Adaptation - The Orchid Thief
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Adaptation - The Orchid Thief |
| Original title | Adaptation. |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2002 |
| length | 110 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 10 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Spike Jonze |
| script | Charlie Kaufman |
| production |
Jonathan Demme , Vincent Landay , Edward Saxon |
| music | Carter Burwell |
| camera | Lance Acord |
| cut | Eric Zumbrunnen |
| occupation | |
| |
Adaption - The Orchid Thief (Original title Adaptation. ) Is an American drama from 2002 , which Spike Jonze directed based on a script by Charlie Kaufman . Nicolas Cage , Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper can be seen in the leading roles . Tilda Swinton , Brian Cox and Maggie Gyllenhaal also took on roles . The film grossed just over 32 million on a production budget of 19 million worldwide.
action
The screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, whose screenplay for Being John Malkovich has received several awards, is a neurotic with low self-esteem who lives in California with his unemployed twin brother Donald. He receives the book the order, The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean adapt, a biography of John Laroche. Kaufman is enthusiastic about the book and would like to stay as close as possible to the original, but despair more and more about the work because it has no proper plot and the characters do not go through any development.
Meanwhile, Donald decides to try his hand at a script and, with the help of a course from Robert McKee , writes a clichéd serial killer film. He tries to help Charlie, but Charlie refuses to accept help from an amateur. Instead, he decides to let the film deal with his own problems with the adaptation.
Contrary to Charlie's expectations, Donald's script is enthusiastically received by his agent and sold at a high price to a studio (Donald receives an advance of one million dollars). Charlie then decides to accept Donald's help and make dramaturgical changes to the material to bring more structure and a disturbing ending to it. The two brothers start spying on Susan Orlean and find out that she is having an affair with Laroche and that the two use their orchid cultivation to produce drugs. When they discover Charlie spying, they decide to kill him in the nearby swamp so that their secret cannot find its way into the script. In a series of turbulent scenes that cover many aspects of a classic Hollywood thriller, Charlie manages to escape with the help of his twin brother, who is thrown out of the car and dies. Laroche is also killed in an alligator attack. Charlie processes his experiences in his script and can finally finish it. He feels liberated and finally admits to Amelia that he loves her.
background
Susan Orlean is a real person and actually wrote an article about orchid thief John Laroche for The New Yorker magazine and published a book based on it called The Orchid Thief . The film rights to the book were bought by 20th Century Fox in 1997 . Charlie Kaufman was commissioned to adapt the script, but he had writer's block and could not find a way into a script implementation. So Kaufman began to bring his adaptation problems into the script himself, invented a twin brother named Donald, and let him die at the end of the story. In fact, Charlie Kaufman blurred the lines between reality and fiction so much that he wrote the name of the fictional brother on the script and dedicated the film to him (as is customary when one of the participants dies while working on the film).
Awards
- Chris Cooper received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance .
- Charlie and the fictional Donald Kaufman were nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay . Nicolas Cage for best leading actor and Meryl Streep for best supporting actress received further nominations .
- At the Golden Globes , Chris Cooper and Meryl Streep were named best supporting actors.
- At the 2003 Berlinale , Spike Jonze received a Silver Bear .
Reviews
“An imaginative puzzle overflowing with absurd twists and turns that counteracts the mechanisms of Hollywood, the craft of filmmaking and intellectual smugness. The film mixes reality and fantasy in a ludicrous and sovereign way. "
“The script for 'Adaption - The Orchid Thief' really comes from successful author Charlie Kaufmann, who became known for example with ' Being John Malkovich '. This time he entertains with a weird comedy about the pain of cinema workers. The old 'film within a film' scheme is varied in a highly original and amusing way. Nicolas Cage is allowed to give his monkey sugar in the double role of the crazy brother couple and does so with flying colors. At his side, superstar Meryl Streep, mostly highly dramatic, lets her clownish sides shine and provokes true salmon volleys. Sure: action fans are not served here. However, anyone who appreciates intelligent fun and a few ironic swipes at show business will leave the cinema in a very good mood. "
“Only when the film directed by Spike Jonze leaves the office to tell the brittle love story between the author of the flower bestseller (Meryl Streep) and an orchid thief (Chris Cooper) does it take off the paper on which it was written and to forget - overall, however, Kaufman's effusions are hardly more amusing this time than sex without a partner. "
“With this curious work between self-discovery drama, film in film and crime story, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman [...] moves beyond all conventions. Director Spike Jonze, who already directed 'Being John Malkovich', skillfully quotes himself here, skillfully interweaving the curious stories. Of course, he too often gets bogged down in incidental matters and concentrates too little on the actual adaptation of the orchid thief story. Because Chris Cooper, who received the Golden Globe and the Oscar for best supporting actor for his role, is once again playing everyone on the wall - including leading actor Nicolas Cage in the double role. "
Web links
- Adaptation - The Orchid Thief in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Adaptation - The Orchid Thief atRotten Tomatoes(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for adaptation - The Orchid Thief . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2003 (PDF; test number: 93 204 K).
- ↑ Age identification for adaptation - The Orchid Thief . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ adaptation. (2002) boxofficemojo.com
- ↑ Adaptation - The Orchid Thief. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Adaptation - der Orchideendieb , berliner-kurier.de
- ↑ Kino in Brief , spiegel.de
- ↑ Adaptation at prisma.de