Matthew Anderson, Department of Theology
Concordia University, Montreal
Abstract
In his screenplay Adaptation, Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman
took the inventive step of writing himself by name into what would become
a hit movie. By so doing, he escaped the virtual anonymity that characterizes
even the most successful movie writers and ensured his name, his “branding”,
and the reception of his future writings. Yet the very nature of Kaufman’s
movies–Being John Malkovitch, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind, and Adaptation–show that as an author he is less
concerned with realism or accurate autobiography than with narratives that
sometimes blur the lines between fact and fiction. This paper argues that,
for all its novelty, Kaufman’s approach echoes the ancient rhetoric
of Paul. Paul also literally “wrote himself into scripture” as
the pre-eminent Apostle to the Gentiles, and despite his lack of official
credentials, successfully styled himself as the main mortal character in
his story– eventually, everyone’s story–of how
God was creating a new people among the Gentiles, a people who would become
the Christian church.
Introduction
“I have become all things to all people.” (Paul: 1
Cor 9:22)[1]
“Who’s gonna play me? I think I should play me.” (John
Laroche)
[1] Every retelling of a story is, by necessity, also an adaptation. Christians
know this, and have a long and colourful history–right up to Mel
Gibson’s pious Passion–of adapting the basic message
which gave rise to the church, the story (Mark calls it the Gospel or
the good news) of the life and death of the Christian Messiah. This process
of adaptation did and does not happen by chance. The very kerygma of
the earliest Christians was biographical, but in a narrative still left
manifestly “open” by the delay of the final act of Jesus’ return.[2] Thus
Paul could repeat what sounds like a fragment of very early teaching, and
yet add his own twist, in perhaps the oldest preserved creedal statement
in the New Testament: we “wait for [God’s] Son from heaven,
whom he raised from the dead–Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath
that is coming (1 Thess 1:10).” Action, plot, character, denouement,
climax–they are all there; personalized for the congregation in Thessalonica,
and in its present context already tailored by the apostle to his and their
pastoral needs.
[2] In 2003, the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovitch, Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation) was included
in Premier Magazine’s annual “Power 100” listing,
the only writer to make the list. It was yet another sign of the success
that Kaufman has had in the film industry of the first years of this
century. His idiosyncratic films have captured public imagination and
ensured commercial and critical success for those films identified with
his name. Yet the very idea of a film being identified in the public
mind with a particular script writer’s name is a novelty.
For most of Hollywood’s brief history, screenplay writers–whatever
their importance–have been “behind-the-scenes” figures,
virtually anonymous. Kaufman has managed to ally himself with his writing
in a new and unique way, and this most effectively in the movie Adaptation,
where the film’s protagonist shares the writer’s name. In
effect, Kaufman has adapted someone else’s work–in this
case, the book “The Orchard Thief” by Susan Orlean–by
writing himself into his narrative. It succeeds as an adaptation and
is at the same time a brilliant example of personal “branding.”
[3] Kaufman’s strategy unconsciously parallels the rhetorical practice
of Paul, who also successfully “wrote himself into” his narrative.
By means of a closer look at how each writer uses perceptions of their
weaknesses, and includes himself selectively and rhetorically in the ongoing
action of the respective narratives, this paper will show that Kaufman,
like Paul, becomes inextricably bound to his story in a way that ensures
both his and its success.
[4] Little survives of the work of most early adaptors of the story of
Jesus. New Testament scholars may disagree on just about every proposed
historical scenario, but most agree that there were myriad apostles, many
of whom carried out from Jerusalem messages that to modern Christian ears
would sound strange. Paul is proud to be the first, but cannot claim to
be the only, apostle to have reached as far as the Greek city of Corinth
(2 Cor 10:14). And it is well worth noting that the so-called “apostle
to the West”, after he crossed over into Europe, found that there
was already a band of Christians meeting together in Rome. We know of Peter,
Paul, Apollos, and a few others, but most of the earliest preachers who
adapted the story of Jesus the Christ and carried it across the seas of
the Aegean or to the wild spaces of Arabia will forever be anonymous.
[5] The writer of Luke-Acts paints an appealing picture of the early church
in Jerusalem: “All who believed were together and had all things
in common … day by day they spent much time together in the temple,
they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,
praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day
the Lord added to their number (Acts 2: 44-47).” Yet despite this
cheery portrait, we now realize the earliest church was neither a place
of uniform belief nor teaching. Rather, in place of one church and one
orthodoxy, there seemed from the very beginning to be multiple Christianities.
Paul himself makes reference to this: “not that there is another
gospel,” he writes in Gal 1:7, “but there are some who are
confusing you …” Many were confused, and apparently, it happened
commonly and easily enough, as Paul complains to the Corinthians: “For
if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed … you
submit to it readily (2 Cor 11:4).”
[6] Another Jesus? Rather, it appears, there were other apostles with radically
different understandings of Jesus’ significance, other adaptations
of the message, and thus other “gospels.” Even in what is called
a post-Christian world we are heirs of Pauline Christianity to such a degree
that, until recently, adaptations of the Christian message other than Paul’s
appeared as inconceivable, heretical, or aberrant. Yet the discovery of
various Gnostic writings at Nag Hammadi in 1945, barely a half-century
ago, have helped awaken our awareness of some of these alien and now-lost
streams of Christian history. The popularity of the Gospel of Thomas or
the runaway success of the speculative Da Vinci Code speak to current
popular interest in such heterodox traditions.
[7] Within such a context, this paper questions whether the rhetorical
strategies seen in Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation can help explain
why Paul’s particular adaptation of the Christ-message was so successful.
Factors such as the loss of the home-church in Jerusalem during the Jewish
rebellion of 66-73 CE or Paul’s success among the “God-fearers” will
not be examined in detail here, despite their clear importance.[3] Rather,
the thesis of this paper is that Paul’s success was based, at least
in part, on a literary and rhetorical strategy not far from Kaufman’s.
Specifically, Paul’s ability to almost completely identify himself
with his message in his letters means that the apostle was a master at
adaptation. Although he said about himself that he was “untrained” in
persuasion (2 Cor 11:6)[4],
he accomplished two particular rhetorical master-strokes: first, despite
the fact that he had never met the historical Jesus, Paul included himself
among the witnesses of Christ’s resurrection (i.e., “wrote
himself into his script”) in a way that was rarely questioned until
the rise of modern biblical studies. Perhaps more importantly, Paul also
wrote himself into his letters as the best apostolic example of God’s
power made perfect in weakness. Paul’s rhetorical strategy was so
effective that he was not finally (as he stated) the “least of the
apostles” (1 Cor 15:8), but rather became the pre-eminent witness
to Jesus’ significance, so important that in the end virtually half
of canonized New Testament books would be by, or ascribed to, Paul.[5]
The Person behind the Story
[8] Adaptation, starring among others Nicholas Cage and Meryl Streep,
won several Golden Globe and Academy Awards. Although it did not win the
category, it was nominated for best screenplay at both the Academy and
Golden Globe awards. Not surprisingly, it was also nominated in the category
of best adaptation of a novel. In the nomination, however, both Charlie
Kaufman and the fictitious brother from the movie, Donald Kaufman,
were named as co-screenwriters. This blurring of the lines between fact
and fiction, or at least between reality and literary representation, was
characteristic of the way Adaptation was written and received. Kaufman
himself, despite being at least partly portrayed for all the world to see
by Nicholas Cage, virtually refused to give interviews and remained aloof
from the fray of film publicity. On the one hand, Kaufman was as available
to the world as the rumpled shirt-tails hanging out of Nicholas Cage’s
pants. On the other hand, the real person was carefully hidden behind layers
of adaptation.
[9] For scholars of the New Testament, one of the frustrations of Paul’s
letters is that they appear to offer so much historical information, only
to produce so few hard facts about the apostle. “You have heard,
no doubt,” Paul writes to the churches in Galatia, “about my
earlier life in Judaism (Gal 1:13).” Unfortunately, we are not among
those Galatians, and what we have heard is at best confusing. For instance,
Paul’s post-call years “in Arabia” or in “Syria” (Gal
1:17-21) only hint at this formative period of his Christian life. Indicative
of the frustrations of the whole historical-critical enterprise, modern
scholarship cannot even pronounce with certainty on the identity and location
of the recipients of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, much less the
details of its sender.[6] Was Paul, as Acts maintains, a Roman citizen?
Was he a Pharisee by training, by position, or by inclination, or do these
distinctions make any difference? We know so little about the apostle’s
life that a recent book about him is titled simply: In Search of Paul.[7]
[10] The picture gained of Paul from the seven uncontested letters is of
a passionate, sometimes intolerant, often angry, occasionally chastened
church-planter. But that is a carefully-cultivated image. Paul is a figure
from early Christianity who has suffered by comparison to the greatest
figure of the faith: Jesus. Many of those who only superficially know Paul
(or know of Paul) dislike him instinctively. He has been portrayed as “an
apostate who betrayed Judaism, or … an apostle who betrayed Jesus.”[8] In the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” the
fictional Jesus actually meets his most famous spokesperson, Paul, only
to send the apostle, portrayed as a sniveling opportunist, packing. This
is the judgment of Paul with which many of us are familiar.
[11] But this is a modern, or even post-modern, critique of an apostle
who for most of Christian history has been loved like none other. We turn
then, to a closer examination of both Adaptation and the Pauline
letters, especially the Corinthian letters, to see how each man accomplishes
the self-identification that has served both so well.
Portraying the Flawed Personality
[12] If there is one consistent impression the viewer receives about the
on-screen Charlie Kaufman, it is that he is an intensely flawed man. Doubting,
indecisive male protagonists are characteristic of Kaufman’s three
most successful film scripts: Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002),
and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). But the anti-hero
of Adaptation is an especially sorry case: he is self-described
as fat, balding, paranoid, and uninspired:
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 is 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 stop putting things off I would be happier. All I do is sit on my
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 and prove myself … 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.
[13] The real Charlie Kaufman was born November 1, 1958 in New York City.
Apart perhaps from a shorter than average height (the film bios list him
at five feet four and a half inches tall)[9] he appears in his photos to be the usual attractive personality
associated so often with Hollywood. Furthermore, as a superlatively successful
screenwriter, he hardly conforms to the “loser” image he so
artfully constructs for the movie. In other words, even physically, this
is not the Kaufman of Adaptation.
[14] But the role of anti-hero suits Kaufman as portrayed in the film.
Without the character’s obvious and much-discussed flaws, there would
be nowhere for him to go in terms of the central tensions of the movie:
will he be able to adapt the script? Will he confirm his superior writing
ability in the face of his brother’s success? And this being Hollywood,
will he–of course–get the girl?
[15] As in all good dramas, it is required of the main character here that
he be transformed, and in light of the changes that occur to Kaufman’s
life and his family situation, it is not too much to suggest that the choice
of title is a pun. The main character must change. Adaptation is
a moniker that applies equally to script and protagonist.
[16] Where the literary Kaufman is a slob and failure (Kaufman comes to
a screenwriting seminar with the words: “It is my weakness that brings
me here”), Paul also portrays himself as both physically unimpressive
(2 Cor 10:10) and a failure, at least in his initial appearance to the
Corinthians: “For I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much
trembling (1 Cor 2:3).”
[17] Although we have no solid evidence for Paul’s physical appearance,
church tradition has generally picked up on the apostle’s self-description
as physically unimpressive, a certain liability in an age of declamatory
rhetorical display. To take to the ancient stage, one needed not only verbal
but also physical prowess, and Quintilian describes how to belittle an
opponent of such weak features as Paul may have possessed:
“Sometimes we are justified in attacking, not merely their manner
of speaking, but also their character, their appearance, their gait
or bearing. Indeed, in his attack on Quintus, Cicero does not confine
himself to these topics, but even attacks his purple-bordered toga that
goes trailing to his heels.”[10]
[18] The apocryphal but relatively early Acts of Paul and Thecla when
describing the apostle seems to bend over backwards to lend dignity to
an otherwise eminently unflattering description: “he saw Paul coming,
a man small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, of noble mien, with eyebrows
meeting, rather hook-nosed, full of grace.”[11]
[19] Whatever Paul’s actual appearance, he described himself as both
physically unimpressive and as “weak.” By doing so he makes
necessity a virtue. In an argumentative sense and as a strategy for both
Kaufman and Paul, self-description as a “failure” serves an
important dual function. First, the weakness of the protagonist offers
an easy path for identification with the viewer/hearer, a style of argument
characteristic of the ethos arguments of ancient rhetoric.[12]
[20] Related to this first factor, but ultimately more important, is the
way in which weakness serves both to facilitate and also to highlight and
make available for sharing by analogy the redemption of the character. Adaptation’s
Charlie Kaufman is pushed by his own weakness–his relational indecisions
and his inability to write–into a long series of catastrophes, including
being discovered while spying upon Susan Orlean. These unfortunate events
lead to the climax of the story, and ultimately allow the script to be
written. Paul’s own physical lack of charisma,[13] although much-criticized by
the Corinthians, is the weakness that he dares to compare to Christ’s
and so further his message. This “weakness” combined with the
trials and hardships he has undergone (vicissitudes that would strain the
credibility of a contemporary movie-going audience), serve Paul as certain
evidence of his apostolic standing and call.
