Movie Analysis Adaptation PDF

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Kathryn-Grace Harvey 9:00-9:50am Movie Analysis: Adaptation. Adaptation is a movie that has originality and is different. The movie, Adaptation, uses many theories on selfhood like existentialism, consciousness, unconscious mind, and identification. The movie is dark with some humor and a little bit of violence. In fact, some of the violent scenes are incredibly graphic. Charlie Kaufman is a screenwriter who is hired by Valerie Thomas to adapt Susan Orlean’s book, “The Orchid Thief”, in a movie. The book is about the story of a rare orchid hunter John Laroche. Laroche’s passion for orchids made Susan Orlean discover passion for the first time in her life. Charlie wants to stay faithful to the book in his adaptation, but he is having difficulty in finding enough material in Laroche and the beauty of the orchids to fill a movie. Meanwhile, Charlie is going through other issues in his life like his insecurities and his twin brother moving in with him and also wanting to become a screenwriter. Also, the movie shows Susan interviewing John and later falls in love with him. Existentialism according to Kierkegaard emphasizes “the single individual” and his or her inward interaction with God, as well as the outward concrete display of this. Kierkegaard was one of the first to move towards a literary and poetic engagement with philosophy. Kierkegaard used the phrase, “The crowd is untruth”, to say that the ideas and norms are taken for granted. He also said that the individual becomes lost within the crowd, apathetic about decisive choice, and the individual faces the problem of conformity. Nietzsche’s challenge to philosophy includes that the “death of God” opens a world of possibilities. Sartre came up with the phrase “existence precedes essence.”

Basically, it means that you are what you do. Your essence is not a pre-existing given; it is something you create by action. Also, Sartre said, “Man is condemned to be free.” For instance, everything is contingent and how you have the responsibility to decide how you would like to create your self and your society. Existentialists believe that you define yourself by your actions, particularly your action in moments of crisis. Existentialists will often focus on the emotional connection to life altering decisive moments. In Authenticity, everyone is involved in the process of creating his or her “self” through action. However, not everyone will create an authentic self in which they truly consider their self creation apart from corresponding to their society. An authentic person may return to a type of conformity to their societal norms and habits, but they are authentic because they had that moment of existential doubt. Camus discovered the absurd. He said, “Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful.” Simone de Beauvoir was an existentialist who said, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”1 Hume proposed the bundle theory in which objects are composed of properties that cannot be removed. However, Kant proposed that the self is constructed. He said that knowledge requires unity of sense data, but it exists neither in things-in-themselves nor in sheer sensory experience. The mind actively constructs or imposes order onto raw data thus, the world has no order – the mind creates an order. Also, Kant said the self is the unity of consciousness and proposed the noumenal reality and phenomenal reality. The 1 Croft, Alyce. “Existentialism and Subjectivity.” PowerPoint presentation. Norfolk, VA. 22 Feb 2013.

noumenal reality is autonomous which are a free rational agent, self-legislating, selfdetermining, and a cause-of-itself. From the Enlightenment Era, Locke viewed the self as consciousness. Locke believed that identity and continuity depend on the type of thing one is analyzing and consciousness provides the continuity for the self, and memory provides the continuity for consciousness. Descartes believed that the human being was a thinking thing and that there was a physical self and conscious self. Also, he believed that the conscious self was foundational and immortal.2 According to Freud, there are two levels of human functioning – the conscious and unconscious. The unconscious contains basic instinctual drives including sexuality, aggressiveness, and self-destruction; traumatic memories; unfilled wishes and childhood fantasies; thoughts and feelings that would be considered socially taboo. In contrast, the conscious self is governed by the “reality principle”, and that at this level of functioning, behavior and experience are organized in ways that are rational, practical, and appropriate to the social environment.33 In Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman is an overly conscious person. Charlie has so many thoughts going through his head like how to begin writing the script and how he is a chicken for not kissing Amelia. Adaptation is an example of existentialism because each of the characters were defined by their actions. At first, Charlie Kaufman was not a man

2 Croft, Alyce. “Selfhood and Identity.” PowerPoint presentation. Norfolk, VA. 22 Feb 2013.

3 John, Chaffee. "Chapter 3 Who Are You? Consciousness, Identity, and the Self." The Philosopher's Way. 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson's Education, Inc., 2013. 132-133. Print.

of action. Charlie desperately needed to finish his script and when it was past due, he had to take action by going to New York to try to talk to Susan and followed her to Florida to get to the bottom of everything. Susan Orlean was a professional writer, but ended up falling for John Laroche and attempted to murder Charlie Kaufman. Also, the movie is an example of the unconscious mind because of Charlie Kaufman’s sexual frustration and self-loathing. Charlie Kaufman keeps stressing how much he does not want to make a “Hollywood” film, but he goes against his inner desires and “Hollywoodizes” it. Also, Susan Orlean becomes aggressive towards the end of the movie by attempting to murder Charlie Kaufman and cheats on her husband with John Laroche. After taking into mind the several theories of philosophy, Adaptation is an original and genius movie. There were so many hidden jokes and self-references throughout the movie. To make the long story short, Adaptation is about failure.

Works Cited

1. Croft, Alyce. “Existentialism and Subjectivity.” PowerPoint presentation. Norfolk, VA. 22 Feb 2013. 2. Croft, Alyce. “Selfhood and Identity.” PowerPoint presentation. Norfolk, VA. 22 Feb 2013. 3. John, Chaffee. "Chapter 3 Who Are You? Consciousness, Identity, and the Self." The Philosopher's Way. 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson's Education, Inc., 2013. 132-133. Print....