Blog Four

Every screenwriter has an authorial voice, and certainly A Boy's Life, The Apartment, and Adaptation are no exception to this rule. The truly great thing though, is that when discussing the writing style of these three scripts, one of them, Adaptation, almost falls on the level of scriptoral paradox.
What you have with this screenplay, written by Charlie Kaufman, is a story about a guy, Charlie Kaufman, writing a script, which is Adaptation, the current script your reading. Dosent make sense does it? Well it does. The script makes absolute sense. Charlie Kaufman is the main character, and his struggling is to write a script, a script that is the movie unfolding before you. Were following the story of Susan Orlean. So is Charlie. But were only following it because Charlie followed it, because what he followed and wrote is what we see. I digress.
The point I am trying to make in my ramble here is that reading the script is a double take. In any other script ever written, even ones loaded with voice overs (which McKee hates, and a point ill return to in a little bit) the actual script we are reading, in which I refer to the descriptions and actions, are, an omnipotent being. Even if the writer of the script is the main character and even if its based directly off of his cuddly childhood memories, he is never actualy the omnipotent being telling the story, not technically at least.
The point Im trying to make, before I begin to confuse even myself, is that when you are reading the actions and descriptions, even the ones that bore into the very soul of Charlie Kaufman himself, you cant help but feel it is Charlie Kaufman commenting on himself. Commenting on the world, that he, is a protagonist, weaver, observer, and god of.
If that only made an ounce of sense to myself and myself alone, then let me get back on a more conventional and manageable track. For basic style, Kaufman keeps his action and descriptions only as long as they have to be, making them extremely effective and practical. His almost complete absence of technical comments(probably due to his close worknig relation with director Spike Jonze) was much welcomed, while his literary comments was short, and only used when absolutly necessary. I think the area most worthy of commend was his use of voice overs. They had a tendency to overlap as different characters gave them, helping to connect the different characters and to make the story whole (in its oddly structured sort of way). They also greatly helped drive the story, especially when uttered by Kaufman, considering he was often times narrating the story that was the story, that we were reading. I wont dive into that again. McKee at the convention, saying how awful it is to use voice overs, while Charlie was in the middle of one, was pure genius.
After having my mind blown to small pieces by the reading of Adaptation, whose structure and narrative as you can probably tell very much excited me, I can't really think what to comment on A Boy's Life and The Apartment. Ill be quick. While I enjoyed both, I think that A Boy's Life is far, far too descriptive, and has way more technical comments than is necessary. The Apartment also suffers from an overuse of description, and its literary comments are a bit more than truly needed. Brevity is after all, the soul of wit.

-Matthew Ballinger

Discussion Questions
1. Did you think the dialogue was witty and well crafted in Adaptation, or was it cheap in any sense?

2. Do you think that the ending, particularly the chase through the swamps of Charlie and Donald by Susan and Laroche, and the killing of Donald and Laroche was the "wow" ending McKee was talking about?