METAFICTIONAL WRITING

COMPARISON BETWEEN ADAPTATION & LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE
By John Winston Rainey

In the movie ADAPTATION, the main character is Charlie Kaufman, who is the screenwriter of the movie he’s in. The quest is his. He has accepted the quest when we enter the story, and Charlie is heavily burdened with his emotional armor of self-consciousness about what people think of him, how he appears, and how he “sucks” as a writer. He is consumed with himself just as the movie is consumed with his quest to turn this non-fiction book about an orchid thief into a movie. He wants to avoid scenes with sex, guns, drugs, chases, characters who succeed in the end and learn some profound life lesson. This is his statement of purpose.

The structure of the movie is such that the beats of the story he’s telling are shown ahead of showing what spawned the idea for the beats of the movie. In other words, the movie moves forward into the past. (Think of a mobius strip as used by Barth in Frame Tale.) Charlie has written the story we are now watching, but in the movie he hasn’t come up with the idea for that beat yet. For instance, we see the opening of the evolution of the planet all the way up to Charlie’s birth before he is shown in the movie having the idea to open the movie that way. This is the story-weaving aspect of the movie, but this is not the story and the movie does not depend on this artifice of writer writing himself into his own story for the movie to work. In fact, this is a compelling character-driven movie by virtue of the Life-Challenging Decisions that the main character makes, which leads to a profound change in him, deus ex machina aside (the alligator attacking and killing Laroche just as he’s about to shoot Charlie).

Charlie Kaufman’s Life-Challenging Decisions, which drive the story and his emotional arc, are thus:

1. Decision to adapt a non-fiction book, which he’s never done before. Charlie Kaufman writes spec script of his own imagining.
2. Decision to stay on the script when confronted by his super-agent that he’s been on the script for 13 weeks and it would be a bad career move to quit.
3. Decision to write about himself, since that’s what he knows best.
4. Decision to go to NY to meet Susan Orlean, (where he chickens out).
5. Decision to go to McKee’s seminar, where he’s profoundly shaken up.
6. Decision to invite Donald to NY to help him write script.
7. Decision to go to Florida to see what’s going on between Orlean and Laroche.
8. Decision to sneak into nursery to spy on Orlean and Laroche.

At this point, Charlie, confronting death, realizes that he doesn’t want to die (Apotheosis), and becomes willing to listen to his alter ego, Donald. Donald tells him that he (Donald) has the right to love whomever he wants and no one can take that away from him. If that person doesn’t love him, that’s her business, not his. “I can love whoever I want. Even Sarah didn’t have the right to take it away.” This becomes another profound moment that opens Charlie to some vulnerable place within him and brings him to realize that his own self-consciousness holds him back. Charlie tries to thank him, but gratitude doesn’t come easily for him.

Then, Donald is killed and Charlie starts singing “Happy Together,” implying metaphorically that he fully embraces Donald’s philosophy… melding the the two egos into one. Basically, Charlie learns to employ what he found in Susan’s book “…to care passionately about something whittles the world down to a more manageable size.” Charlie realizes that he no longer has to account for the creation of the whole world. Just feel the passion for this project right now.

Each Decision that Charlie makes brings greater emotional risk for him until he reaches his limit. At that point he has an Atonement with his former emotional limitations of judgment and cynicism and breaks free into a new paradigm – a larger Realization of self. This is seen in his embracing of Mckee’s principles of having a kick-ass third act, having the main character learn something, and succeeding in his quest. This is also seen in his singing of “Happy Together,” and in his final date with Amelia where he’s able to express his love for her without fear of her judgment of him. Finally, he catches up with himself. His last voice-over (breaking one of McKee’s principles) describes the scene we are watching as we watch it showing that he’s in synchronicity with himself. He has arrived at his center.

Does the character grow? Yes. However, while he succeeded in his quest to adapt Susan Orlean’s book, he failed in his attempt to avoid sex, guns, drugs, chases, and a main character that doesn’t succeed or learn something at the end. Charlie Kaufman writes a kick-ass third act as instructed by McKee. While it’s not necessarily “Donald’s kind of movie,” it does apply the principles that Donald, as McKee’s disciple, espoused, voice-over and deus ex machina aside.

This is a metamovie about a movie about a book about a magazine article about a botanical scam and the story-weaving is scrambled both with the time frame and the fictional/non-fictional aspects of the piece. We have, not only a surrogate for the writer (Nicolas Cage), and the writer he is writing about (Meryl Streep), but an alter ego (Donald) who comments on the writing process. The interaction between the creator and the created, between writer and character lends itself to more drama than if Kaufman had merely adapted Orlean’s book as a “based upon a true story” event. Therefore, the story that Kaufman tells of himself adapting to the fundamental principles of screenwriting while writing his adaptation of Orlean’s book – the emotional journey he takes – ultimately defines the success of the film. The title Adaptation refers to Kaufman’s adaptation (growth) as much as it does the work he does (adapting Orlean’s book). To survive and succeed, one must adapt… and grow in character.

LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE by John Barth has parallels with ADAPTATION in that Barth’s tonal delivery of his self-conscious comments on the construction of fiction implies the self-conscious state of the main character, Ambrose. He implies near the top of the story that these observations on writing the story are Ambrose’s. “Is it likely, does it violate the principle of verisimilitude, that a thirteen-year-old boy could make such a sophisticated observation?” The observations of the writing have a way of hindering the story just as Ambrose’s self-consciousness has a way of hindering his ability to make any decision to act on his infatuation for Magda. In the same way, Charlie Kaufman’s self-consciousness about his appearance and his ability to write keep him in a psychological box that blocks his creativity and disallows his forward progress of adapting Susan Orlean’s book.

The obsessive use of micro-detail in Lost becomes so intrusive that one wonders if there’s any story to be told. “The brown hair on Ambrose’s mother’s forearms gleamed in the sun like. Though right-handed, she took her left arm from the seat-back to press the dashboard cigar lighter for Uncle Karl. When the glass bead in its handle glowed red, the lighter was ready for use. The smell of Uncle Karl’s cigar smoke reminded one of. The fragrance of the ocean came strong to the picnic ground…” Also, the way in which some sentences end in mid-air like the mind has been diverted to another thought, another diversion from any commitment to an evolving passion. In the same way, Kaufman, in Adaptation continually finds a way to distract himself from committing to a line of action. He uses all the usual writer’s excuses for avoiding the task of putting thought on paper, completing an action, or telling his girlfriend that he loves her. The story becomes less about the story he’s writing and more about him as the story itself.

Just as Kaufman recounts his heritage from the beginning of time to reassert his existence, so does “…the author, of the narrator, of this story, Lost In The Funhouse” do the same. Barth takes us back eight generations to when Ambrose’s ancestors became citizens of Maryland. This continual need to find some identity in both Kaufman and Ambrose (Barth) brings the focus back to the inner plight of the main character in a metafictional way. In both, their constant need to have points of reference outside the story they are telling to define their existence keeps them locked within their narcissistic obsession of self… a paradox by any stretch.

Barth’s use of third person personal point of view (the story’s obviously from Ambrose’s point of view) is enhanced by the use of language that creates hesitation to move forward. One could argue that the self-referential use of the description of the principles of writing exhibits Ambrose’s psychological character every bit as much as if he were to provide us with pages of inner monologue regarding his fear of expressing his affection for Magda. “To say that Ambrose’s and Peter’s mother was pretty is to accomplish nothing; the reader may acknowledge the proposition, but his imagination is not engaged. Besides, Magda was also pretty, yet in an altogether different way.”

The constant commentary about how the story is not moving along and the repetition of observations – Madga’s dominant handedness, and description of the boys’ father and of Magda – illuminate Ambrose’s frustration with his inability to act on what he wants. The very title Lost In The Funhouse is a metaphor for the story conflict, which is Ambrose’s quandary as to how to express his desires for Magda without making a fool of himself. After all, isn’t love supposed to be fun? Isn’t this fun supposed to lead to playing house? How could he get so lost in this funhouse that everyone is seeking?

If the funhouse is a metaphor for love and Ambrose feels lost in it, how is he able to see beyond himself to find his way out? Perhaps this is the reason why he feels he can’t see past his head or his eye when he looks in a mirror to see another self of himself. “Nobody knew how to be what they were right.” Maybe there’s something else to write about when writing a short story about Ocean City, Maryland, during World War ll. As Barth implies this in his story about Ambrose, he reflects on the character’s desire to step out of this story and into another – another more comfortable feeling – instead of this feeling that brings great physical and emotional discomfort.

As he realizes that the whole point of the funhouse is to see up girls’ skirts, he realizes further that that’s the whole point of Ocean City. Everything – “under the boardwalk, the hotel rooms and cars and alleyways… was merely preparation and intermission.”

“The important thing to remember, after all, is that it’s meant to be a funhouse; that is, a place of amusement. If people really got lost or injured or too badly frightened in it, the owner’d go out of business.”

And the “limp” that so embarrassed Ambrose at 13, he now wonders “How long will it last?”

Ambrose gets through his day in the funhouse and goes on to live an ordinary everyday life. In fact, he becomes a builder and operator of funhouses for others, but it’s a life of quiet desperation for “…he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed.” The more things change, the more they stay the same. In this way, Ambrose turns out different than Kaufman. Ambrose doesn’t grow; he sublimates.

The story is about Ambrose and his adolescent plight to live through his blood-boiling infatuation – a state of being that all boys pass through. The language and the structure of the story emphasize the unsettled and rough passage of this age. While one may ask the question “Is anything more tiresome, in fiction, than the problems of sensitive adolescents?” Barth has found a way to retread and refresh an age-old subject and allow the reader to revisit the issues of youth with fresh insight.

The reason I maintain that Kaufman grows and Ambrose doesn’t is because Kaufman has an epiphany and Ambrose doesn’t. Kaufman gets on with his life; Ambrose continues to be merely an observer of life while going through the motions of life (marriage, kids, career, etc). The last line in the story, “Therefore he will construct funhouses for others and be their secret operator – though he would rather be among the lovers for whom funhouses are designed”, implies that Ambrose creates worlds of characters wrestling with love/life while he “operates” behind the scenes of those worlds as a writer, just like the “…operator of the funhouse…crouched just behind the plyboard partition… writing down every word.” This is the ultimate self-referral to the writer, Barth.

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