Zacharek on “Adaptation”
Comments: 3
Salon.com’s Stephanie Zacharek rips new ones for Jonze and Kaufman in a long and passionate panning of “Adaptation.”
“Adaptation,” with its gee-whillikers approach to the bloody hard work of making art, may pretend to be unassuming, but it’s fully cognizant of the power it dangles over its audience. Self-referential to the extreme, it’s the most meta of meta-movies. You might call it meta-macho. If you’re not meta enough to see how meta “Adaptation” is, then you clearly haven’t spent enough time, as Kaufman and Jonze have, examining the unexaminable. (You’re probably the type of person who still uses the word “postmodern.”)
And if you’re so meta that you’re completely unimpressed with how meta it is, then you’re only reinforcing the movie’s point: You’ve become so meta-consumed by metaculture that you’re no longer able to take pleasure in art, to laugh at your own foibles, to appreciate true brilliance (that is, the brilliance of Kaufman and Jones). Meanwhile, “Adaptation” is a movie that eats itself whole and leaves the audience with nothing, and we’re supposed to go home happily, clutching our little souvenir naughts as if they actually added up to something.
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Posted to Film • 2002.12.19 (Thu) • 12:40
Comments
Posted by red 2002.12.19, 14:50
a friend once told me that there was a world beyond irony. i had a hard time believing him. and i also have a hard time believing there is anything beyond “postmodernism.” is it really possible to make something out of a reaction to a reaction? isn’t that called a nothing? i haven’t seen Adaptation yet, but i will say this: i hate seeing intelligent people try to convince you (and themselves) that what you see in front of you is neat when there isn’t anything in front of you to begin with. ugh. i hate it when people do that. someone please watch the movie and tell me it’s about something. anything!
Posted by Scott 2002.12.23, 07:35
The movie is about something and nothing at the same time.
However it will leave you with something to talk about as soon as you leave the theatre foyer and hours after that.
Highly recommended.
Posted by Blue 2005.05.24, 04:55
is it not possible to get something out of nothing even when in reality what your getting is nothing at all. Adpatation is a movie that makes you think and react to the idea that what you could have is something but actually its nothing. why play on a paradox that never existed in the first place?
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