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Saturday, May 24, 2003

"i see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes, i have to turn my head until my darkness goes..."
-Paint It Black

just watched Adaptation. i was warned against watching this by some and went in with expectations lowered. turned out i thoroughly enjoyed this flick. most of the complaints were calling it inside, self-indulgent etc. but i subscribe to Harlan Ellison's opinion on that whole "self-indulgent" accusation. his response (in his book Harlan Ellison's Watching) was that he was utterly sick of people labeling movies self-indulgent. he said that was the whole point of film, and art. he said it better (and with more profanity) but i remember thinking "fuck yeah! Ken Russell rocks! Eyeballs instead of nipples!" when i read that essay. i even went to buy Russell's Gothic.

anyway, this movie is about as self-indulgent as it gets and that's a good thing. some people seem to think Kaufman's self-loathing and contempt for his audience is some kind of act but i disagree. i think this movie was an excuse for him to embrace all those things his instincts tell him to avoid at all costs: the hit song for the credits, voice over narration, flashbacks, alligator attacks and, of course, the CAR CHASE! when these things happened on screen, it didn't feel mocked or that these conventions were being mocked, i was simply entertained baby! so maybe i'm a sucker. so what. that script "The 3" is worth the price of admission alone and when they talk about it in that film, everything is right with the world. i'm not ashamed to say that i would be first in line to see "The 3" if it actually exsisted. and i would complain about how there's "just no way the cop, the killer and the hostage could all be the same person" all the way home. hey, anyone notice Donald's description of the chase scene in his fake script? nature against technology or whatever? horse chasing the motorcycle? sounds like True Lies to me. maybe Kaufman is a closet Arnold fan. anyway, my only complaint with that film, the only thing that i felt was dishonest was this:

Kauman is telling the story of his miserable attempt to adapt The Orchid Thief into a movie. Adaptation is the story of the story of the story and the people that are fans of this film seem to think that this distancing (and inclusion) of himself from the story somehow means that it's essentially a "true" story. maybe there was no twin brother donald and no green Orchid/coke sniffing but it's accepted that Kaufman was miserable when he tried to adapt that book and this movie is the result. i mean, fuck, the only way this man could have looked more pathetic would be if shuffled around town with his pants bunched up at his ankles and wore one of those ballcaps with the clapping rubber hands. so it was torture eh? bullshit. i don't believe it.

i think that Kaufman was actually very excited about this idea and that there is another level of reality (uh oh, Matrix time) that would reveal a smiling Kaufman on the beach with a girl sitting on his face as he gleefully writes a script about himself miserably writing this script. that's the kind of insight we never get to see. i'm telling you, i can't prove it, but that motherfucker wrote this movie on the beach. it wasn't Barton Fink up in some dank motel. it was sunny out. like the end of Barton Fink. and there were girls around, and Being John Malkovich was coming out so he was smiling and he had the world by the ass. i can't prove it but i see that bastard on the beach.

so i guess my only problem was that it wasn't indulgent enough. You want indulgent? then check out some Cronenberg. and if I was handed free reign to write a movie that indulged whatever i was thinking? it wouldn't be a movie about making movies, even if it was a movie about a movie about making a movie, i can tell you that. i wouldn't be nearly as angst-ridden as i struggled to fill in the blanks. hell, i could fill 3 hours with five minutes of thoughts that i would have after my first step onto the beach, right after the first girl walked by with a book held so i couldn't read the cover, or maybe just a strange scratch on her knee.

::: david - 7:41 PM [+] :::
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