A fitting end to our movie presentations..

This last class we watched our final movie presentation of the semester, Adaptation, by Spike Jonze. The picture’s structure employs a technique where the audience witnesses the movie as it is being composed. Adaptation addresses the journey of a screenwriter who aspires to mold an un-filmable book about orchids into a movie. Despite Charlie, the screenwriter, wanting to stay true to the book and eliminate the sensationalized addition of cinema drama, the story introduces him to a spiraling spout of action. His wish to eliminate thrilling flourishes arises from his belief at that real life is drowned from tragedy and excitement. Due to the perspective of the movie, the events that Charlie witnesses become part of the movie he is compiling, Adaptation.

The film represents a sense of success out of failure, out of the lack of ability to make a film from the book provided. The layering of the movie raises a question of Jonze’s message concerning the role of the screenwriter. How the temptations, almost required aspects, of cliché movie additions are forced upon the writer. For the film embodies that despite the desire to create a worldly and insightful film, the industry standard forced grand action and wicked climaxes.

I found the movie’s spiral into cliché stunts of action quite entertaining. The interjection of drugs, scandalous affairs, gun battles, and car wrecks all twisted into an off the wall weave of events. For me the most enjoyable cliché was the dynamic enlightenment of Charlie’s character- a surprising ending for a post-modernism movie.

Charlie’s opening character was physically draining through a constant wine over his dull juncture of life, filled with insecurities and shortcomings. Because I’ve recently re-discovered the Romantic era of literature I found myself paralleling his character’s shift in mentality to William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of experience. The experiences of Charlie’s past had made him unnervingly apprehensive to life and the surrounding world but through the influence of his brother, Donald, he was able to see the integral importance of experience, regaining his innocence. Charlie’s epiphany exposed his once lost foundation of human spirit, hope and innocence.

Also, during this last week my film production crew has been filming. The experience has been enjoyable as well as a learning experience. As the editor, I have been mentally constructing the image that our director is trying to embody. I’m excited to get my hands dirty with editing tech.