Adaptation · written by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman · 2002

Donald pitches a song-in-pajamas scene while Charlie announces the danger he expects from the swamp.

Scene 90 of 202 · ≈ 1 min on screen · First scene of act two

Kaufman
Donald

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 49 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 90

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.
Just before
Scene 87
Charlie claims to Valerie that his screenplay is progressing even as he calls himself a failure.
Scene 88
Orlean asks Laroche to take her into the swamp, but he says he is still banned.
Scene 89
Charlie packs for Florida and frames the trip into the Fakahatchee as a writer’s leap into the unknown.
Scene 90
This scene

90INT. EMPTY LIVING ROOM - CONTINUOUS

Donald types cheerily on a lap-top computer at an ergonomic desk. Kaufman descends the stairs with his suitcase.

KAUFMAN

It's dark, dangerous, as dense as steel

wool. I don't know if I'll come out

alive, but if I do, I'll have something

true to give the world. That's the

difference between writing and aping some

moron's "principles."

Donald looks up from his work. He hasn't been listening.

DONALD

Hey, Charles, I'm thinking of putting a

song in. Y'know like when characters

sing pop songs in their pajamas and dance

around. I thought it might be a nice way

to break the tension. So, try to think

of a song about split personality...