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

Anderson R. Dean, Jr. 1999. Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters.

Anonymous, ed. 1993. “The Acts of Paul and Thecla.” The Apocryphal New Testament. Trans. J.K. Elliott. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Aristotle. 1991. The Art of Rhetoric. Trans. H. C. Lawson-Tancred. London: Penguin.

Betz, H. D. 1979. Galatians. Hermeneia Commentaries. Philadelphia: Fortress.

Brant, Jo-Ann. A. 1993. “The Place of Mimesis in Paul’s Thought.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religeuses. 22/3: 285-300.

Clark Wire, Antoinette. 2000.“Response: The Politics of the Assembly in Corinth.” Richard A. Horsley, ed. Paul and Politics. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity.

Crossan, John Dominic and Jonathan L. Reed. 2004. In Search of Paul. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.

Hubbard, Moyer V. 2002. New Creation in Paul’s Letters and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mack, Burton L. 1990. Rhetoric and the New Testament. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Mitchell, Margaret. 1993. Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox.

Savage, Timothy B. 1996.  Power through Weakness: Paul’s Understanding of the Christian Ministry in 2 Corinthians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Quintilian. 1977.  Institutio Oratoria. Trans. H.E.Butler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Winter, Bruce. 1997. Philo and Paul among the Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wisse, J. 1989. Ethos and Pathos from Aristotle to Cicero. Amsterdam: A.M. Hakkert.