Daily Dialogue — June 15, 2017

Susan: John, you go like this.

She hums into the telephone receiver. He hums a note, then changes the pitch.

Susan: No. Keep going.

He hums another note. She joins in, but he changes the pitch.

Susan: No, no.

Giggling she buries her head in the bed, then back on the phone.

Susan: I’m trying to make a dial tone. You have to sustain and I’ll join you, and together… I can’t do it by myself.
John [V.O.]: Okay, which one you want me to do?

He hums a note.

Susan: [wild-eyed with excitement] Yes, yes. Yes!
John [V.O.]: Here we go.

He hums. She joins him. It sounds like a dial tone.

Susan: That’s it.
John [V.O.]: We got it.
Susan: That’s fucking amazing.

— Adaptation. (2002), screenplay by Charlie Kaufman & Donald Kaufman, book by Susan Orlean

The Daily Dialogue theme for next week: Telephone.

Trivia: Based on writer Charlie Kaufman’s struggle to adapt the best-selling book “The Orchid Thief” by Susan Orlean. Kaufman quickly got into a writer’s block, since the book lacked the dramatic structure needed for a movie. So he decided to write a screenplay about himself struggling to write a book adaptation, exaggerating many of the story elements and characters, and making up new ones (such as a non-existent twin brother, Donald Kaufman.) Knowing that the producers would reject the idea, he did not tell them about the new direction he was taking the story in, and simply handed in the finished script. Although this move was supported by Spike Jonze, Kaufman himself believed it would end his career (it didn’t).

Dialogue On Dialogue: The scene is not only humorous, it demonstrates the continued deconstruction of Susan’s old way of being. First, she takes drugs. Second, she bonds even further with John, setting into motion their affair.