Opelika-Auburn Film Arts Collective: Boxcar Opelika, AL
Patrick Thompson
Curator of Special Collections, Davis Arboretum
Adaptation— Orchid Talk
Program Description
Join us for a screening of Adaptation (2002), the Academy Award-winning dark comedy starring Nicolas Cage as twin brothers—one of whom spirals into frustration while attempting to adapt Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief into a screenplay.
The evening will feature a presentation by Patrick Thompson, Curator of Special Collections at Auburn University's Davis Arboretum and coordinator of the Alabama Plant Conservation Alliance. Thompson will discuss Alabama's remarkable botanical diversity, with a focus on the rare and endangered plant species that make the state one of North America's most important centers of plant biodiversity.
Before the presentation, explore a living orchid exhibit presented by the Alabama Orchid Society, browse a pop-up botanical book fair from Auburn Oil Booksellers, and enter for a chance to win a rare plant arrangement. This unique event combines film, science, and natural history for an evening celebrating Alabama's extraordinary plant life.
Presented At
Opelika-Auburn Film Arts Collective: Boxcar Opelika, AL
Film Synopsis
A lovelorn screenwriter becomes desperate as he tries and fails to adapt The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean for the screen.
Director Spike Jonze (HER, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH) delivers a stunningly original comedy that seamlessly blends fictional characters and situations with the lives of real people: obsessive orchid hunter John Laroche (Chris Cooper in an Oscar-winning role), New Yorker journalist Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage), and his twin brother, Donald (also Cage).
As Charlie struggles to adapt Orlean's best-selling book The Orchid Thief, he writes himself into his own movie, as various stories crash into one another, exploding into a wildly imaginative film.
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures
About the Speaker
Patrick Thompson lives in Auburn AL with his wife, 2 children and lots of pets and plants. He grew up on Shades Mountain near Birmingham AL, earned a Master of Science degree in Horticulture and has been employed by Auburn's Davis Arboretum since the year 2000. Patrick is the Arboretum’s Curator of Special Collections and Coordinator of The Alabama Plant Conservation Alliance. His work is focused on building collections of native Alabama plants and making sure that AL plants don’t go extinct. Thompson is an honorary Lee County Master Gardener, a certified arborist, occasional wildland firefighter, and a bonsai enthusiast. He is the sole proprietor of Trees Company LLC, doing surveys, consultation, landscape design and installation, habitat management, and arborist work since 2021.