“I’m implying that finding your own voice as a writer is in some ways like the
tricky business of becoming an adult [...] you do what all young people do: you
try on other people’s personalities for size and you fall in love.”(Al Alvarez)
Discuss this statement in light of the representation of the writer’s development
in one of the texts studied on the course.
Alvarez’s view that the writing process involves the “try[ing] on [of] other people’s
personalities” and the search for one’s “own voice” is fascinatingly applicable to Charlie
Kaufman’s Adaptation. The film centres on the process of writing, in the form of Charlie’s
adaptation of The Orchid Thief, and how the writer is changed and developed by the
progression of his work. Charlie, as a writer, is faced with a fear of not wanting to conform
to the ‘Hollywood’ formula professed by Donald, and yet becomes increasingly influenced
by his desperation to produce a successful screenplay, amongst other pressures in his life.
By eventually ending with two main characters killed off, one eaten by an alligator, and the
protagonist undergoing a profound change and falling in love, Charlie’s eventual product,
which is the film Adaptation, conforms to every stereotype he initially sought to avoid, but
remains original. Charlie tries a multitude of writing techniques including his initial,
idealised version of an adaptation, in which “nothing much happens”; Donald’s
stereotypical, “obvious” and “overused”(Adaptation) action formula; and McKee’s belief
that “if you wow them in the end, you’ve got a hit”(Adaptation). Here, Charlie is
attempting to “try on other people’s personalities for size”(Alvarez), and in doing so he
discovers his own personality and that of his writing, concluding with an original
screenplay. It was not what he initially wanted. He doesn’t “show flowers as God’s
miracles”, it is not “about disappointment”, it is “artificially plot driven” and the
protagonist unquestionably overcomes “obstacles to succeed in the end”(Adaptation).
Nevertheless, Charlie’s writing of the film sees his techniques, principles and intentions
undergo a profound change but still produce an original work; much like the effect of
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growing up on one’s character. He finds his own authorial voice amongst the many that
seek to influence his writing, with the result an almost unique amalgamation of a multitude
of formulae and stereotypes.
Adaptation chronicles the development of the fictional Charlie Kaufman as a writer
in a manner similar to the self-progression and discovery that constitutes becoming an
adult. Like an adolescent, Charlie is faced with the social pressures and temptations to take
the straightforward option in his writing, and to follow one of many formulas that have
come to be associated with Hollywood films and western cinema. Charlie tries to avoid,
but eventual falls into the enticement of abandoning his original principles. However, the
final film represents his writing constituting of a successful balance between outsider
influence and his own individual persona and values, mirroring how becoming an adult
involves adopting multiple personas, before finding oneself and originality in a
combination of them all. Roland Barthes believed a text to be “a tissue of quotations drawn
from the innumerable centres of culture”(1324), supporting the argument that Charlie’s
attempts to enforce his own principles on his work is both impossible and inconsequential
in the search for originality. Instead Charlie must embrace his culture and its multiple
voices in order to find a level of uniqueness. Charlie passionately argues that “characters,
you know, learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or
overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end”(Adaptation) is not a reflection of real life,
which he feels the book is about, and so shouldn’t be in the film. Nonetheless he learns to
appreciate Donald and overcomes his writers block to complete the screenplay, showing
exactly the traits he initially chastised. Here, Kaufman is attempting to represent the
complexity and personal nature of writing. By depicting the process as so easily
comparable with growing up, Kaufman emphasises the writing process’ innate ability to
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produce a result which was neither the writer’s initial intention, nor existing as entirely his
own intellectual possession. Joshua Landy argues that Kaufman aims to “allow
him[Charlie] to change, progress, develop, solving the technical problem of his movie by
solving the psychological problem of his life”(507), a description which mirrors the
psychosomatic intricacies of personal development and the progression into adulthood;
advancement in life and maturity, like writing, is dependent on an understanding and
recognition of oneself and what the intention of one’s writing or one’s life actually is.
