Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Orlean’s narration leads from a New York street up to the single window where she is writing.

Scene 6 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Orlean

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 2 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 6

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

Scene 2
Charlie paces alone, defining himself through the self-hatred that the finished screenplay will challenge.
Just before
Scene 3
Orlean’s Darwin narration accompanies a van racing toward the Florida swamp.
Scene 4
Laroche spots the preserve road and swerves off the highway with his Darwin tape sliding into the soil.
Scene 5
Russell, Vinson, and Randy joke as they follow Laroche’s erratic van.
Scene 6
This scene

6EXT. NEW YORK APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT

SUBTITLE: NEW YORK, TWO YEARS LATER

Late night street. The click-click of typing. We move slowly up the building to the only glowing window.

ORLEAN (O.S.)

(wistful)

John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a

stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered and

sharply handsome despite the fact that he

is missing all his front teeth.

In the window, lit by a single desk lamp, a woman types.