Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

McKee says originality comes from more than eccentricity as a student reacts behind Charlie.

Scene 174 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Mckee

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:28 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 174

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.
Scenes 106–126
The swamp is ordinary, Orlean’s research fails, and Charlie experiments with increasingly personal versions of the book.
Scenes 127–144
Charlie finds a way to focus the material by putting himself in it, then commits to meeting Orlean.
Just before
Scene 171
McKee lectures that story, not words, is the heart of screenwriting while Charlie hears only his own failures.
Scene 172
McKee condemns voice-over and insists film must show internal conflict through image and movement.
Scene 173
Charlie leaves the seminar building alone, troubled by McKee’s attack on his method.
Scene 174
This scene

174INT. AUDITORIUM - LATER

McKee lectures. Kaufman sits and listens. A copy of Aristotle's Poetics sits on his lap. The book features a bust of Aristotle on the cover.

MCKEE

You want your writing to be original.

You want to have an original voice like

Neil Simon or Nora Ephron. Well, let me

tell you something, my friends. The key

to originality is not eccentricity.

A guy behind Kaufman gives an appreciative "mmmm."

DISSOLVE TO: