Replies to Nichols

In praise of “Adaptation,” Mike Nichols says the audience should use their imagination while watching a movie (“The Joy of Trying to Figure Out a Film,” Dec. 29). I have a better idea. Let the screenwriter use his or her imagination to come up with an original idea for a movie. Anyone slightly familiar with the history of cinema will tell you that the core story structure idea in “Adaptation” is a copy of Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece “8 1/2.” Perhaps the Kaufmans should have called it “Stealing.”

Robert Mardosian

North Hills

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I thoroughly enjoyed the article by the brilliant film director Mike Nichols. While I’ll concede that “Adaptation” is a good, innovative film, it also happens to be one of the most overrated films of the year. My bone of contention with Nichols is that the last 30 minutes of the film go so seriously awry that they sour the preceding excellent portion of the film. The two violent deaths of central characters go against the grain of the way the characters behaved in the preceding section of the film. Nichols exclaims about this sequence: “It’s the joke!” I vaguely had this feeling myself. Perhaps [screenwriter Charlie] Kaufman wanted to satirize the contrived melodramatics of big studio pictures that try to “dumb down” to lowest common denominators. If the sequence was played tongue-in-cheek, I would have gotten the joke. Instead, it is played so earnestly I was left baffled and not sure what to think.

Steve Finkelstein

Los Angeles