i am old. i am fat. i am bald. my toenails have turned strange. i am repulsive. how repulsive? i don't know for i suffer from a condition called body dysmorphic disorder. i am fat, but am i as fat as i think? my therapist says no, but people lie. i believe others call me fatty behind my back. or fatso. or, facetiously, slim. but i also believe this is simply my own perverted form of self-aggrandizement, that no one really talks about me at all. what possible interest is an old, bald, fat man to anyone? i am repulsive. i have never lived. i blame myself. i -- i'm old. i'm bald. i'm repulsive. oh, thank you. oh, thanks, wow. that's nice to hear. well, thanks. that's. i appreciate that. thanks. thank you. thanks. sort of hot in here. first, i think it's a great book. and orlean makes orchids so fascinating. plus her musings on florida, orchid poaching. indians. great, sprawling new yorker stuff. i'd want to remain true to that, let the movie exist rather than be artificially plot driven. oh. well. i'm not sure exactly yet either. so. y'know, it's. it's just, i don't want to compromise by making it a hollywood product. an orchid heist movie. or changing the orchids into poppies and turning it into a movie about drug running. y'know? or cramming in sex, or car chases, or guns. or characters learning profound life lessons. or characters growing or characters changing or characters learning to like each other or characters overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. y'know? movie shit. alienated journalist writes about passionate backwoods guy and he teaches her to love. i mean, it didn't happen, it wouldn't happen. it's hollywood. so anyway i just wanted to stop by to congratulate you on your promotion. i think it's great. your photo in the trades and everything. pretty cool. i'm considering jobs. mostly crap. there's one you might like, about flowers. they want me to do an adaptation of a book called the orchid thief. i loved the book. i know. they're really great. that'd be fun. testicle. i just read that. plus i love the idea of learning all about orchids. i really admire those guys who know everything about ants or fungus or whatever. i'd like to be more like that. see, i tend to write self- involved, self-loathing. even masturbatory stuff. thanks. that's nice to hear. but i need to challenge myself as a writer. i've arrived at an age where i want to think about the world in a different way. yes. and i welcome the challenge of taking a small subject, like orchids, something that would never draw people into a theater and making that fascinating. i want to show people heaven in a wildflower. as blake wrote. hey, i'm going to an orchid show sunday? for research? maybe you'll come? yeah, of course. sure. oh, thanks. that's nice to hear. yeah. that's great. he sounds great. y'know, a long time ago. a bit. y'know. yeah. i am fat. i am repulsive. i cannot bear my own reflection. what's with you? a job is a plan. is your plan a job? screenwriting seminars are bullshit. donald, don't say "industry." let me explain something to you. anybody who says he's got "the answer" is going to attract desperate people. be it in the world of religion -- there are no rules to follow, donald, and anybody who says there are, is just -- the script i'm starting, it's about flowers. no one's ever done a movie about flowers before. so, there're no guidelines, and that's good because -- that's not about flowers. and it's not a movie. my point is, those teachers are dangerous if your goal is to do something new. and a writer should always have that goal. writing is a journey into the unknown. it's not building a model airplane. each being is, because posited, an op- posited, a conditional and conditioning, the understanding completes these its limitations by positing the opposite. the orchidaceae is a large, ancient family of perennial plants with. maybe you should watch what you eat, donald. did you ever consider maybe you're a bit fat? does it ever occur to you, you kind of represent me in the world? that people look at you and think, he's charlie's twin, therefore that's what charlie must look like? did you even hear what i said? jesus, don't say "pitch." hey, maybe you and mom could collaborate. i hear she's really good with structure. florida is a landscape of transition. we open on state road 29. a lonely stretch of road cutting through untamed swampland. suddenly a beat-up white van barrels around a curve. it's driver: a skinny man with no front teeth. what?! go away. god damn it. it's a little obvious, don't you think? look, the only idea more overused than serial killers, is multiple personality. on top of that you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. see every cop movie ever made for other examples of this. the other thing is, there's no way to write this. did you consider that? i mean, how exactly would you show a character holding himself hostage? okay, that's not what i'm asking. what i'm asking is in the reality of this movie, if there's only one character, right?. okay? how could you. what exactly would the scene. how. the orchidaceae is a large, ancient. um. hi. thank you. the key lime pie, please. a small