Unconventional Plotstructures in Spike Jonze’s "Adaptation"

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1-2, University of Innsbruck (Amerikanistik), course: American Literature, language: English, abstract: With Adaptation both, Jonze and Kaufman, clearly violated classic Hollywood rules. The aim of this paper is to show which rules exactly they broke and how ...

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics - English - Literature, Works, grade: 1-2, University of Innsbruck (Amerikanistik), course: American Literature, language: English, abstract: With Adaptation both, Jonze and Kaufman, clearly violated classic Hollywood rules. The aim of this paper is to show which rules exactly they broke and how they accomplished that. I am going to argue that, despite its inherent, somewhat confusing structure, the movie’sbiggest rule-breaking is not trying to stay coherent in its own fictional universe. If we assume that Superman – contrary to all laws of physics – can defeat gravity and can not be harmed by bullets, then there is nothing wrong with the Superman movies. But this is not possible with Adaptation. Like the optical illusion of an ever-rising stairway, or an ouroborous biting its own tail, the movie keeps constantly changing itself, as – and this is important – the main
character developes, which happens simultaneously.