“It’s About Flowers!”: Photogénie as a Reflexive Tool in Adaptation
Ali Hardin
Both played by Nicolas Cage, Charlie represents the art of cinema while Donald embodies the film industry.
In the opening lines of his 1924 essay “On Certain Characteristics of Photogénie,” Jean Epstein compares cinema to “two Siamese twins joined together at the stomach … The first of these brothers is the art of cinema, the second is the film industry. A surgeon is called for, capable of separating these two fraternal foes without killing them” (“On Certain …” 292). As film came up as a brand new medium, Epstein questioned whether cinema as art could exist without being co-opted by cinema for profit. Almost eighty years later, director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman ask the same question in their 2002 film Adaptation. The fiction film features literal twin brothers Charlie (Nicolas Cage) and Donald (Nicolas Cage). While the art of cinema and the film industry have only celluloid in common, Charlie and Donald have only DNA in common. One could say that Charlie represents the art of cinema while Donald represents the film industry. Charlie wants to write a screenplay unlike anything done before that simply shows how great flowers are. On the contrary, Donald wants to write a screenplay using overdone tropes and a screenwriting manual. While Epstein clearly favors the art of cinema, Adaptation is ambivalent. Throughout the film, Charlie repeatedly fails to make progress on his screenplay while Donald has no trouble at all, and eventually Charlie gives in and asks Donald for help. With Donald’s intervention, the screenplay becomes exactly the kind of artificial and tropey film Charlie hates. Charlie and Donald are one of many pairs of opposites coming into conflict in Adaptation. Other dualistic oppositions include real world vs film, originality vs mimicry, poetic vs plotty, and plot vs form. On the level of plot, it seems that the industry of cinema wins out over the art of cinema; however, the form of the film contradicts this conclusion because it features scenes reminiscent of the artistic cinema Charlie speaks of and which Epstein’s framework of photogénie can be mapped onto. Within and between the photogenic sequences, the film creates a dialectic between another pair of opposites, earnestness and irony, to synthesize a meditation on what film can and should do that ultimately leaves final say up to the audience.
Adaptation engages with the concept of photogénie through its plot and, more importantly, through its form. The film does not just discuss ideas reminiscent of photogénie, but includes instances of it. Photogénie is what Epstein refers to as the art of cinema, which he preliminarily defines as “any aspect of things, beings, or souls whose moral character is enhanced by filmic reproduction” (“On Certain…” 293). For Epstein, the essence of cinema is those characteristics unique to cinema as an art form in its ability to breathe life into living beings and inanimate objects. One main technique Epstein argues can have this effect is manipulation of time by speeding up or slowing down sequences (“On Certain…” 295). One such example is introduced in the first few minutes of Adaptation. As the camera zooms in on his profile, Charlie asks over voiceover, “Why am I here? How did I get here?” The sequence then cuts to a hellish and barren landscape of rock and lava with text reading “Hollywood CA. Four billion and forty years earlier.” The sequence depicts the entirety of life on Earth as it shows plants growing, the destruction of the dinosaurs, a fox decaying, civilization being established, and so on until it comes to the birth of a baby. The baby is crying and the music is menacing. The montage is sped-up with each image cross-fading into the next, creating the illusion of continuous movement. At the end of the montage, the film immediately cuts back to a close-up of Charlie sweating profusely, and his narration continues. This sequence draws a parallel between Charlie’s despair and the entire evolution of the world. The addition of “and forty” centers Charlie’s subjectivity, as he is said to be forty years old. The crying baby is presumably Charlie. In his essay on the imponderable, Epstein describes this sort of speeding up to draw parallels as “representing the world in its overall continuous mobility.” Epstein goes on to say, “nothing before cinematography has even allowed us to extend the variability of intimate psychological time … to external reality” (“Imponderable,” 254). The manipulation of time in this way conveys universal existential anxiety. Even though the world is so vast and the existence and accomplishments of one person means nothing in the long run, suffering is still overwhelming and all-encompassing for that one person who experiences it. Charlie’s despair is a theme that weaves throughout the entire film. This sequence, then, is not expository; it instead conveys a universal truth.
Within the context of a different film, perhaps a blockbuster lacking in wit and irony, a sequence like this could be sublime. However, the way Adaptation depicts this sequence doesn’t exactly seem like what Epstein pictured. While the scene has the potential to resonate with viewers, it is obviously ironic and played for laughs. The most prominent source of comedy within this scene is in how jarringly different it is from the scenes surrounding it. To make sense of the effect of this dissonance, we can turn to Daniel Yacavone’s overview of cinematic reflexivity. He discusses Don Fredericksen’s framework of six reflexive modes. The most relevant function for discussing photogénie is the poetic function. Poetic reflexivity “draw[s] attention to the materiality of cinema including spatial, temporal, rhythmic, and graphic features” (Yacavone 102). Yacavone states that the effect of a work using unconventional techniques is “disrupting habitual patterns of perception and provoking heightened awareness of the conventions violated” (Yacavone 102). The evolution scene in Adaptation takes the viewer out of the film, even though the film has just started, and forces them to think about why it has been put there. It heightens the viewer’s attention within the first few minutes of the film, giving the first clues that there is something more than meets the eye. It is an important scene because it attunes the viewer from the beginning and teaches them how to watch the film. In one sense, the scene feels like an earnest attempt at sublimity, but it is also played for laughs. This uncomfortable tension forces the viewer to try to reconcile these seemingly opposing feelings and question whether they can coexist. This tension persists even as Donald takes over the screenplay and Adaptation morphs into a high-stakes thriller, calling attention to similar elements found in opposite modes of storytelling and suggesting that Charlie and Donald’s approaches are both susceptible to coming off as ridiculous.