[21] Charlie Kaufman’s reaction to his brother’s screenwriting
success sounds oddly familiar to those who have studied Paul’s arguments
in 1 Corinthians 1-4 against “wisdom.” In reaction to his dull-witted
brother’s earnest attempts to get him to write “popular” material,
Charlie reacts by saying he could, but it would be beneath him and his
audience. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, says essentially the same thing of the
popular rhetoric of his day: first, that he wouldn’t present his
thoughts that way even if he could (1 Cor 1:17-2:5), second, that he could
present the wisdom of God but his audience isn’t “up to it” (2:6-3:4),
and finally that his own status (similar to Charlie’s over against
his brother’s) makes such a move demeaning and unnecessary.[14] Why would the experienced screenwriter
listen to his hack brother? Why would the “father” in Christ
of the Corinthians listen to the infants who are his “children” (1
Cor 3:1, 2; 4:15)?
[22] “Those who write, suffer” is not far from “those
who preach, suffer” and thus weakness is turned from a liability
to the strongest authentication of the “true” writer or apostle.
Despite what Paul writes about signs and wonders in 2 Cor 12:12, the truest
signs of apostleship are sufferings, because these participate in the paradigm
set by the cross. Perhaps the strongest statement of many from the apostle
on this theme comes in a section of 2 Corinthians dedicated to Paul’s “defense” of
himself. “I will boast the more gladly of my weaknesses,” he
writes, “so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” Similarly: “Therefore
I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities
for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2
Cor 12:10). This is to say that it is not the boasting that brings the
power of Christ, according to Paul, but rather the weaknesses, as the second
verse, culminating this passage, proves.
[23] In a twist more than worthy of a Hollywood anti-hero (the recent inversion
of the cowboy genre, Brokeback Mountain, comes to mind), Paul takes
the usual Graeco-Roman perceptions of weakness and inverts them so that
they are portrayed as necessary preconditions for his–and his followers’–story.
Christ was weak, therefore those who are found in him must also be weak,
a mimēsis[15] that
in Paul’s letters often includes the apostle as the middle factor.
In other words, and particularly in words more familiar to Kaufman’s
genre, the “backstory” of failure is both necessary and sufficient
for redemption. Weakness is, as Kaufman finds out in the night-time swamps
of Florida, precisely the characteristic that ultimately leads to redemption.
[24] As opposed to the calculated and rhetorical self-glorification of,
say, a Cicero, Paul quite consciously makes reference to those aspects
of his personality that his readers appear to have considered unworthy
or weak (2 Cor 12:9). It is one of the master-strokes of the apostle’s
rhetoric that he was, at least on paper, able to take precisely those characteristics
that would least serve his ethos in the eyes of most of his contemporaries
and turn them, by reference to Christ’s crucifixion, into the strongest
signs of divine appointment.
In Paul’s case persecutions seem actually to fortify his faith. In
2 Corinthians 1:8 and 9 we read that when Paul was in Asia his sufferings
became so intense that he despaired of life itself. This prompted him to
put his entire confidence in God. Faith thus initiates a remarkable cycle
in Paul. By faith Paul preaches the gospel, which in turn brings affliction,
which then produces in him greater faith, which in turn creates greater
boldness of speech, which then provokes additional affliction. For the
minister of Christ, the pattern of believing–speaking–suffering
is inescapable and perpetual.[16]
[25] Paul’s argument is elegant and elegantly simple, and may be
expressed in terms of a syllogism. It begins, not with a theological deduction,
but rather with Paul’s theology as it emanates from the single point
of Christ’s humiliation on the cross (a “stumbling block to
Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23).
- Christ’s weakness (i.e., his crucifixion) resulted in the new
creation
- New creation is God’s redemptive purpose[17]
- Therefore God’s redemptive purpose is served by weakness.
[26] Inasmuch as we can distinguish in Paul’s own letters the charges
brought against him by his opponents or detractors in Corinth, similar
to Susan Orlean’s final words to Charlie Kaufman, berating him for
being fat, it seems to be rather more the medium of Paul’s preaching,
rather than the message itself, that is critiqued. But Paul, like Kaufman,
acts in such a way that the medium (the person) becomes essential to the
message. In other words, Paul’s “weak” preaching is for
him, intrinsic to his Christology: “So, I will boast all the more
gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2
Cor 12:10).[18]
Adaptation and Limits to the Self as Subject
[27] While Adaptation mines the familiar territory of the personal
search for redemption, it does this in language at times oddly familiar
to the Christian exegete or theologian. Take, for instance, the statement
of Susan Orlean who, in the final crisis of the film, finds that it is
no longer possible to hide from herself the fact that her life is falling
apart: “It's over. Everything. I did everything wrong. I want my
life back. I want it back before everything got fucked up. I want to be
a baby again. I want to be new. I WANT TO BE NEW.” New Testament
scholars, indeed any well-versed reader of Paul’s letters will immediately
identify the leitmotif of the Apostle’s preaching, expressed perhaps
most succinctly in 2 Cor 5: 17 “If anyone is in Christ there is a
new creation, the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”
[28] Orleans’ life may fall apart, but it is Kaufmann, as reflected
in the movie, who very nearly becomes a sacrificial figure. In fact, it
could be argued that by means of the peculiar conceit he employs in this
movie, the writer somehow manages to explore dual and opposing possible
outcomes for his protagonist. There is, in other words, both a condemnation
to death and a justification to life that conclude Adaptation.
[29] Kaufman is beaten, shot at, and driven into a dangerous swamp. Far
from finding success in his attempt to adapt Orleans’ novel, it appears
by the climax that Kaufman has completely failed, in fact only succeeding
in putting both himself and his brother in extreme peril. Paul’s
words describe their situation as they hide in the swamp: “we are
afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed …” (2
Cor 4:8-9). The sun rises, the fear of the night passes, and all seems
again to be well. Then the brothers are discovered, and in a shocking climax,
Donald is shot and killed.
[30] In the figure of his identical twin, Kaufmann is sacrificed to the
forces of chaos and evil unleashed at least in part by his own actions.
Kaufmann’s twin serves as a scapegoat, and his death likewise, in
the plot of Adaptation, helps both to focus the anarchic violence
of the John Laroche character and to bring to a final resolution the forces
unleashed by the writer’s own weaknesses (or sins).
[31] At the same time, and precisely because it is the twin and not Kaufmann
himself who dies, the main character is freed–redeemed, in more familiar
theological terms–to begin a new life and new relationships. With
the literary and existential problem of the script solved and the embarrassment
of the brother’s easy Apollos-like talent laid to rest, the way is
cleared for Kaufmann to move ahead into a new ending/beginning.
[32] In sharp contradistinction, Paul’s adaptation of the Christ
story has one very important limit. Although the apostle is willing to
place himself mimetically into a chain with Christ at its head (imitate
me as I imitate Christ), he nowhere states nor even implies that his own
sufferings are in any way intrinsically beneficial for his hearers.[19] In other words, while Paul used the rhetorical
technique of comparing his sufferings in nature to those endured by Christ,
he also consistently refused to equate himself with the Messiah in any
way as a redemptive figure. Paul’s sufferings imitate Christ, perhaps
point to Christ, but for the apostle it is clear that they never redeem as
did Christ’s. There was, for Paul, only one cross. Believers were
called to die with Christ, but only Christ’s death led to life for
all (1 Cor 3:21; Phil 1:20).
