Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary:

Main Entry:adaptation
Function:noun
Date:1610
1 : the act or process of adapting : the state of being adapted
2 : adjustment to environmental conditions: as a : adjustment of a sense organ to the intensity or quality of stimulation b : modification of an organism or its parts that makes it more fit for existence under the conditions of its environment
3 : something that is adapted; specifically : a composition rewritten into a new form

这是一篇名为Adaption，关于Adaption的电影。里面有许多台词是十分精警的，我不准备评论这个电影，只想摘录一些台词。没看过此电影的朋友可以看剧情介绍。

Charlie Kaufman是个自卑的人。他说：

“Do I have an original thought in my head?… my bald head? Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn’t be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today’s the first day of the rest of my life. I’m a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There’s something wrong – a bump. The dentist called again. I’m way overdue. If I stopped putting things off I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn’t fat I would be happier. I wouldn’t have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time, like that’s fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock-climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more – improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I would be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short – stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real, confident. Isn’t that what women are attracted to? Men don’t have to be attractive. But that’s not true, especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it’s my brain chemistry. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me – bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But then I’ll still be ugly, though. Nothing’s gonna change that.”

Kaufman在改编剧本时遇到了极大的困惑，他请教大师Brain Cox：

Brian Cox: “Anyone else?… Yes.”

Nicolas Cage as Charlie: “Sir, what if the writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens, where people don’t change. They don’t have any epiphanies. They struggle and are frustrated, and nothing is resolved… more a reflection of the real world.”

Cox: “The real world?”

Cage: “Yes, sir.”

Cox: “The real f***in’ world… First of all, you write a screenplay without conflict or crisis, you’ll bore your audience to tears. Secondly… nothing happens in the world?… Are you out of your f***ing mind? People are murdered every day. There’s genocide, war, corruption. Every f***ing day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save somebody else. Every f***ing day, someone, somewhere, takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love. People lose it. For Christ’s sake! A child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman… If you can’t find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don’t know crap about life! And, why the f*** are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie?? I don’t have any use for it!! I don’t have any bloody use for it!!”

Cage: “… Okay, thanks.”

尽管言辞激烈，但Cox还是给Kaufman出了个主意：

Brian Cox: “Wow them in the end and you’ve got a hit. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end… and you’ve got a hit.”

这真是一句真理。不管做得多烂，只要结局让人欢呼，就能大卖。好像做什么事情都是这样。

关于影片的情节及其叙述方法之巧妙，同样引用A. O. Scott的评论：

But all of this is much too straightforward. Yes, ”Adaptation” is, most obviously, a movie about itself, as gleefully self-referential an exercise in auto-deconstruction as you could wish. But it is also, more deeply, a movie about its own nonexistence — a narrative that confronts both the impossibility and the desperate necessity of storytelling, and that short-circuits our expectations of coherence, plausibility and fidelity to lived reality even as it satisfies them. Common sense suggests that there could never be such a movie, but if there could, it would have to be one of the slipperiest, most fascinating and, by any sane reckoning, best movies of the year.

影片的主题全在于这句话：

Nicolas Cage as Donald: “You are what you love, not what loves you… That’s what I decided a long time ago.”

我谈谈我的爱情观。

一 个自己不爱的人在爱自己，尽管对方没有做任何事，只要我知道了这个事实，也会极端反感，以致有不伤其情死其心不得安宁的变态心理，只苦于对方实在没有做任 何事，我找不到凭据。基于这个心理，我反过来也是不会轻易爱别人，就算爱也不轻易让对方知道。我理所当然地以为所有人都像我这么变态，所以，在没搞清楚对 方爱不爱我之前，我什么都不做什么都不说。

有两条冠冕堂皇的公设：“爱一个人就是让他幸福。”；“爱一个人才是真正幸福的。”既然如此，如 果我爱你，那么我的目标是让你更幸福，我的任务就是让你多爱上一个人。如果暂时没有这个人，那倒可以试试看我是不是那个人；如果已经有这个人但不是我，那 我要么就促成你和那个人相爱，要么就离你远点儿。这是多么具有逻辑美的推理啊！于是这个原则在我脑中已经根深蒂固了。除非我爱的人也爱我，否则在我的世界 中不会有任何恋爱。也许你会问，这能受得了吗？怎么受不了——恋爱不是生活的全部。没有恋爱活着还有别的意思。怕寂寞？寂寞是永恒地固定在每个人的内心里 的。通过恋爱排解寂寞是很愚蠢的一件事，因为这就等于说，恋爱等于排解寂寞，是为了自己而不是为了爱人。我就不明白有些人，明明他的爱人不喜欢吃苹果（一 种比喻），非要削苹果给她吃，还振振有词地说：“我是爱你才给你吃苹果的！你就算不喜欢吃，看在我爱你的份上也应该吃掉！”这种爱情表面上好像在付出，实 际上是野蛮地索取自我精神满足，是宠坏的孩子气。有人又会问，你不表达你的爱，对方怎么会爱你？当然会爱我了。因为那时候他爱的是我，不是我的爱。如果是 因为我爱她，她才爱我，那这就不是真爱，而是带着负疚感的报恩。

按照以上逻辑，会不会导致我终究无法与任何人相爱呢？如果有一个人爱着我， 我又爱着那个人，我们两谁都不说，怎么互相知心？其实，根本不用说。因为，大家都爱着对方，就不会再爱第三者。不管在不在一起，我们都会永远为对方守着 爱。这就够了，因为爱不等于天长地久白头偕老，也不等于手拉手逛街看电影做爱。

逻辑严密的朋友也许会发觉一个问题，那就是，我暗中隐藏了一 个前提，就是行为与思想是毫不相干的两码事。行为不必表现思想，思想不必由行为表现，而爱只属于思想范畴，于是就与任何行为无关。那种“标志着爱”的行为 在我这里全都风马牛不相及。于是一种荒谬的现象就可能出现：我行为上伤害你，思想上爱你。对的，现实中，这样的事情我做过无数次，每一次对方也很自然地由 我的行为理解我不爱他或恨他。我多么希望，在我的行为伤害我爱的人时，他能把两者分开，并照样爱我，因为我可以反过来保证，如果有人这么对我，我一定可以 分开的。

这就是我最可笑的地方，总以为我如此，全世界都如此；我能接受的，全世界都能接受；孰不知我是多么地另类，我能接受的事情是多么的怪异。

思 想的我总是站在行动的我之外去评判行动的我。每迈开一步，我就要停下来，让思想的我从外面看看这一步合不合逻辑。所以我办事的时候，过程步履维艰，期望结 果能在逻辑上十全十美，至于如何与现实格格不入，甚至一败涂地，我是不屑一顾的。逻辑之美在于它包含万物，包括爱情。只要我在爱情方面，以及生活的其他方 面严格符合逻辑，我就会感到快乐幸福。

至于音乐，我只好野蛮地说：例外！

图为柏拉图

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