Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Orlean’s history of Florida’s dangerous swamp shifts from archival images into a staged diorama.

Scene 78 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Orlean

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 44 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 78

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.
Scene 10
Valerie and Margaret give Charlie the assignment to adapt The Orchid Thief.
Scene 31
Donald’s rivalry and affection give Charlie a living counterpoint to his isolated view of himself.
Just before
Scene 75
Laroche tells Orlean that adaptation means learning how to survive in the world.
Scene 76
Charlie asks agent Jerry how to adapt the book; Jerry urges him to invent a story, while Charlie insists on responsibility to the material.
Scene 77
Charlie wakes to Donald typing amid the mess of his stalled writing life.
Scene 78
This scene

78EXT. SWAMP - DAY

Black and white. It's dark, tangled with foliage, and foreboding. Two pioneers slog waist-high through the water. Alligators regard them menacingly.

ORLEAN (V.O.)

The pioneer-adventurers in Florida had to

travel inward, into a place as dark and

dense as steel wool. They had to

confront what a dark, dense, overabundant

place might have hidden in it.

The scene turns into color. The men turn into mannequins. The floor is covered with black cellophane representing swamp water. The swamp turns to cardboard, with real orchids hanging from the trees. A guy carrying some orchids walks on top of the cellophane, past the mannequins.