Watch This: Adaptation

A bi-weekly series featuring a recommendation of a movie available in the Reeves Memorial Library DVD collection

Adaptation (2002)
Written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman
Directed by Spike Jonze

Is there anyone responsible for bringing more dizzyingly original storytelling to the big screen over the past two decades than screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman?  He burst onto the scene in 1999 with the Spike Jonze-directed comedy Being John Malkovich, and followed it up with equally ambitious scripts for Human Nature (2001), Adaptation (2002), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (George Clooney's underrated 2002 directorial debut), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and his own directorial debut, 2008's Synecdoche, New York.  Kaufman's oeuvre is a wholly original body of work, a group of films that are as dazzlingly inventive as they are insightful in their examination of themes like unhappiness, lovesickness, and artistic struggle.  While all of these films are absolutely worth checking out (and all are available in the Reeves Memorial Library collection), we've been highlighting Oscar winners this month, so this post will focus on Adaptation, which took home a gold statuette for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for the work of cast member Chris Cooper.

Adaptation is a fascinating blend of truth and fiction, and it is not always clear which is which.  It is, in part, a film about its own creation.  In the film (and, we assume, in real life) Kaufman has been hired to adapt New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's non-fiction book The Orchid Thief, which tells the story of eccentric, obsessive Florida orchid poacher John Laroche.  The book is full of beautiful prose and detailed descriptions of flowers, and although Laroche's story is compelling, Kaufman cannot find enough material for a feature-length film.  He is adamant that the film should avoid the usual Hollywood tropes, like "sex or guns or car chases ... or characters, you know, learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end."  And so, eventually, he writes himself into the script, and the film Adaptation not only tells the more straightforward stories of Orlean and Laroche, it also follows Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage) as he writes the film Adaptation, fails in his varied attempts at romance, and deals with his mooching identical twin brother, Donald (a fictional character, also played by Cage).  Orlean (played by Meryl Streep) is a sophisticated New Yorker, a member of the Big Apple's intellectual elite, but she is fascinated by the scruffy, down-to-earth Laroche (Chris Cooper), whose beguiling mix of intelligence, passion, and vanity stirs a strange attraction in Orlean, who realizes she herself has never really been passionate about anything in the way that Laroche is.

Charlie's running voice-over narration reveals a man crippled by agonizing insecurities about both his abilities as a writer and his own attractiveness ("I'm starting to sweat.  Stop sweating.  I've got to stop sweating.  Can she see it dripping down my forehead?  She looked at my hair line.  She thinks I'm bald").  His lack of confidence stands in marked contrast to his brother Donald, whose own carefree demeanor and improbably successful attempt at a screenwriting career only serve to heighten Charlie's frustrations.  Charlie even goes so far as to attend a seminar given by writing teacher Robert McKee (Brian Cox), whose teachings seemed to work so well for Donald.

I will refrain from revealing any further plot points, as one of the joys of watching Adaptation is to see the wholly unpredictable directions the story takes.  Suffice it to say that, despite Kaufman's early insistence that his adaptation will not contain any of the usual movie tropes, it deftly manages to include many of them in the most delightfully surprising ways.

Despite its skyscraper-high concept and extremely self-referential nature, the film is never confusing, nor does it ever feel simply like a gimmick.  Much of the credit for this can certainly go to director Spike Jonze, who has demonstrated an impressive ability for bringing such singular stories to the screen, but it really all comes down to Kaufman's script.  His writing is supremely clever and funny (Charlie's constant voice-over is at one point interrupted by McKee's stern warning to his seminar students, "God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends"), but also reveals a profound depth of insight and feeling in its look at obsession, beauty, self-discovery, and the creative process.  There is a wonderful scene between Laroche and Orlean in which he discusses the relationship between flowers and the insects that pollinate them, and his beautiful description not only reveals a romantic idealism and passion that attracts Orlean, but also provides one of the loveliest bits of dialogue in recent cinema:

"By simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live - how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way."

The cast of Adaptation is uniformly terrific.  Chris Cooper's Oscar-winning turn as John Laroche, missing front teeth and all, makes him instantly likable, despite his condescending behavior and off-putting vanity (he refers to himself as the smartest guy he knows).  Streep is a pleasure to watch in a role that lets her have far more fun than most of her films up to that time (more recent films like A Prairie Home Companion (2006), Mamma Mia! (2008), and It's Complicated (2009) have also allowed her to show off her lighter side).  The real treat, however, is watching Nicolas Cage in the dual roles of twin brothers Charlie and Donald (who, despite being entirely fictional, was credited as co-writer of the film's screenplay, and even nominated for an Oscar alongside the real-life Charlie).  Cage is an absolute revelation.  Despite the fact that there is no noticeable difference in hair or makeup between the two brothers, we can always tell them apart due to differences in Cage's body language, posture, and facial expressions.  Cage's career has become somewhat of a punchline in recent years, but Adaptation serves as a reminder of his incredible range and talent.

The film works on multiple levels, and even its title has a double meaning: it not only refers to the biological concept of adaptation, but also to the process of adapting Orlean's book that is the subject of the film.  Clearly Orlean's writing posed a great challenge as source material, but it is a testament to Kaufman's talent that a film about the near impossibility of adapting The Orchid Thief is in fact such a wildly brilliant and successful adaptation of The Orchid Thief.

John Green says Ooops

John Green has an amusing anecdote that illustrates the crazy digital world of intellectual property, citations, and fact-checking.

Props to him for doing the right thing.

As an aside, it bugs me (Kelly) to no end when people erroneously attribute all sorts of stuff to MY favorite author. Go to Pinterest and type in "mark twain quote" if you want to read a whole lot of "dance in the rain, kiss deeply, reach for the stars" type things that I'm pretty sure Mr. Clemens never wrote.

