Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Orlean describes the heat, water, insects, snakes, and animals of the Fakahatchee.

Scene 101 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Orlean

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 51 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 101

Unable to find a conventional story in The Orchid Thief, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman turns his own crisis into an increasingly self-referential adaptation.

Scenes 1–9
Charlie inhabits an isolated, self-condemning world while Orlean’s book supplies a distant model of obsession.
Scenes 10–88
Charlie wants to write honestly and make flowers matter, while also longing to be desired and understood.
Scene 89
Charlie commits to entering the Fakahatchee himself, making research a risky attempt to find the story.
Just before
Scene 98
Orlean lies awake in a hotel as narration warns how dry grass can ignite in the swamp.
Scene 99
A botanist’s report about squirrels gives way to a car catching fire in a dry field.
Scene 100
Charlie watches an attractive rental-car clerk, then turns back to his map.
Scene 101
This scene

101INT. RENTAL CAR - EARLY MORNING

A charmingly bedraggled Orlean drives on a road surrounded by swamp. She talks to us.

ORLEAN

The swamp's darkness and denseness can

rattle your nerves. A sailor on a pluma-

collecting expedition wrote in his diary: