Adaptation as a function of Evolution

Adaptation as a Function of Evolution

Evolutionary Theories of the Arts and some threads unraveled from The Orchid Thief
(Susan Orlean) and Adaptation (Charlie Kaufman)

Copyright Rouxnette Meiring

2 November 2011

Evolutionary theories of the arts

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”  Charles Darwin.

Can the integrated explanatory framework of evolutionary anthropology, biology and psychology offer insights that we can apply to literature and film?  I want to argue that it can.  I will use remarks and findings by sociobiologists and leading theorists in the new movement of the Evolutionary Theory of the Arts to substantiate the claim.  I will also consider aspects of the adaptation process in the film Adaptation by screen writer Charlie Kaufman from the non-fiction account The Orchard Thief by Susan Orlean, in order to further explicate the claim.  Let us first look at what the theorists have to say:
Edward Osborne Wilson, the father of sociobiology, published a book in 1998 called Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge in which he reviews methods to unite the sciences with the humanities and pleads for more attention to interdisciplinary research and he believes that "although art is not part of human nature, appreciation of art definitely is. "  Evolutionary theorists of the arts seem to agree with him.  Brian Boyd wrote a book in 2009, called On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction where he proposes art and storytelling as adaptations and he explains the evolved cognitive mechanisms underpinning fiction. (Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall, 2010: 547)  Joseph Carroll's book Evolution and Literary Theory integrates traditional humanist theory with evolutionary psychology, which in turn opposes poststructuralist theory.  His Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature and Literature is a collection of essays that takes in new developments in this field.  Jonathan Gottschall's 2008 book Literature, Science and a New Humanities, also draws attention to the importance of interdisciplinary study.  In a book edited by Boyd, Carroll and Gottschall, they explain their views as evolutionary theorists of the Arts as follows:

“We believe that works of art are shaped by our evolved human nature, by culture and by individual experience.  Adopting an evolutionary perspective enables us to build theories of literature and film not from near the end of the story but from the start, from the ground up.  By building in this way, we can ask altogether new questions and return to older questions with sharper eyes and surer hands.” (2010:3)

What exactly is adaptation from an evolutionary biological point of view?

Theodosius Dobzhansky, prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist attempted the following definition of “adaptation” as scientists still understand it today:

“Adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats.” (Dobzhansky, 1968:1-34)

What about filmic adaptation? Filmic adaptation consists of the reading of a book and the writing of a film script.  So how could we link what the evolutionary biologist have said about adaptation, to what has been said by the evolutionary theorists of the art?  Robert Stam, referring to the film, Adaptation, remarks in his Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation (Stam & Raengo 2005) “The film brings out the Darwinian overtones of the word ‘adaptation’, evoking adaptation as a means of evolution and survival.”  The biological definition of adaptation could be compared to adaptation as an art form in two ways:  Firstly, the habitat/habitats of the world of art are the society/societies of the time with its habits and fashions and socio-economic and political views.  The evolutionary process whereby the organism (the novel or film) is able to survive the passage of time depends on its universality, timelessness or ability to adapt in order to stay relevant.  Secondly, the evolutionist believes that fiction/art is part of humanity because it was selected as something that enhanced survival (in other words it is an adaptation) or it was a by-product of “something else” that was an adaptation.  In his chapter, Darwin and the Directors, Murray Smith believes this “something else” is our capacity to imagine.

“One thing that sets us apart from other species is our ability to simulate, in our minds, circumstances which we might encounter, or indeed which we have encountered in the past.  And in doing so, we are able to rehearse how things might go in circumstances we have not actually experienced.  The imagination, in other words, enhances our foresight and supercharges our ability to plan; and it is not hard to see how this improves our fitness in the environment of human action.”  (Smith in Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall 2010:259)

At this point, it is perhaps appropriate to also look at definitions of the term “evolution”, since evolution and adaptation are key words in this essay.  It is interesting that in Darwin’s glossary at the end of The Origin of Species, the word “evolution” does not even appear.  Professor Manfred Laubichler and professor Jane Maienschein, wrote in an article, Embryos, Cells, Genes and Organisms: Reflections on the History of Evolutionary Developmental Biology”:”The notion of evolution originally referred to the unfolding of a preformed structure within the developing embryo and only later acquired its current meaning as the transformation of species through time.” (Sansom & Brandon (eds) 2007:chapter 1)  A more recent explanation comes from one of the most respected evolutionary biologists, Douglas J. Futuyama, defining biological evolution in Evolutionary Biology, (Sinauer Associates 1986 ) as follows:

