Skip to main content

Adaptation.

Charlie Kaufman writes the way he lives... With Great Difficulty. His Twin Brother Donald Lives the way he writes... with foolish abandon. Susan writes about life... But can't live it. John's life is a book... Waiting to be adapted. One story... Four Lives... A million ways it can end.
The above is precisely what the Spike Jonze film Adaption is about. Charlie Kaufman is a truly mad guy. If one would ask me what kind of a film adaption is this, I would simply stand confused. Was it a documentary? Was it a drama? I don't know but it was too good a film. More than the quality of the film as a whole I was impressed with the kind of writing that Charlie Kaufman came up with and the smart way with which Spike Jonze executed it.
The writing is the highlight of the film. It is about the struggle of Kaufman in trying to adapt the novel The Orchid Thief rather than being an adaption of the novel. The characters would all seem real and Spike would make every viewer believe. Ofcourse, it is possible to guess that there is fiction here and there in the film but guess what Charlie came up with a fictitious twin brother, Donald, who is even credited as the co-writer of the film. The film discusses one of my favorite issues, writer's block. Since the film is from the perspective of a writer there is so much of ideas and views discussed in the film. This was also something that interested me. When I watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich, I was indeed impressed but I never thought that Kaufman could come up with a movie that was even more weird and real.
The performances add color and life to the writing. Nicholas Cage is wonderful in his dual role. Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper are also wonderful and share splendid chemistry. Brian Cox appears as Robert McKee at one point in the film and that is something I never thought I would see though the film refers to McKee at different points in the beginning of the film. There are good looking ladies like Tilda Swinton, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Judy Greer in smaller roles as well which makes the casting quite an interesting one.
Adaption is a mad film about the struggle in adapting a book for a movie and there is some fun and some fantasy here, pure Charlie Kaufman style!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nidra

I haven't seen the original version of the film, Nidra, which was directed by Bharathan. But the version his son, Sidharth Bharathan, made was lovable for the way it was made. Nidra is a neat film. It has a writing material well adapted by Sidharth and Santhosh. The dialogues from Santhosh Echikkanam are bang on! Loved the visuals of the film as well but it seemed to have an excess of blue all over it. I wonder if Sameer Thahir did that to cover up for the excess of white that he might have had to  accommodate while shooting on the Red camera. The music and background score of the film sounded well with the film. The editing and sound design were no less good. It did feel as though there where a couple of instances when the footages jumped creating a disturbance for a second or two. But, otherwise the editing by Bavan Sreekumar was just too good. I loved the editing on all those scenes that featured the redish look from Sameer and the scene at the dining table that featur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kaminey

Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey is a classic film targeted at the masses. Vishal Bharadwaj could be a genius. He has handled a movie that could turn out to be a total mess at some other guys hand with great brilliance. He has not only managed to execute the film in style but also taken care of the music, screenplay and dialogues of the film. The plot of Kaminey is simple. The construction of the plot is where Vishal and his team has made the magic. As in a Guy Ritchie film here we travel with one character and then at a point slide over to another. The action as in a Quentin Tarantino movie is gonna come hitting at you as hard as you have ever imagined a Bollywood cinema to be (and the better thing here is that you have very less blood compared to QT)! What makes Kaminey have the class is the the fact that it is truely cinematic. Kaminey is a true film and not a hindi film. Vishal Bharadwaj has been able to communicate with his film very universally with the brilliant dark visual t...
3 comments
Read more

Knowing Stanley

Stanley Winston is popularly known as Stan Winston. He could be called a special effects and visual effects artist or even a creature creator! Stan, who was born on the 7th of April, 1946, died on June 15, 2008. I'm not sure how make people would have bothered to see the end credits roll with the name of Stan. But Stan has made visuals and effects that kept many (including me) at the edge of their seats. Winston had been a frequent collaborator with filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron. Stan wanted to be an actor. He became a painter, a sculptor and an artist. Everything to him was creating characters that tell stories in films. Stan Winston was a man adored by Steven Spielberg. How could Steven not adore a man who made dinosaurs that shuck the whole world. Stan was the creator of live action dinosaurs in the film, Jurassic Park . He was also the man behind the terrific makeover of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator series. Stanley has won four academy awards...
3 comments
Read more