Is that a ghost orchid in your pocket?
Jul. 5th, 2003 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stOr are you just happy to see me?
Just saw the Nicholas Cage/Meryl Streep movie "Adaptation." And boy is my head spinning. Whoa! Safe to say I really enjoyed this film...but what does that really say? About me...about the film...about life?
Well...it is strictly a writer thing!
I read THE ORCHID THIEF back when it was required reading for all librarians. And when I heard it was being adapted into a film, my first question, as a writer, was "How the HELL are they going to adapt the ORCHID THIEF?"
That as it turns out is the whole point of "Adaptation."
Some things defy adaptation.
But beyond that this film is all about the whole HOLLYWOOD mind-set...life...change...suffering pointlessly for your craft...and being an anal-retentive, art-for-art's sake schmuck. And it's also about somehow making life have structure. It is no coincidence that when Donald (the walking cliche) has his philosophical moment in the swamp (a foreshadowed 'conflict-generating' scene) and says, "It's about what you love, not about what loves you"...I thought instantly of, "In the end Spike was his own glow-y thing."
And then I wondered if I was supposed to be taking that overly sappy moment in the midst of the overdone conflict scene SERIOUSLY...or not.
I think NOT!
Every word the drunken guru writing consultant (obviously a failed and frustrated writer himself) utters is gospel. He's right...that's the thing. Life IS full of drama.
And yet...when they act it out...when they show us "REAL LIFE DRAMA"...with Susan Orlean as a drug addicted, porn queen so desperate for a taste of that one special thing that she becomes the mistress of a backwoods hick who would kill to keep her secrets...it is the height of lunacy.
My sweetie and I ended up debating the twin brother in this story within a story within a story...until the whole funhouse mirror effect made us giddy. The twin is, of course, the alter for the writer...obvious...yes. He is that worst of all things to an artist...the commercial success and a walking cliche. But was he real as well? Is that part of a writer VALID? He writes that gold mine first screenplay...yet, his genius can be distilled into a formula and posted on the wall. He is the one with the big bucks rolling in...he has it all...he lives for the moment...and then finishes on a song. I think he was the writer's vision of success...fragmented and distorted...and also the literal mirror self...and in the end a broken mirror...the very image the twin uses for his own screenplay. And see, even saying that I am chuckling.
Seriously, ADAPTATION...as a movie...sucks beyond the telling of it! I can't tell you how many of my patrons...like the writing guru were "Bored to tears and demanding their money and two hours of their life BACK!" But as a homage to the pain of writing...the search for meaning and the interconnected nature of life and art...it is a marvel of interwoven structure.
See it now...with the one you love!
Even if...you know...they don't love you back...
Because in the end it doesn't matter. You can be your own glow-y thing! Confess your love...and die with a song in your heart...
...I'm thinking something by TRAIN or maybe...yeah...MICHELLE BRANCH.
Rabid laughs hysterically like the dork she is...
Just saw the Nicholas Cage/Meryl Streep movie "Adaptation." And boy is my head spinning. Whoa! Safe to say I really enjoyed this film...but what does that really say? About me...about the film...about life?
Well...it is strictly a writer thing!
I read THE ORCHID THIEF back when it was required reading for all librarians. And when I heard it was being adapted into a film, my first question, as a writer, was "How the HELL are they going to adapt the ORCHID THIEF?"
That as it turns out is the whole point of "Adaptation."
Some things defy adaptation.
But beyond that this film is all about the whole HOLLYWOOD mind-set...life...change...suffering pointlessly for your craft...and being an anal-retentive, art-for-art's sake schmuck. And it's also about somehow making life have structure. It is no coincidence that when Donald (the walking cliche) has his philosophical moment in the swamp (a foreshadowed 'conflict-generating' scene) and says, "It's about what you love, not about what loves you"...I thought instantly of, "In the end Spike was his own glow-y thing."
And then I wondered if I was supposed to be taking that overly sappy moment in the midst of the overdone conflict scene SERIOUSLY...or not.
I think NOT!
Every word the drunken guru writing consultant (obviously a failed and frustrated writer himself) utters is gospel. He's right...that's the thing. Life IS full of drama.
And yet...when they act it out...when they show us "REAL LIFE DRAMA"...with Susan Orlean as a drug addicted, porn queen so desperate for a taste of that one special thing that she becomes the mistress of a backwoods hick who would kill to keep her secrets...it is the height of lunacy.
My sweetie and I ended up debating the twin brother in this story within a story within a story...until the whole funhouse mirror effect made us giddy. The twin is, of course, the alter for the writer...obvious...yes. He is that worst of all things to an artist...the commercial success and a walking cliche. But was he real as well? Is that part of a writer VALID? He writes that gold mine first screenplay...yet, his genius can be distilled into a formula and posted on the wall. He is the one with the big bucks rolling in...he has it all...he lives for the moment...and then finishes on a song. I think he was the writer's vision of success...fragmented and distorted...and also the literal mirror self...and in the end a broken mirror...the very image the twin uses for his own screenplay. And see, even saying that I am chuckling.
Seriously, ADAPTATION...as a movie...sucks beyond the telling of it! I can't tell you how many of my patrons...like the writing guru were "Bored to tears and demanding their money and two hours of their life BACK!" But as a homage to the pain of writing...the search for meaning and the interconnected nature of life and art...it is a marvel of interwoven structure.
See it now...with the one you love!
Even if...you know...they don't love you back...
Because in the end it doesn't matter. You can be your own glow-y thing! Confess your love...and die with a song in your heart...
...I'm thinking something by TRAIN or maybe...yeah...MICHELLE BRANCH.
Rabid laughs hysterically like the dork she is...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Wow
Date: 2003-07-05 10:26 pm (UTC)I liked it. I couldn't tell anyone why because I wasn't quite sure why, but I felt it was a movie my sister had to see. Anyway, back to the point, your post was perfect because now I know what to tell people about the film. ~Thanks ever so!
You made my night, Bunny...
Date: 2003-07-05 10:43 pm (UTC)Rabid swishes her cape and declares, "My work here is done!"
(no subject)
Date: 2003-07-05 11:19 pm (UTC)