[33] Here Adaptation, for all its novelty, falls into line with
the almost uniform ethos of Hollywood. Despite the convolutions
of plot, Charlie Kaufman’s story is, like so very many others in
the American dream or its various offspring, the story of one person’s
(almost inevitably a man’s, and often a writer’s) heroic struggle
against trial and self-doubt. Thus while both authors rely on identification
with the readers/hearers/watchers, and both seek in some way to inspire
their audience, their goals diverge in the denouement: Kaufman’s
story ends with an earthly satisfaction brought about by his own efforts,
while Paul’s ending is incomplete (Phil 3:21), waiting for the ultimate Deus
ex machina of the apocalyptic appearance of Christ in the heavens.
Conclusions
(character of Robert McKee to Charlie): “I'll tell you a secret.
The last act makes the film. 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. Find an ending, but don't cheat, and don't you dare bring
in a deus
ex machina. Your characters must change, and the change must
come from them. Do that, and you'll be fine.”
(Paul): “Then comes the end, when Christ hands over the kingdom to
God the Father.” (1 Cor 15:24)
[34] At the beginning of this paper it was stated that the novelty of both
Charlie Kaufman and of Paul inhered in the way that both created literary
representations of themselves as actors within a larger narrative. Prior
to the appearance of Adaptation, the typical movie-goer would have
been excused for saying that he knew of Meryl Streep and Nicholas Cage,
perhaps even of Chris Cooper–but had never heard of Charlie Kaufman.
It is not hard to imagine many of the earliest Christians likewise stating
that they knew Peter, James, and John, but hardly the newcomer Paul whose
story is now so central to Christianity.[20] Paul was not among those who stood at the cross or initially
celebrated the resurrection, but that does not keep him from adding his
vision of Christ and his name to the listing of those who were there
(1 Cor 15:8).
[35] More importantly, it is Paul in his role not as witness of the resurrection
but as apostle to the Gentiles who defines the story of Christian origins
in a way that cannot but include him. Paul’s reflections on his role,
however, lead to conclusions the diametrically opposite of Kaufman’s.
Kaufman, in an almost Nietszchean sense, finally defines his character
in an act of commitment that viewers have been waiting for throughout the
entire movie. Tellingly, it matters not to the fictional Kaufman if one’s
attachments are true or false; rather it is the act of commitment that
finally releases him from a dithering inability to act. The importance
of this commitment as commitment is explicitly stated in one of the protagonist’s
most memorable lines: “you are what you love, not what loves you.”
[36] Paul has quite different ideas, although his language of being “in
Christ” at first sounds very similar to Kaufman’s aphorism.
Paul states his opinion clearly in addressing the resurrection concerns
of the Corinthians. According to the apostle, the act of believing is not
enough if it is not grounded in apocalyptic reality. To prove his assertion
that there is a real and bodily resurrection, the apostle uses a complex
series of syllogistic arguments constituting a chain or sorites of
reasoning.[21] The logos of
the argument depends on the understanding that it is not faith itself which
saves, but only that faith which is grounded on certain, even if not yet
witnessed, reality: “If for this life only we had hoped in Christ,
we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:19).
[37] Paul dreams of the parousia or appearance of Christ in the
same way John Laroche rhapsodizes the almost mythical white orchid, Both
are real, but not yet attained. And it is perhaps the image of the white
orchid that best informs the differences and similarities of these two
writers, one ancient and one modern. Laroche’s description of the
orchid provides the key to his mystical view of life and meaning, and may
also give us something of the screenwriter’s views:
Point is, what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a
specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain
orchid looking exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to
this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to
make love to it. And after the insect flies off, it spots another soul-mate
flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower
nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking.
I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world
lives? But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do, something
large and magnificent happens.
[38] Paul’s describes the new relationship between those who are “in
Christ” and their Lord in a similar way. It is not only individual
believers, but creation itself, that “waits with eager longing for
the revealing [older English translations use the term ‘unveiling’]
of the children of God” (Rom 8:19). The on-screen Charlie Kaufman
is reluctant to allow his characters actually to see the white orchid,
since it serves a function in the movie as the apocalyptic symbol of both
death and life. At the final climax of the movie, the appearance of the
orchid (as do the twin poles of Christ’s crucifixion and his parousia for
Paul) trumpets both an end to the old order and the beginning of the new.
[39] In the end, Kaufman gets over his writer’s block, finds his
purpose again, saves his life, and in true cinematic style, drives away
with a smile and a new love. But that is a Hollywood ending. Paul, on the
other hand, appears initially to have failed in his self-representation,
failed in his attempt at reconciliation between Christians, and very nearly
lost “his” church, at least in Corinth. The closest evidence
we have of this failure is the letter of 2 Corinthians, which may be composite,
but gives a unified witness of the fall-out of Paul’s initial self-representation–namely,
that he was thought to have over-commended himself.[22]
[40] This may be the inevitable danger of self-representation, ancient
or modern. How is it possible to refer constantly to oneself without appearing
vain or manipulative? It appears not yet to be the case for Charlie Kaufman,
who is still writing, and still sought out by Hollywood. And the success
of Paul’s approach is clear: whatever short-term problems he had
with the Corinthian Christians, he was again referred to as their sainted
founder only a few years after his death, when the letter of 1 Clement
was written to the Greek congregation from Rome.
[41] It is one thing to present an argument within a literary genre such
as a letter or a visual genre such as a film. It is something else, and
apparently, something that is ultimately more effective, to present oneself
within that genre first, on the way to making the same argument. For every
literary representation of a reader or audience member, there is also a
self-described–and in these cases, artfully-constructed–creator
of the narrative, someone who can speak more intimately and more personally
to the various points that arise. We have shown how Kaufman’s approach
in the movie Adaptation echoes the ancient ethos rhetoric
of Paul. Paul, like Kaufman, literally “wrote himself into the story,” in
Paul’s case as the pre-eminent Apostle to the Gentiles. And despite
the many differences, it is both interesting and instructive to compare
the self-representational rhetoric of the two. Kaufman is now a Hollywood “name.” Despite
his lack of official credentials, Paul also successfully styled himself
as the main mortal character in his story–eventually, everyone’s story–of
how God was creating a new people among the Gentiles, a people who would
become the Christian church.[23]
Notes
[1] All biblical quotations are from the New Revised
Standard Version.
[2] Luke understood this and framed the book of Acts
as the second part of the story begun in his Gospel.
[3] Crossan and Reed (2004), xi-xii.
[4] See Winter (1997) on the technical meaning of idiotēs. Despite
his assertion that to claim that one is unpolished is the stock-in-trade
of persuasion, he appears to pay insufficient heed to the Church Fathers,
many of whom were trained in rhetoric, who despite their love of Paul almost
uniformly judged his writing as rhetorically unsophisticated.
[5] Thirteen of the twenty-seven New Testament books
are either actually or putatively written by Paul; of these, scholars agree
on the genuine authorship of seven (1 Thessalonians, Romans, Galatians,
Philippians, Philemon, 1 and 2 Corinthians).
[6] Hans Dieter Betz’s comment on the addressees
of Galatians, from his authoritative commentary still stands: “There
are, however, some questions important for the letter of Paul that still
await definitive answers.” Decades later, scholars still divide on
the so-called “North Galatian-South Galatian” hypotheses, although
the issue itself seems to have passed from discussion (Betz 1979,1-2).
On questions concerning Paul’s education, see Anderson (1999, 277).
[7] Crossan and Reed (2004).
[8] Crossan and Reed (2004), ix.
[9] Interestingly, Cage is six foot one.
[10] Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 5,13,
39.
[11] Acts of Paul and Thecla (v 3).
[12] See Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1.2 and
2.1 “we must have regard … also to establishing the speaker
himself as of a certain type and bringing the giver of judgement into
a certain condition [emphasis added].” For a modern summary of
the use of ethos in ancient rhetoric, see Wisse (1989). In
one sense, the entire rhetorical strategy of self-representation falls
under the ancient rubric of ethos, since it involves various ways
of building up the character and thus the trustworthiness of the speaker.
[13] 2 Cor 10:10.
[14] See Clark Wire (2000), 125.
[15] Brant (1993).
[16] Savage (1996), 181.
[17] On this see Hubbard (2002).
[18] See Savage’s comments (1996), 162-63.
[19] Quite the opposite, as Phil 3:10-11 indicate.
[20] Paul’s own words seem to indicate that
he was, if anything, infamous (Gal 1:23).
[21] Mack (1990), 56-57.
[22] Mitchell (1993), 303.
References
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Anonymous, ed. 1993. “The Acts of Paul and Thecla.” The
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Press.
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Fortress.
Brant, Jo-Ann. A. 1993. “The Place of Mimesis in Paul’s
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