracked me up the next day as I was walking down the street by myself.

[El Vez]

Innocent question. But why would you consider The Pianist or Lord Of The Rings american films?

Rings was directed by a New Zealander, filmed in New Zealand, based on a book by a British author, starring actors from many countries.

The Pianist was based on the life of a European with a Polish director etc.

Both had american actors in them & most likely american funding. Is that what defines them as american?

You're right. What I should have said was "English language film" or "Predominantly English language film."

[El Vez]

Actually, I believe in giving films extra points for ambition, even if they don't achieve it. I've had this argument for years but, assuming a film isn't merely stupidly pretentious (which I hate as much as anyone), I prefer that people over-reach rather than under-reach. I'll take a "bad" and pretentious movie that attempts something new without restraint like "Eyes Wide Shut" over a "good" movie that aims extremely low yet hits the mark like "Legally Blonde".

----

I really enjoyed "Adaptation" last year, in fact a lot more than I liked the unassailable but also somehow non-enjoyable to me "About Schmidt".

"Adaptation" can be accused of being a bit glib and tricky (and that might have been my reaction if the script had been pitched to me), but it's done with such an odd kind of sincereity that for me it was even more effective than "Being John Malkovich" Also, as someone who's tried his hand at screenwriting, I may be prejudiced, but the dilemma the movie deals with is a real one.

On the one hand, it's easy to dismiss people like Robert McKee and their followers(and I have, frequently) -- but on the other, while they definitely don't provide recipes for writing interesting movies, they do provide ways to avoid making writing ones that are excruciatingly boring one and have a better chance of making it up the Hollywood greased poll. There's also something sort of seductive about these guys and some of what they say actually makes sense, on occasion. "Adaptation" shows this in the most straight-forward way possible.

Also, script aside, Spike Jonze is a truly amazing director. By way of contrast with "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." (also written by Kauffmann), George Clooney actually did a good job directing it, but there's definitely something missing and I found the last half hour or so pretty boring. A couple of critics said they thought that the extremely straightforward style of Spike Jonze fits Kaumann's scripts better. Not sure if that was the problem, but maybe.

(Also see Jonze's Fatboy Slim video with Christopher Walken, easily one of the best pieces of musical film in the last two decades, I'd say.)

I am an admirer of Spike Jonze. He has directed some brilliant music videos, his work as a film director is very impressive and he's a damn fine actor.

Although I do not earn my living as a writer, I spent my high school days writing sketch comedy and my undergrad days writing one-act plays. I'd love to be writing more at the moment......but day to day life has its priorities. Anyway, I tend to cringe when I see movies about the artistic process. I don't think it's anything special and can often become overly indulgent and, in a way, self-congratulatory. Writing is work just like anything else and there really isn't anything all that romantic about the actual process. IMHO.

I had a creative writing professor in college who was very much a Robert McKee and I hated her. Good points were made during the McKee scenes and Brian Cox is a great actor, but it was all I could do not to throw a shoe during the seminar scenes. Overwhelming personal prejudice, I guess.

[Richard]

ok, thanks el vez.

Adaptation was pretty engaging for the first half, where the crisis of how to film a book about a flower was the center. By the second half where the film turned into the hollywood style it was struggling against my interest waned.

Like so many other sacred cows of current cinema (the Cohen bros, Tarantino) Spike Jonez's world is more enoyable when people relate why they loved these films than actually watching them. Post-modern, self-relecting cleverness is more fun to talk about than experience perhaps?

So much artful irony. You leave thinking these guys really know so much about film but know so little about life.

Much prefer the stylings of Terry Zwigoff or John Sayles or from England Ken Loach.

[El Vez]

I'm a very big Terry Zwigoff fan. Crumb and Ghost World are both very special films that have enriched my life greatly. I like John Sayles although I find him a little too dry and airless at times. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a Ken Loach film.

[BlueChair]

I enjoyed Adaptation thoroughly when it came out, but on repeated viewings it loses a bit of it's enjoyability (is that even a word?)

Being John Malkovich on the other hand, is absolutely brilliant, and I can watch it dozens of times.

One thing I was thinking about, that enhanced my enjoyment of Adaptation however lies in this theory. The film is supposedly written by Charlie and his non-existant brother Donald. In the early parts of the film, Donald is working on his own screenplay with sensationalist and ridiculous plot twists and character development. Charlie wants to stay with something more real, but is suffering from lack of inspiration.

Notice how once Charlie asks Donald to come help finish his screenplay, that's when things start to get ridiculous plotwise (i.e. car chase scene)? I wonder if that was the whole point.

[laughingcrow]

I thought Adaptation was good (anyone else notice Alison playing when he's at the party), I like the ironic twist that all the predictable unoriginal things about movie scripts that he lists in the film, all play themselves out as the two brothers become one person. Kinda.

[King of Confidence]

Bluechair, I noticed that too. Charlie asks Donald to help with the script, and the next thing they do is start spying on Meryl Streep's office, and it goes from there. I think that's the whole "meta" aspect of the screenplay/film. Pretty clever.

I saw Adaptation twice in two weeks. I also agree that it's not as good as Malkovich, although both movies have points where they feel overlong.

My favorite scene is in the swamp, where Donald tells Charlie that it didn't matter that the girl he loved in high school ridiculed him -- it was his love, and not even she could take it away from him.

[DrJ]

Yeah, it's worth it for that payoff. That's the best bit. I think I should see it again and see what it's like a second time...

DrJ

[bobster]

Boy, you all really nailed most of why I liked "Adaptation" really well. (I forgot about the scene in the swamp--yup, that was pretty much the whole point of the movie.)

As to the those who didn't care for it, I think Richard brings out a good point. What we're seeing is the age-old battle between authenticity and artifice.

I could go off on a gigantic riff on this, but I've noticed that I lean towards the artifice side myself, though not as much as some folks. E.g., I really like John Sayles, but I like Quentin Tarentino more. I love Westerns -- which can be both stylized or more "authentic" -- but my cinematic first love are musicals. On the other hand, "Moulin Rouge" took stylization too far away from recognizable humanity for my taste. I prefer the (cinematic) New Wave over Neorealism, and so on and in music this obviously has lots of applications too. I enjoy tin pay alley more than Chicago blues, for example.

It's an interesting way to look at things. (For those of you interested in comics and cartooning, Scott McCloud's amazing comic book "Understanding Comics" goes into a discussion of the cartooning/art equivalent of this that's pretty fascinating.)

[A rope leash]

I really liked Adaptation, and I always like "arty", or "innovative' movies. For instance, I liked The Wall, and 2000 Motels.

I always go by whether or not I'm entertained. I could watch Mars Attacks over and over, because there is so much to SEE!