slice. i'm watching my. and a coffee, please. skim milk. yes. they're really great. a beautiful orange orchid blooms in time- lapse -- what do you want, donald? why are you in here now? um, okay, killer's a literature professor who cuts off little chunks of his victims' bodies until they die. he'd be known in the tabloids as "the deconstructionist." see, i was kidding, donald. i'm still obsessed with that girl. california pizza kitchen. yeah. she's really nice. i feel pretty certain she likes me maybe. hi! okay, yeah! that sounds great! yeah! thank you. that's really sweet of you. yes, i am, in fact! beautiful flowers. that's what's called an epiphyte. not really. i'm just learning. epiphytes grow on trees, but they're not parasites. they get all their nourishment from the air and rain. there are more than thirty thousand kinds of orchids in the world. but, so, anyway, i was also wondering. i'm sorry. i apologize. i'm sorry. i am fat. i am old. i am repulsive. i'm successful, right? i mean, i could say to a woman, i'm a screenwriter and she'd look at me differently. i could get laid. but i want someone to like me. for me. y'know? the way i like them. the way i'd do anything for that woman walking down the street. a million women walking down the street. i don't need to know what their jobs are. no one will ever love me like that. like i love almost every woman i see. okay, opening of movie. four billion years ago. life has not begun. endless, barren terrain. silence. silence. then, after the entire history of life on the planet, in the last seconds of the montage, we see the whole of human history: tool-making, hunting, farming, war, lust, religion, self-consciousness. yearning. then, bam! cut to susan orlean writing a book about orchids. and the story begins. it's perfect! it's circular! it's everything! i'm an idiot. i'm fat. i hate my-- you and i share the same dna. is there anything more lonely than that? movie opens with susan orlean typing. "john laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick. movie opens with a young boy picking out his first pet. movie opens with. i don't know how to adapt this. i should've just stuck with my own stuff. i don't know why i thought i could -- it's about flowers. "there is not nearly enough of him to fill a book," blah blah blah, so orlean "digresses in long passes" blah blah blah "no narrative really unites these passages." blah blah blah blah blah. there's no story. the book has no story. i didn't want to do that this time. it's someone else's material. i have a responsibility. anyway, i wanted to grow as a writer, do something profound and simple. show people how amazing flowers are. i don't know. i think they are. john laroche. i need you to get me out of this. okay, okay, we open with laroche. he's funny. okay, he says, okay, he says, i love to mutate plants, he says, mutation is fun. okay, we show flowers and, okay, we have to have the court case. okay we show laroche, okay, he says, i was mutated as baby, that's why i'm so smart. that's funny. okay we open at the beginning of time. no, okay, we open with laroche driving into the swamp. see, laroche researched it and found that indians have the legal right to take endangered plants off state lands. well, actually, there wasn't much of a trial. florida got 'em on a technicality, about cutting down non- endangered trees. even the indians aren't allowed to do that. they all plead no contest. laroche got fined five hundred bucks and banned from the fakahatchee for six months. nothing much. that's what i like. i mean, most people's lives don't include a lot of drama and i wanted to sort of be compelling without having to resort to big, um. y'know what i mean? it's, like, blake talked about seeing the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. y'know? or like hegel? i am a failure. i'm a poseur. i have no ideas. i wanted to do something great. there's no story. i'm fat. i'm repuls-- what? oh, hi. hi. hey! hi! yeah, me too. it's good. it's complicated what i'm trying to do, but it's going very well. travelling into the fakahatchee, donald, is a perfect metaphor for writing. i'm stepping into the confusion of the unknown. i'm taking the big risk here. it's dark, dangerous, as dense as steel wool. i don't know if i'll come out alive, but if i do, i'll have something true to give the world. that's the difference between writing and aping some moron's "principles." hey! how was denver? yes. hi. okay. why isn't it wet? orlean wrote about wading through black, corrosive water. she said it was the scariest experience of her life. and when i spoke to you on the phone, you said wear heavy boots, long pants and. it's not even hot. i was expecting it to be awful. sun beating down, wading through water, looking out for snakes, wild hogs. i was thinking it would be dramatic. alligators. something! listen, um, susan orlean wrote about a legendary creature called a swamp ape. have you ever heard stories or -- i just asked because she mentioned it. what i didn't say to him was that life seemed to be filled with things that were just like the ghost orchid -- wonderful to imagine and easy to fall in love with but a little fantastic and