Adaptation. (2002) · 35 quotes
Most-quoted character in Adaptation. (2002): in 17 of its 35 quotes
Most scenes with: Amelia Kavan (8), Donald Kaufman (4), Robert McKee (4)
I should have gone in. I'm such a chicken. I should have kissed her. I should go knock on her door and just kiss her. It would be romantic. It would be something we'd tell our kids about someday. I'm going to do that right now. [drives away]
Charlie Kaufman To begin... To begin... How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. So I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana nut. That's a good muffin.
Charlie Kaufman I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases or characters learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcome obstacles to succeed in the end. The book isn't like that, and life isn't like that, it just isn't.
Charlie Kaufman You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?
Charlie Kaufman Today is the first day of the rest of my life.
Charlie Kaufman Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking clich». I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more. Improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something, or took up an instrument. I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that. Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's going to change that.
Charlie Kaufman What the hell do you need binoculars for?!
Charlie Kaufman I'd wanna let the movie exist, rather than be artificially plot-driven.
Charlie Kaufman I have to go right home. I know how to finish the script now. It ends with Kaufman driving home after his lunch with Amelia, thinking he knows how to finish the script. Shit, that's voice-over. McKee would not approve. How else can I show his thoughts? I don't know. Oh, who cares what McKee says? It feels right. Conclusive. I wonder who's gonna play me. Someone not too fat. I liked that Gerard Depardieu, but can he not do the accent? Anyway, it's done. And that's something. So: 'Kaufman drives off from his encounter with Amelia, filled for the first time with hope.' I like this. This is good.
Charlie Kaufman The script I'm starting, it's about flowers. No one's ever done a movie about flowers before. So there are no guidelines...
What about "Flowers for Algernon"?
Charlie Kaufman Well, that's not about flowers. And it's not a movie.
Ok, I'm sorry, I never saw it.
Listen, I need a cool way to kill people. Don't worry, for my script.
Charlie Kaufman I don't know that kind of stuff.
Oh, come on, man, please? You're the genius.
Charlie Kaufman Here you go. The killer's a literature professor. He cuts off little chunks from his victims' bodies until they die. He calls himself "the deconstructionist".
I'm putting in a chase sequence. So the killer flees on horseback with the girl, the cop's after them on a motorcycle and it's like a battle between motors and horses, like technology vs. horse.
Charlie Kaufman And they're still all one person, right?
Charlie Kaufman I'm pathetic, I'm a loser. I have failed, I am panicked. I've sold out, I am worthless, I... What the **** am I doing here? What the **** am I doing here? ****. It is my weakness, my ultimate lack of conviction that brings me here. Easy answers used to shortcut yourself to success. And here I am because my jump into the abysmal well - isn't that just a risk one takes when attempting something new? I should leave here right now. I'll start over. I need to face this project head on and...
...and God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.
I'm pitching my script today.
Charlie Kaufman Please don't say pitch.
Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your **** mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every **** day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every **** day, someone, somewhere makes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life. And why the **** are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don't have any use for it. I don't have any bloody use for it.
Charlie Kaufman Ok, thank you.
Charlie Kaufman Mr. McKee! I'm the guy you yelled at today.
I need more.
Charlie Kaufman ...But a little fantastic and fleeting and out of reach.
Then what happens?
Charlie Kaufman That's the end of the book. I wanted to present it simply without big character arcs or sensationalizing the story. I wanted to show flowers as God's miracles. I wanted to show that Orlean never saw the blooming ghost orchid. It was about disappointment.
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