You're what you love, not what loves you. A moving motto of course. But that's not the point of this article.
At the beginning of the film, Charlie presents Donald's script with a joking way to kill: a literature professor dissecting living people, calling himself a deconstructionist.
Charlie and Donald are two writers with different styles. The movie frequently borrows Donald's words to say the "structure" of the script. In fact, the movie itself uses several meta-narrative methods to deconstruct the structure. Just like the joke at the beginning.
If you want to analyze this film, you must first talk about the "structure": the thrilling "Kaufman 1" in Miami was made up by "Kaufman 2" who had completed a screenwriting class. Back in the first half of the film, we are told that 2 is creating 1, but at that time 1 and 2 are indistinguishable. Until the last narration of the movie, "Who will play me better?", it suddenly tells us that Kaufman 1 and 2 played by Cage were created by Kaufman 3 behind. But this Kaufman 3 is still the character Kaufman in the Adaptation script. The real screenwriter Kaufman...maybe laughing and watching me write 1234.
The one-by-one analysis here is useless when it comes to the New York Synonyms, it is the real deconstruction of the structure at all levels. Of course, "New York Synonyms" emphasizes a kind of philosophical nothingness and the abandonment of time, which is what Kaufman 2 of "Adaptation" wants to pursue "nothing happened, nothing changed, what answer? There is nothing, there is no ending, everyone is long dead or not yet alive, and everything happens at the same time, and everyone is going through everyone” kind of story.
The "Hollywood-style" story in the second half can be seen as a self-inlaid irony. From another perspective, it can also be seen as the blurring of the boundaries between reality and fiction.
So here we have to talk about whether Charlie and Donald are two sides of the same Kaufman?
I think this question can be solved with a quote from Charlie: You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?
"We have the same DNA, what could be more lonely than this?"
View more about Adaptation. reviews