fleeting and out of reach. california. you kind of need a car. i guess west hollywood would be okay. i'm not recommending it. no. not really. i don't know. i'd smell it. it could be poison. i don't know you. right. i have failed. i have nothing to say. i am fat. i am not a writer. i'm a writer. no, i'm a screenwriter. it's about flowers. yeah. that's it. okay. you sound like you're in a cult. there is no swamp ape. it was invented for people who can't find the actual world fascinating. y'know? i need to go to bed, donald. i haven't slept in a week. so we open the swamp. okay, flashback to young laroche had turtles. okay, susan says what is passion? and okay we open on a swamp and suddenly a white van comes tearing around. damn it. there are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. i was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. such sweet, sad insights. so true. and you're. i like looking at you. i don't know how to do this. i'm afraid i'll disappoint you. you've written a beautiful book. i can't sleep. i'm losing my hair. i'm fat and repulsive -- we see susan orlean, delicate, fragile, beautiful, haunted by loneliness, typing at her desk. she looks at the camera and talks to us: "john laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch- shouldered" hey, hey. i'm good. i have some new ideas. they're all still one person, right? well, it sounds exciting. susan orlean drives. the golden light of the afternoon sun caresses her sweet face. she talks to us. "florida is a landscape of transition and mutation, a hybrid of " susan and her husband eat dinner in silence. a dying relationship. husband: you want to do something tonight? susan: i should work. y'know. i got stuff. i'm so thrilled i get to adapt your book, get to merge my thoughts with yours. i love that. it's intimate, like a marriage. maybe what marriage could be. and in the final sequence susan as a young girl swings alone in the backyard. from high in the air she sees her parents in separate rooms staring blankly in opposite directions. this symbolizes the profound scarring their waning passion has had on the girl's psyche, how she became afraid to ever really love something because it would go away. yallo? good. i think really good now. oh. uh-huh, uh-huh. oh. good. um, well, y'know, for me it's distracting to. or confusing to discuss what i'm exploring in the screenplay at this point. before i finish. it. so. tell susan i'd be very happy to meet her at a future date. as she sees fit. and tell her how much i love her book. say i think she's such a great writer. okay. nice talking to you. okay then. you can sit here and pretend to be a writer, mocking the seriousness of what i do, like some kind of fucking funhouse mirror version of me! but let me tell you, you don't know what writing is! she thinks i'm repulsive. movie opens.: charlie kaufman, fat, old, bald, paces the room. his voice-over carpets the scene. "i am old. i am fat. i am bald. my toenails have turned strange. i am repulsive. how repulsive? i don't know for i suffer from a condition called body dysmorphic disorder." i think i've got it on track now. no hollywood bullshit. just raw truth. sometimes that takes a while to find. it's goddamned honest, jerry. it's true. this is more honest than anything anyone's ever done before in a movie, i'll tell you that. the only truth we can offer is the truth that's our own experience of the world. "the great poet, in writing himself, writes his time." t.s. eliot. i'm sick of their constant harassment! kaufman jerks off to the book jacket photo of susan orlean. what?! what do you want? ourobouros. the snake is called ourobouros. i'm insane. i'm ourobouros. i've written myself into my screenplay. it's eating itself. i'm eating myself. it's self-indulgent. it's narcissistic. it's solipsistic. it's pathetic. i'm pathetic. i'm fat and pathetic. the reason is i'm too timid to speak to the woman who wrote the book. because i'm pathetic. because i have no idea how to write. because i can't make flowers fascinating. because i suck. i'm going to new york. i'll meet her. that's it. that's what i have to do. give yourself a reality check. phoniness is transparent, and it is tiresome. take pleasure in the beauty and wonders of nature. a flower is god's miracle. reads vanity fair. funny detail: new yorker writer reads vanity fair. use! likes lemon in tea and her voice is not at all what i imagined. interesting! eyeing stuart weitzman pumps. okay. i have nothing. i am nothing. i am fat. i am over. i am lost. hello? no, it's okay. yeah. susan orlean. you can't rush inspiration. y'know? what the hell is me, myself, and i? oh. good. jerry, don't say that. i mean -- jerry, i gotta go. i have an appointment. i gotta go. i am fat. i can't write. i am repulsive. i am old. i have accomplished nothing. i am just one more old, fat, bald man on the street. i am pathetic. i am a loser. i am fat. i have failed. i am panicked. i am fat. i have sold out. i am worthless. i. it is my weakness, my ultimate lack of conviction that brings me here with all these desperate idiots lapping up everything this bag of wind spouts. easy answers. rules to short-cut yourself to