Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Charlie rides in Owen’s truck as Orlean’s narration describes ghosts and the Swamp Ape.

Scene 108 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Orlean

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 54 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 108

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.
Scenes 89–105
He leaves his familiar writing room and goes to Florida to search for the story firsthand.
Just before
Scene 105
At the ranger shack, Mike Owen mistakes Charlie for Orlean before Charlie admits who he is.
Scene 106
Mike Owen leads Charlie through a cool, dry swamp and gives a wandering lesson on its ecosystem.
Scene 107
Charlie complains that the swamp is not frightening or dramatic, while Owen points out a common lizard.
Scene 108
This scene

108INT. TRUCK - DAY

Mike Owen drives. Kaufman stares out the window at boring trees.

ORLEAN (V.O.)

It had been a hard day and I hadn't seen

what I'd come to see. Maybe the ghost

orchid was a ghost after all.

There are certainly ghosts in the

Fakahatchee -- ghosts of rangers who were

murdered years ago by illegal plume

hunters, and of loggers who were cut to

pieces in fights, and for years there has

been an apparition wandering the swamp,

the Swamp Ape, which is said to be seven

feet tall and seven hundred pounds and

have the physique of a human, the posture

of an ape, and the body odor of a skunk.