Adaptation (2002)
Often hilarious metafictional story of an insecure Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicholas Cage) attempting to adapt an impossible novel (some scenes set at the time of filming Being John Malkovich) and succeeding only by injecting himself, a twin brother (also Cage) and increasingly implausible events required by the desired marketability of the eventually resulting film.
This is the second time I’ve mentioned a play I wrote utilizing the same (clearly not original) metafictional premise of a work presenting how the work itself came to be. Kaufman is doing precisely the same thing, though obviously with much more talent than mine and with him veering into hilarious fantasy hardly suited for my serious, middle-school intended play, (Hugo Chavez being its subject.)
Flashback after flashbacks present the events portrayed in the novel and how they came to be written by the author, then read and interpreted by the screenwriter, and then the process itself of describing and writing the film adaptation with scenes we had previously seen being the resulting film.
As the film was developing, I was thinking to myself that with elements of jungle exploration and roving alligators it had to be the most unadventurous adventure I’d ever seen… But I was already getting ahead of myself, since it would not be long before I’d get an adulterous sexual affair; fantastic, orchid-based mind-altering drugs; kidnapping; attempted murder; (two) car crashes, etc.
The fantasy/metafictional twinning of its main character has already been commented on in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
With Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper, with Cara Seymour, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Often hilarious metafictional story of an insecure Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicholas Cage) attempting to adapt an impossible novel (some scenes set at the time of filming Being John Malkovich) and succeeding only by injecting himself, a twin brother (also Cage) and increasingly implausible events required by the desired marketability of the eventually resulting film.
This is the second time I’ve mentioned a play I wrote utilizing the same (clearly not original) metafictional premise of a work presenting how the work itself came to be. Kaufman is doing precisely the same thing, though obviously with much more talent than mine and with him veering into hilarious fantasy hardly suited for my serious, middle-school intended play, (Hugo Chavez being its subject.)
Flashback after flashbacks present the events portrayed in the novel and how they came to be written by the author, then read and interpreted by the screenwriter, and then the process itself of describing and writing the film adaptation with scenes we had previously seen being the resulting film.
As the film was developing, I was thinking to myself that with elements of jungle exploration and roving alligators it had to be the most unadventurous adventure I’d ever seen… But I was already getting ahead of myself, since it would not be long before I’d get an adulterous sexual affair; fantastic, orchid-based mind-altering drugs; kidnapping; attempted murder; (two) car crashes, etc.
The fantasy/metafictional twinning of its main character has already been commented on in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
With Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper, with Cara Seymour, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
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