The $20 tickets for the Egyptian Theater on Saturday night were
worth it.
These pricey tickets were for the sneak preview of Nicolas
Cage’s latest project, “Adaptation,” the
centerpiece of the American Cinematheque’s Real Wild Child
tribute to the Oscar winning Cage last weekend. The main draw for
the evening, however, was not just the advanced screening (the film
will be released Dec. 6), but also the chance to get a peak at the
off center minds of Cage himself, as well as the director/writer
team of “Being John Malkovich” and
“Adaptation,” Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman,
respectively.
“Adaptation” features Cage as twin
brothers/screenwriters Charlie and Donald Kaufman and is loosely
based on Charlie’s real-life struggle to adapt Susan
Orlean’s “The Orchid Thief.” Kaufman opted to
script his own struggle with adapting the book rather than to
continue adapting the book itself, therefore writing himself into
his own screenplay. Kaufman blends these real events with some
fictitious creations; for example, he doesn’t really have a
twin brother, and he is neither fat nor balding, despite
Cage’s on-screen appearance.
“(Spike and I) prefer to have the experience be one of
befuddlement, so that no one quite knows what’s true and not
true,” said Kaufman, who has a full head of bushy brown
hair.
Jonze, who first gained attention for directing music videos
(Weezer’s “Buddy Holly,” Beastie Boys’
“Sabotage”), saw Kaufman’s trouble with
“The Orchid Thief” firsthand while the two worked on
“Malkovich.”
“Charlie was really excited about adapting the book, but
after a few weeks, the excitement disappeared,” Jonze said.
“Four months into it, he decided to write himself in. He was
nervous, but I found it very encouraging.”
Once Cage signed onto the project, his biggest challenge was
connecting with the elusive Kaufman.
“First, I wanted to stay at (Charlie’s) house, and I
offered to bring a sleeping bag, but he declined,” Cage said.
“Then, I invited him for a fishing trip in Mexico, which he
also declined. Finally, he agreed to do long interviews on tape,
which I promised to burn once the movie was finished, which I did,
in ritualistic fashion.”
Looking more posh than his on-screen personas, Cage said that
playing those two characters at once was a challenge. He had to
listen to clicking dialogue cues through an earpiece.
“Spike would ask me, “˜So, who do you want to play
first today?’ If I woke up on the Charlie side of the bed,
feeling a little withdrawn, I’d play Charlie first,”
Cage said. “But I still had to earn my keep and play Donald,
too. It was hardest to go from Charlie to Donald, because some of
the crankiness still lingered.”
The film intertwines several stories and continues the
mind-boggling tradition begun with “Malkovich.”
“What we’re looking for is for people to have their
own experience with it; then, there can be discussion
afterwards,” Jonze said.
It’s a rather cryptic response, but fitting from a man
whose last film was an existentialist roller coaster ride. This
time, instead of creating a strange puppet-wielding alter-ego for
John Cusack, Jonze and Kaufman twisted Cage’s screen time
into a bizarre reconstruction of reality.
“I thought that they’d be able to create a different
world for me to move around in,” Cage said. “What ended
up happening was that they created another world that ran parallel
to the real world but still had a foot in it, which is amazing, if
you think about it.”