success. and here i am, because my jaunt into the abyss brought me nothing. well, isn't that the risk one takes for attempting something new. i should leave here right now. i'll start over -- i need to face this project head on and -- you talked about crisis as the ultimate decision a character makes, but what if a 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 -- okay, thanks. mr. mckee? i'm the guy you yelled at this morning. i was the one who thought things didn't happen in life. i need to talk. mr. mckee, please. my even standing here is very scary. i don't meet people well. i'm self-conscious and timid. but what you said this morning shook me to the bone. what you said was bigger than my screenwriting choices. it's about my choices as a human being. please. we followed it like a beacon all the way to the road. that's the book. i wanted to present it simply, without big character arcs or sensationalizing the story. i wanted to show flowers as god's miracles. i wanted to show that orlean never saw the blooming ghost orchid. it's about disappointment. i've got pages of false starts and wrong approaches. i'm way past my deadline. i can't go back. you promise? my brother did. my twin brother donald. he's the one who got me to come. you mentioned that in class. climax. a revolution in values from positive to negative or negative to positive with or without irony -- a value swing at maximum charge that's absolute and irreversible. donald. yeah. listen, i'm calling to say congratulations on your script. that's great, donald. i wasn't any help. well, look, i've been thinking, maybe you'd be interested in hanging out with me in new york for a few days. so, like, what would you do? sorry. i was trying something. i -- okay. so, what would you do? i know. just for fun. how would the great donald end this script? uh, it's what happened to laroche. it's kind of important. um. okay. the book's about orchids. that's true. but -- c'mon, you're the "mill-five" kid. i think it's real. i haven't actually seen the site. jesus, donald. jesus. jesus! i'm not gonna ask her about this. no, i don't want you to. no! no! what was she wearing? did she look at me? at you? i don't want to do this, donald. it's so weird to actually see that van in real life. okay, but when you're creating an image system, how do you know -- no, i want to go. i should go. i mean, it should be me, right? i mean. holy. i just. nobody, i just -- um. i'm just. i was at the wrong house. i'm looking for the johnson family. i'm not -- i'm the guy adapting her book. her book about you. i was, um, trying. i don't know. i don't know anything. i swear. it won't. i don't even under -- what?! i, um, no, i -- please. i thought i had a sense of you from your book. i had a little crush on you, to tell the truth. you're different than i thought. look, i don't care what you two are you doing. please don't kill me. i was trying to do something. you can laugh, but i didn't make that line up. that's a quote from your book. so now you learned about passion. from weirdo laroche. bully for you. i thought you didn't even like orchids. you're throwing the truth away for a chemical confusion of your synapses -- i don't write this kind of bullshit. for christ's sake, why didn't you do something while we were in the car? shit! it's a rental! it's a rental! fuck you, laroche! donald, that sounds bad. watch out, watch out, watch out! fuck! fuck, donald, we're dead. i don't know. how's your back. donald! you're gonna be okay. donald, this is an awful, bizarre thing to say and an awful time to say it, but i'm sorry i didn't get to know you better. i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry. see, it's just i thought i knew you already. i thought you were me. and i hated me. okay. you gotta help me. you gotta help me. they're after me. they've got guns. they killed my brother. there's a thing back there! you don't want to be here. i'd just stare at your picture, and you looked so sweet. i read your words and i thought you were smart and maybe lost and lonely like me. and the way you wrote about laroche. you said he was handsome even though he had no front teeth -- i figured you could look at me and see something, even with all my flaws you could look at me and find something, you could maybe someday write a description of me that would be nicer than the one i write day in and day out in my head. would it be? really? it's the drugs. okay, bye. donald! that's mike owen. john laroche. susan orlean. i don't know what that is. i think it might be a swamp ape. and that's donald, my twin brother. he saved my life. yeah. yes, we do. hi. yeah, i've been away. i'm actually finishing one up. yeah. actually i'm writing this one for sony pictures. that's tough. let's see. about being yourself, maybe. it's about learning that if you can't love yourself, you can't really love anyone. see, my twin brother was murdered recently -- thanks. like part of me ripped away. forever. it was a wake up call. anyway, it helped put things in perspective. life is a miracle. all life, from the flower to the human being. you. me. and i want to show people that. for my brother. for everyone. but you're working. charlie.