Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Charlie asks whether a screenplay can show people who fail to change, and McKee erupts at his denial of life’s conflict.

Scene 179 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Mckee
Kaufman

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:30 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 179

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 176
McKee lands a joke about Michelle Pfeiffer and dismisses the exhausted class.
Scene 177
Charlie tosses and turns in his hotel bed.
Scene 178
Charlie dreams that Darwin, Aristotle, Hegel, and Orlean’s portrait fight brutally.
Scene 179
This scene

179INT. AUDITORIUM - MORNING

Kaufman, bleary-eyed, sits in the back. McKee paces.

MCKEE

Anyone else?

Kaufman timidly raises his hand.

MCKEE (cont'd)

Yes?

KAUFMAN

You talked about Crisis as the ultimate

decision a character makes, but what if a

writer is attempting to create a story

where nothing much happens, where people

don't change, they don't have any

epiphanies. They struggle and are

frustrated and nothing is resolved. More

a reflection of the real world --

MCKEE

The real world? The real fucking world?

First of all, if you write a screenplay

without conflict or crisis, you'll bore

your audience to tears. Secondly:

Nothing happens in the real world? Are

you out of your fucking mind? People are

murdered every day! There's genocide and

war and corruption! Every fucking day

somewhere in the world somebody

sacrifices his life to save someone else!

Every fucking day someone somewhere makes

a conscious decision to destroy someone

else! People find love! People lose it,

for Christ's sake! A child watches her

mother beaten to death on the steps of a

church! Someone goes hungry! Somebody

else betrays his best friend for a woman!

If you can't find that stuff in life,

then you, my friend, don't know much

about life! And why the fuck are you

taking up my precious two hours with your

movie? I don't have any use for it! I

don't have any bloody use for it!

KAUFMAN

Okay, thanks.