Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Donald describes his image system as Charlie returns from Florida.

Scene 125 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Donald
Kaufman

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:04 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 125

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 122
Charlie listens as a man pitches a conventional twist-filled screenplay, while Orlean’s research montage shows her growing bored.
Scene 123
Charlie opens an airline vodka bottle and smells it after Orlean’s voice challenges him to seek experience.
Scene 124
Charlie tells a limousine driver his film is about flowers and accepts the driver’s action-genre version.
Scene 125
This scene

125INT. EMPTY HOUSE - NIGHT

Kaufman enters with his bags and heads to the stairs. Donald, typing furiously at his desk, looks up.

DONALD

How was Florida, man?

KAUFMAN

(climbing the stairs)

Okay.

DONALD

Cool! Hey, my script's going amazing!

Right now I'm working out an Image

System. Bob calls it an invaluable

asset. Because of my multiple

personality theme, I've chosen the motif

of broken mirrors to show my

protagonist's fragmented self. Bob

teaches that an Image System greatly

increases the complexity of an aesthetic

emotion.

KAUFMAN

You sound like you're in a cult.

Kaufman disappears upstairs.

DONALD

No, it's just good writing technique.

(types, then:)

Oh, I made you a copy of McKee's Ten

Commandments. I've posted one over both

our work areas.