Synthesis

La’TaraTaylor ENC 1102
ProfessorMyers
Synthesis Essay
WordCount:934 Date: July 31, 2008

“Obsession”

The book The Orchid Thief, written by Susan Orlean and the film Adaption, directed by Spike Jonze pose interesting points when being compared with various elements of literary nonfiction. A common demonstration of how passion and beauty can be transformed into obsession is vividly displayed in both pieces. The film demonstrates obsession through the screen writer mentally and physically becoming obsessed with the pursuance of the screen play and the book through Orlean describing the various ways in which the characters displayed a preoccupation with the feeling or idea of orchids. Obsession can be established through the elements of tone, characterization, plot, and characterization in the film and the text.

Adaptation is, among many other things, a comedy about Kaufman’s inability to come up with a way to adapt the book as a conventional drama, so he ended up writing a movie about a screenwriter who can’t figure out a way to adapt The Orchid Thief. When doing this he ends up inserting himself into his own script. The film is about the despair of an artist trying to be passionate about what he does. Ironically, it’s also about the miseries of having creative freedom, when there is no one to blame but yourself for what you come up with. The movie The Orchid Thief definitely had an emotional twist with a complicated, strange and funny ending. The text is about the time spent with an orchid thief, John Laroche and the flowers he is obsessed with; it is also about the self-reflection of the author and her need to find something to feel passionate about. The Orchid Thief was heavily influenced by tone and within this nonfiction manuscript Orlean presented the facts while Adaptation crosses the line between fact and fiction.

Kaufman who portrays the writer as a classic schlep: morose, insecure, self-obsessed, needy, fat, balding, pretentious, a failure with women, cursed with the fear that he may be a one-hit wonder. Rescuing him, temporarily, is the job of adapting "The Orchid Thief," the New Yorker piece and book in which writer Orlean chronicled, with typical New Yorker literacy and sprawl, her fascination with the orchid obsession of Florida flower bandit John Laroche. Characterization is used by an author to develop a character. The method includes showing the character's appearance, displaying the character's actions, revealing the character's thoughts, letting the character speak, and getting the reactions of others. This is demonstrated in the film by Jonze’s revealing Charlie Kauffman’s thoughts in reference to orchid’s, he stated “life is full of things like the ghost orchid, wonderful to imagine and easy to fall in love with” (Jonze). In The Orchid Thief, Orlean exhibits the passion for collecting in the book by means of infusing meaning into life, subjecting the vicissitudes to some order, and acquiring the ability to mold and change the nature of things. After viewing others in relation to the orchids Orlean gives a flamboyant description of her thoughts when she states, “Collecting can be a sort of love sickness. If you collect living things, you are pursuing something imperfectible, because even if you manage to find and possess the living thing you want, there is no guarantee they won’t die or change” (Orlean 53)”. Both examples allow the reader to visualize each character’s view of orchids and to envision it effectively according to their objectives, plans, and desires.

The Orchid Thief contains much, well-researched information on orchids, orchid hunters, orchid growers, and orchid shows and societies but it is, most of all, an illustration of the phenomenon of human passion and obsession: the distinction being that passion is motivating and guiding whereas obsession is reckless and self-destructive. The title of Adaptation doesn't only refer to what Kaufman is doing to Orlean's book. It is also meant in the Darwinian sense - which humans adapt to circumstances. Adaptation has a serious point or two to divulge. In particular, it's about the importance of passion in every endeavor. Laroche's passion is orchids. Orlean's one great need in life is to feel passion about something and Kaufman desperately wants to write something original, not generic or derivative. In literature, a plot is all the events in a story particularly rendered towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect. An intricate, complicated plot was exhibited throughout the contents of the book and the film this plot is known as an imbroglio. Orlean wrote herself into the story of John Laroche, who was caught stealing orchids and other rare plants out of Florida's Fakahatchee State Preserve, and Kaufman follows suit by writing himself into the movie about his creation of a screenplay of the book The Orchid Thief. They both exhibited a common premise of obsession. Orlean provides an example of how obsessed one can become, “A few years ago, thirty thousand orchids belonging to a man in Palm Beach all died. He blamed methane fumes from a nearby sewage station. He sued the county and received a settlement, but began what his family called “a downhill slide.” He was arrested for attacking his father, then for firing a sixteen-gauge shotgun into a neighbor’s house, then for carrying a concealed knife, pistol, and shotgun. “It was the death of his orchids, his son told a reporter” (Orlean 53).

Throughout the book and film “Charlie Kaufman writes the way he lives, with great difficulty. His twin brother Donald lives the way he writes, with foolish abandonment. Susan writes about life but can not live it and John's life is a book waiting to be adapted. This is one story composed with four lives and a million ways in which it can end” (Jonze). Both the film and the book speak beautifully about the topic of addiction, obsession and passion. Orlean’s book describes passion itself, and the amazing lengths to which people will go to gratify it. The text presented two main stories; the story of the orchid itself, as an exotic prize that was long coveted by the rich of the world, and the modern story of John Laroche and his quest for the elusive Ghost Orchid, an eerily beautiful flower that blossoms briefly in some of the most seemingly unattainable locales. In the film Jonze presented the movie by describing Kaufman inability to adapt The Orchid Thief into a film. Lastly, Jonze describes the title of film by stating “Adaptation is a profound process. Means you figure out how to thrive in the world” (Jonze). This efficiently describes the process in which Kaufman endured to complete the screen play for The Orchid Thief.




















Works Cited
Orlean, Susan. The Orchid Thief. New York: Random, 1998.

Adaption. Dir. Spike Jonze. 2003. DVD. Columbia Pictures.