Synthesis with Adaptation

Objects, People, and Self: Dependency in Synthesis

Kaufmann has a unique vision of Orlean and takes the liberty of fully developing a theme in Adaptation only partially developed in The Orchid Thief. Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, is a nonfiction account of Orlean’s interaction and admiration of “the orchid thief” himself (a man named Laroche) and his perspective on passion, specifically that regarding orchids. Charlie Kaufmann’s movie, Adaptation, is a movie adaptation of Orlean’s book, following Charlie himself and tracing his pursuit to write the screenplay for the movie Adaptation itself. Both Orlean and Kaufmann address the consistent theme of dependency as a means of coping with the demands of the world through their literary elements. Kaufmann draws the theme out of The Orchid Thief with Adaptation, showing a more existential approach to the universal need for people to “whittle life down,” as Orlean puts it, and to find a solid basis for purpose in life. Orlean focuses more strictly upon the nature of passion and in so doing inadvertently captures Kaufmann’s theme through each of her characters’ pursuit of said passion. Throughout both stories, Laroche and Orlean both display the theme, and in Adaptation, Kaufmann defines it.

Beginning with Laroche, his personality is consistent throughout both The Orchid Thief and Adaptation through biographical sketch. Orlean sees his passion for each of his projects as intoxicating and Kaufmann comments on her need to be around someone so “alive.” (Jonze) He makes no excuses for his passions and relies on them to “live deliberately” as Thoreau would say, or more simply to live in the way the Orlean continually describes as intoxicating in her thoughts and personal opinions brought about through narrative style. Laroche’s desire to possess drives him and he is dependent upon objects for his happiness. Laroche’s tone is continually obsessive, “Even now, just being here, I still get that collector feeling. You know what I mean. I’ll see something and then suddenly I get that feeling. It’s like I can’t just have something- I have to have it and learn about it and grow it and sell it and master it and have a million of it” (Orlean 33). He has to possess objects in the way that Mortimer Adler possesses a book in “How to Mark a Book.” For this reason, he is repeatedly disappointed and, as in Orleans description of all Orchid collectors, “To desire Orchids is to have a desire that will never be, can never be, fully requited” (Orlean 54). Clearly, throughout both stories, Laroche’s dependencies drive him.

Where Laroche’s dependencies are in objects, Orlean’s dependencies are in people, which ultimately lead to her murderous reactions in Adaptation. In the movie, she falls in love with Laroche’s ability to find solid foundation in life (purpose) through his passions. Orlean and Kaufmann share the same desire throughout the stories to find a purpose, but where Kaufmann finds himself (in the abstract sense), and fixes his life, Orlean finds Laroche, and is ultimately disappointed. Orlean becomes a drug user and begins to live two separate lives in order to satisfy her multiple dependencies on people in her life. In The Orchid Thief, Orlean takes an objective, journalistic approach to the story, save her reflection on her “one unembarrassed passion,” which betrays her personal lack of solid purpose in life. Because she seeks to find passion through the passions of others, she becomes dependent upon other people for purpose, which leads to the major conflict in Adaptation. Orlean’s objective tone makes it easy to see Orlean’s perception of other’s passions and dependence upon orchids, but serves to cloud Orlean’s own pursuits a bit. It is important to note, however, that Orlean seeks to comment upon the role of passion in life throughout The Orchid Thief through theme, and by her success, betrays what she pursues throughout the book. Orlean didn’t need to see the ghost orchid (Orlean 281). It was the passion that she was after, vicariously possessed, so that she could find purpose through what others found in their obsession and dependence upon the orchids. Kaufmann’s ending of The Orchid Thief puts it best, where Orlean writes, “life is full of things that are fleeting, and just out of reach” (Kaufmann).

Orlean is a great example of a dependency, but Charlie Kaufmann is the very embodiment of the theme. Kaufmann is socially inept and constantly worried about validation from others as the source for motivation in life. He looks for purpose in other people, anxiously dependent upon other’s reactions in his life. Kaufmann’s personal anxieties are strictly spelled out through his personal reflection throughout the film and, as in The Orchid Thief, his narrative style is essential to his conveyance of the theme. Kaufmann transforms throughout Adaptation, truly the only dynamic character in the film. When Donald tells Charlie in the end about his old love interest, “that love was mine, not even (what’s her name) could take that away from me,” (Kaufmann) Charlie finally finds that if he relies upon himself, and finds purpose solely within his own convictions, he is able to transcend the prison he’s created out of his life. It is precisely this change that touches upon deeper thematic elements within Adaptation, but despite this, dependency is clearly a coherent thematic element of Adaptation.

It is clear that the development of the theme within the movie was more developed because it was deliberate, whereas the consistency within The Orchid thief exists as an implication of Orleans intended theme of passion. It could be postulated that Kaufmann intentionally takes the side of Orlean against Orlean in her interview “…you might consider your focus to be living off the desires, focus, and happenings of others. That is how you make your living. As a common parasite, really,” (Orlean 288-9) seeing her dependency in other people and existentially placing Orlean as the antagonist in the end when he shows her unfulfilled and erratic nature. Despite Kaufmann’s further commentary, and possible full theme, both authors refer to the nature of dependency through literary elements focused upon Laroche and Orlean, and Kaufmann drives the theme home with his portrayal of himself in Adaptation. Perhaps human nature truly dictates that dependence and purpose are two sides of the same coin, but, as Adaptation and The Orchid Thief show, life truly fails to reward those who’s defining desire is to possess anything other than one’s own self.

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Works Cited

Adler, Mortimer. “How to Mark a Book.”

Kaufmann, Charlie, screenplay. Adaptation. Dir. Spike Jonze. Per. Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper. Columbia Tristar, 2004.

Minot, Stephen. Literary Nonfiction. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2003.

Orlean, Susan. The Orchid Thief. New York: Random, 2000.