Charlie takes time to formulate such a mature, measured outlook. In his initial attempts to
avoid cliché, he stumbles into one of western cinema’s most common truisms;
‘Hollywood’ action movies, written with mainly financial motivations, are not good
literature. Consequentially, Charlie’s journey into literary ‘adulthood’ is not only a process
of escaping the clichéd, money-making formula of Donald’s “The 3”, but also avoiding
marginalising what is good and successful within that stereotype. All of this learning is, for
Charlie, part of his writing progress, and is why Alvarez’s description of “like the tricky
business of becoming an adult” is so apt.
Alvarez’s opinion on the process of writing, indirectly, through saying creating a
text is like “becoming an adult”, highlights the naivety and innocence of a writer as he
begins his work. In Adaptation, Kaufman depicts Charlie as having this idealistic, childlike
view of screen-playwriting, to the extent that he believes, and aims, to create a script able
to both “capture life in its immediacy”(David L. Smith, 427) and be
“original”(Adaptation). McKee states how “[p]eople are murdered every day”, that
“[s]omebody else betrays his best friend for a woman” and how “a child watches her
mother beaten to death on the steps of a church”(Adaptation), much to Charlie’s shock.
This ferocious response from McKee, his voice rises notably and his language becomes
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expletive ridden, highlights how Charlie’s belief of what is “more a reflection of the real
world”(Adaptation) is merely his world. McKee focuses on dramatic acts of atrocity, but
acts which clearly exist, just beyond Charlie’s limited exposure. This illustrates how
Charlie’s writing is almost youthful at this stage; he is unable to comprehend the fact that
events which don’t and would never exist in his life, may possibly be deemed realistic. The
decision to focus the shot on only McKee, occasionally switching focus to only Charlie,
highlights how this sequence takes the form of an adult and child interchange. McKee is
clearly the dominant character, standing on an elevated stage while Charlie is cramped in
the crowd, giving him a relative appearance of naivety and childishness which, along with
McKee’s criticisms, make him and his writing seem limited and simplistic. Timothy A.
DeJong supports this argument by stating how McKee drags Charlie “toward a sense of
reality”(73), whereas prior to this “Charlie’s life brims with potentialities which his mental
paralysis continually prevents him from realizing”(78). Therefore, DeJong is stating that
McKee ignites the self-realisation in Charlie that allows his writing to develop and become
more “adult”(Alvarez), in terms of its recognition of a world beyond the confines and
fixations of Charlie’s own life and narcissism. On hearing his seminar, “Charlie literally
falls into McKee’s arms”(David L. Smith,432), which is an indication of how Charlie has
reached a point in his writing process when he simply needs advice, and it is his taking of
McKee’s which completes the maturing process of his writing. His final piece uses
McKee’s principles without losing Charlie’s own major want: originality. When Charlie
says “I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases” or “make it artificially plot
driven”(Adaptation) he is effectively searching for originality. It is this progress from
naively searching for an idealistic form of original writing, to his eventual, highly original
final script that underlines how Charlie’s writing process is his text “becoming an
adult”(Alvarez).
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By having his protagonist undergoing subtle, personal changes to progress through
being “stifled by convention”(Smith, 428), Charlie’s writing moves from narrow, idealistic
limitations, to a more collaborative, and yet original, genre. The progress is comparable to
growing up in the sense that Charlie begins naively but, thanks to outside influences and
his ability to filter various types and quality of advice, progresses into a more broad and
original piece. Initially, by trying to avoid one cliché, Charlie finds himself engrossed in
another. He is unable to accept the benefits of the ‘Hollywood’ genre, and it is only when
he begins to “try on other people’s personalities for size”(Alvarez), that his writing finds
its own voice and individuality. Consequentially, Adaptation, a film that’s central focus is
unquestionably the writing process, portrays the creation of a text as a course of evolution.
It becomes one thing, then another, before, much like one’s journey into adulthood, finally
resting in its conclusive, unique state .
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