Adaptation instantiates photogénie to illustrate creative tensions and different potential approaches to filmmaking.
The evolution sequence seems out of place until the later scene in which Charlie conceives of the idea for it. After reaching a roadblock in the writing process, Charlie comes up with the idea to depict the evolution of life to dramatize the journey of a flower. Similar to the evolution scene itself, this scene speeds up motion as it cuts from Darwin (Bob Yerkes), to Charlie, to Laroche (Chris Cooper), to Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), to the ghost orchid. The next part of the scene is composed of disjointed cuts of Charlie talking at various angles and distances as he frantically dictates his idea into his tape recorder. His fit of passion ends, and the scene changes to a disheartened and baffled Charlie listening back to what he has recorded. The jumpiness of this scene is in direct contrast with the flowing movement of the evolution scene itself; however, the two scenes have the same discordant melody playing behind them. Like the evolution scene, this scene features the photogenic element of speeding up time. Another central idea of Epstein’s photogénie is revealing the soul of an object through the close-up shot (“On Certain” 296). The close-up of the ghost orchid is included in a montage with the main characters of the film, turning the orchid into a character in its own right. The orchid simply exists in front of a black void, drawing attention to the film’s materiality and creating a comedic effect. Again, although this scene is funny, the comedy does not negate the impact of it. Firstly, the sped-up scene of the main characters draws a parallel between elements manifested in the title of the film: the adaptation of Charlie and Susan as characters, the book-to-movie adaptation, and the adaptation of flowers. Additionally, Charlie’s difficulty with writing is also familiar to many and again conveys his genuine disappointment in himself. Failing is often funny; however, this failure is still an important step for Charlie in his writing process.
These two scenes in conversation with each other create a unique perception of time, characteristic of the “playing with temporal perspective” that Epstein advocates for (“On Certain…” 295). Time unfolds in several different layers over the course of the film. Some ideas that Charlie comes up with, like depicting the destruction of the dinosaurs, are present in the evolution scene. However, there are some significant differences, such as the idea to end the montage with Susan Orlean in her office writing about flowers. This idea does not come to fruition in the film; the montage instead centers Charlie’s subjectivity. This contradiction is because Charlie has not yet had the epiphany to write himself into his screenplay, yet. The viewer already knows that Charlie has written himself into the screenplay because they are watching the very screenplay that Charlie has written. Cinema is regarded by Epstein as clairvoyant, allowing us to escape the present and conceive of time and space simultaneously (“Imponderable” 254). In Adaptation, this clairvoyance is foregrounded through the contrast between Charlie’s linear experience of time and the spectator’s experience of the film’s time, provoking an uncomfortable sense of disconnection. Time is felt strangely in the film, like a sense of dramatic irony on a subconscious level. This experience can be understood through diachrony and synchrony being felt at once; the entire film is already in front of us as it is progressing linearly. Epstein proposes that the unique experience of time specific to cinema can create an anxiety-inducing effect. He writes, “We ask ourselves who understands the real meaning of time’s flowing? Not without some anxiety, man finds himself before that chaos which he has covered up, denied, forgotten, or thought was tamed. Cinematography apprises him of a monster” (“Imponderable” 255). The sensation Epstein describes is reminiscent of the uncanny. Cinema allows for a perception of time we might have thought was impossible, making us feel like we need to reevaluate what we think we know about the world. This discomfort and fear is inherently contemplative, forcing the viewer to think about what it is possible for cinema to do. The dissonance also forces the viewer to try to draw lines between the real world and the film world. The viewer has to directly confront that they are watching a fictionalized film and that some characters have real life counterparts like Charlie and Susan, but Donald is made up. The question then becomes why Donald was made up and why a narrative film was chosen as the medium through which to tell the story. These questions don’t have simple answers nor does the film want them to be answered simply. The film instead invites reflection on the process of filmmaking, the experience of watching a finished film, and what we want or expect to take away from a narrative film in the first place.
Throughout Adaptation, Charlie’s ideas about what he wants his film to be morph into what the finished film becomes. He wants to write about how great flowers are, while also writing about Susan Orlean and her disappointment, while also faithfully adapting Susan’s book, while also writing about himself, while also doing something that’s never been done before. Although Charlie fails within the diegesis, the film ultimately integrates all of these themes together in an interesting way, largely through photogenic techniques. By putting photogénie into conflict with tropes of conventional Hollywood cinema, the film forces the viewer to think for themselves about which tools are more effective. Adaptation presents a buffet of possible approaches to film, allowing the audience to take or leave the elements they like and letting them decide whether they are moving, or stupid, or both. The film ultimately aligns with other elements of Epstein’s philosophy of the art of film in its medium specificity and capacity for reflection. Film has the unique capability to reflect on film through the very same techniques it is thinking about. In this sense, Adaptation is a uniquely medium-specific film because it is demonstrating modes of filmmaking at the same time as it analyzes them. Epstein also expressed great optimism for what film could be in the future, hoping to trailblaze new techniques. While perhaps Adaptation is less optimistic about the state of the film industry, it is a totally singular film that presents many new ideas about what film can be.
Works Cited
Epstein, Jean. “On Certain Characteristics of Photogénie.” Jean Epstein Critical Essays and New Translations, edited by Sarah Keller and Jason N. Paul, Amsterdam University Press, 2012, 292-308.
Epstein, Jean. “Photogénie and the Imponderable.” Critical Visions in Film Theory, edited by Timothy Corrigan, Patricia White, Meta Mazaj, Bedford/St. Martins, 2011, 253-257.
Yacavone, Daniel. “Types, Modes, and Forms of Cinematic Reflexivity.” Recursive Reflections in Metacinema, edited by David LaRocca, Oxford University Press, 2021, 85-113.