Of course, there are also a few on there that may be legit. "Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest" is one representative example.

Another personal favorite of mine, though it may not be considered very Pin-worthy? "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

Poll Results

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Very Important Poll.

Results were quite evenly split, with Elsa beating out The White Witch by only one vote (36-35). The write-in candidate, "Coming of the Second Ice Age," also came in for a share of the blame, with seven respondents citing this as the reason for our current tundra-like conditions. 

Trial database-- Statista

We have a trial of the Statista database through March 6th! Make sure to take advantage of this opportunity to explore the statistics and the different outputs available through this resource.

To try Statista, visit http://www.statista.com/ from a computer on campus.

If you find this tool helpful, PLEASE let a librarian know (emails are best as they're easily counted and tracked). Your feedback and requests are key to acquiring new resources for our collections.

Watch This: West Side Story

A bi-weekly series featuring a recommendation of a movie available in the Reeves Memorial Library DVD collection

West Side Story (1961)
Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and since Reeves Memorial Library is highlighting past Oscar winners all month long in anticipation of the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony, this is a perfect opportunity to check out one of the Academy's favorite romances, West Side Story, which took home a whopping ten statuettes in 1962, including Best Picture.  One could argue that, in retrospect, it was not the best film nominated that year (The Hustler certainly gives it a run for its money), but there is no doubt that it remains one of the best film musicals of all time.  While musicals of the previous decade like Singin' in the Rain (1952) and An American in Paris (1951) are probably better overall films, the music and superb dancing in West Side Story are really what set it apart.  The choreography by Jerome Robbins, who also directed the film's dance sequences, may be the best ever captured on celluloid.

West Side Story is an adaptation of the smash hit stage musical, a modern retelling of Shakespeare's classic romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet.  The film has remained one of the very best of the many cinematic Shakespeare retellings (Akira Kurosawa's excellent Ran (based on King Lear) and Throne of Blood (based on Macbeth) are also notable, as is the underrated 1999 teen comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, a modernized version of The Taming of the Shrew).  In this update, The Bard's feuding families become rival New York City street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, and the star-crossed lovers are Tony (Richard Beymer), a former Jet, and Maria (Natalie Wood), the younger sister of Sharks leader Bernardo.  In addition to the normal conflicts over turf, there is racial tension between the Caucasian Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, exacerbated by the prejudices of the local authorities, represented by the bigoted policeman Lieutenant Schrank and the inept beat cop Officer Krupke.  Tony and Maria meet and fall in love at a neighborhood dance, and later he serenades her outside of her apartment building.  They plan to see each other in secret, and later to run away together, but their romantic bliss is interrupted by a deadly rumble between the two gangs, an event which leads inevitably toward the film's tragic conclusion.

There are aspects of the film that do not work as well.  Some of the dialogue is cloying and heavy-handed, and a few of the dramatic scenes feel flat, although the fatal rumble and the later scene at the drug store in which Anita is insulted and threatened are both terrifically compelling.  The film's treatment of social issues such as gang violence, juvenile delinquency, racism, and the immigrant experience made it a landmark of its genre, but some of these elements have not aged well (most of the gang members don't look very tough by today's standards).

However, these faults are more than made up for by the film's many strengths.  The Oscar-winning supporting performances by George Chakiris and Rita Moreno, as Bernardo and his girlfriend Anita, respectively, are passionate and authentic, conveying an array of emotions with subtle facial expressions and body language that stand in marked contrast to the often broad portrayals by their co-stars.  The filmmakers wisely chose to utilize real New York City locations for many of the scenes, and the opening aerial shots of New York City landmarks serve as a reminder that, although the film's story has classic origins, the setting is distinctly contemporary.  The film's vibrant use of color, most apparent in the dazzling neighborhood dance sequence, also deserves much praise.

West Side Story's romantic storyline is very engaging on its own (it is, after all, borrowed from one of the greatest works in all of literature), but it is elevated by swooningly romantic love songs like "Tonight" and "Maria," both of which have become standards.  The incomparable pairing of composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricist Stephen Sondheim produced one of the most memorable scores in musical history (songs like "America," "I Feel Pretty," "Cool," and "Somewhere" have entered the pop culture lexicon), and the film takes full advantage of their brilliant work, with an opening five-minute overture highlighting the score's numerous classic melodies, and editing and cinematography that sometimes use the rhythm of the music as a marker for cutting and camera movement.

More than anything, though, it is the dancing that makes the film such a standout.  Choreographer/co-director Jerome Robbins and cinematographer Daniel Fapp both deserve the highest acclaim for helping the film break free from its stage origins to become a musical that is undeniably cinematic.  One rarely gets the feeling that this is just people dancing in front of a camera.  For example, consider the masterful, nearly wordless ten-minute opening scene, in which the two gangs have a showdown in and around the basketball courts of a neighborhood playground.  There is something distinctly filmic about the way the dancers move through the frame, the way the camera moves to follow them during the ebb and flow of their back-and-forth struggle for territorial dominance, and the way they enter and leave the frame.  There is the terrific shot that begins with the camera panning right to follow the Jets as they toss around a basketball, and ends with a quick pan left to a close-up of the ball unexpectedly in the hands of Bernardo, whose sudden presence is a surprise to both the viewer and the Jets.  (An interesting side note: the film's pairing of a moving camera with in-frame movement has made it an unlikely favorite of current blockbuster action film director Michael Bay, whose influential aesthetic, known as "Bayhem," is characterized by the extreme overuse of this technique).

Although West Side Story ends in tragedy (this should not be a surprise to anyone familiar with Romeo and Juliet), its enchanting love story and beautiful music make it a perfect Valentine's Day viewing experience.