"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. “

Evolutionary theory is extremely relevant to literature, art and film, when one poses the question: Why would emotions have been naturally selected as one of the human traits to help us survive as a species?  Murray Smith again seems to have the answer.  He believes emotions motivate us firstly to act decisively in the world and not just drift among equally weighted options.  Secondly it provides us with quick and intense responses to our changing environment – something reason alone cannot always provide. (Smith 2003)  Film, more than any other art form, depends on the interplay of emotions as expressed in the human face, voice, posture and gesture.  Many of its sub-genres are even named after emotions (weepers, thrillers, tear-jerkers, horror-movies).  Smith also argues that this dependency accounts for the foundational significance of facial expression in films where the characters have lost the ability of facial expression. (The English Patient, Les Yeux sans Visage)  Sight is our dominant sense for good evolutionary reasons. Andrew Parker, research fellow at Oxford’s Department of Zoology claims in his book In the blink of an eye: the cause of the most dramatic event in the history of life that the “Cambrian explosion” happened because life-forms had their eyes opened literally for the first time during that period and suddenly there was enormous pressure to evolve. (Parker,2003)  It is fascinating to learn that some cells in the brain fire only when eyes stare straight at the human being! This effect is amplified emotionally through the amygdale, which is the brain’s emotional router. It has always been crucial to human survival to recognize another person as a distinct individual and to read his emotions and intentions. (Joseph Anderson, Character in Citizen Kane, 1996, from Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall, 2010.)  But are facial expressions universal or do they depend on culture? Paul Ekman is a contemporary evolutionary scientist of facial expression and he believes that a range of basic emotional expressions are instantly recognized cross-culturally.  These emotions are happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, fear and surprise.  These basic facial expressions play an important role to orientate the audience towards a scene in a film.  Expressions associated with higher emotions like love, admit more cultural variation.  Ekman mentions culture-specific display rules which govern certain emotions and determine who can express their emotions and when.  (Ekman,1982)

It is perhaps necessary here to mention the fact that sensitivity to emotional signals is absent in certain psychological conditions, like Asperger’s syndrome where the cognitive ability of people with Asperger’s allow them to articulate social norms in a laboratory context and show a theoretical understanding of people’s emotions but they have difficulty acting on this knowledge in real-life situations.  The wonderful novel by Mark Haddon, (winner of the Whitbread book of the year) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time sheds tender light on this condition.  It might be an interesting topic for research in evolutionary film theory.  Film therapy could perhaps be developed as cognitive behavioral therapy for people with Asperger’s.

David Bordwell believes affinities and curiosities about other humans as well as the bonding effects of watching a film with others, are only some of the things that need to be investigated through systematic study of the cinematic experience and the range of emotional effects it could have. If we look at culture as an elaboration of evolutionary processes, there should be no gulf between “biology” and “society”.  The effects of film stem from their impact on our sensory systems, which prompts us to detect movement, shape, colour and sounds all of which is a transcultural capacity.  He says:

“And because affective states and counterfactual speculation are of adaptive advantage, it is likely that an artistic medium that permits emotional and imaginative expression would have appeal across cultural boundaries.” (Bordwell 2008 in Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall 2010:283)

In his essay, Art and Evolution: The Avant-Garde as Test Case (Boyd 2008) Brian Boyd defines art as being “cognitive play with pattern”.  In most of the animal kingdom, “play” takes up a large amount of the animal’s time and plays an important part in the process of learning to adapt to real life.  It is also known that the amount of play in a species correlates with its flexibility of behavior.   Boyd quotes biologist Stephen Jay Gould who said “The human mind delights in finding pattern.”  Art is the opposite of lack of pattern.  Strong emotional reactions are elicited by our perception of pattern or the deviation from it. 
To summarize:  Boyd (2010:436) sees art as an evolutionary adaptation and offers seven distinct biological benefits of art, which do indeed offer insights that we could apply to literature and film:

1.      Art improves our production and processing of pattern especially in the key areas of sight, sound and sociality – it can reconfigure minds since the emotional intensity (engaging attention and stirring response) helps consolidate memory.

2.      Those with talents in arts, earn the attention of others which correlates with status and thus reproductive and survival success.

3.      It intensifies the advantages of shared attention and shared purpose.

4.      It strengthens group allegiance and tribal identification.

5.      The stimulus of art offers relaxation in a stressful society.

6.      It generates confidence that we can transform the world to suit our preferences.

7.      It supplies skills and models we can refine and recombine to ensure ongoing cumulative creativity.
In the next section, I will look at interesting comparisons between adaptation in evolutionary biology and in film.

The Orchid Thief (Susan Orlean) and Adaptation (Charlie Kaufman): unraveling some threads

The Orchid Thief is a book of creative non-fiction in which the New Yorker writer Susan Orlean tells the story of John Laroche, the “orchid thief” and three Seminole Indian men who were caught in 1994, leaving a wild swamp in the Fakahatchee Strand Reserve in the Florida Everglades, with bags full of Ghost orchids (Polyrrhizalindenii).  Orlean found the story interesting and went to Florida to find out more.  She reports on the court case, but also on the history of orchid collecting and the eccentric world of orchid collectors with their subcultures and smugglers.  She delights her readers with interesting facts about orchids – for example that it takes seven years from seed to bloom, there are over 100 000 named varieties and hybrids and orchids live so long they are made provisions for in wills.  Laroche becomes a friend and also her character study of human passion for collecting and acquiring. The book becomes an obsession with obsession.  Laroche tells Susan that orchids are considered the most highly evolved flowering plants on earth. (Orlean 1999:49). It also becomes clear that orchids are extremely adaptable, which is part of their ability to survive. Images from the book suggests the similarities between orchids and art adaptation: “Its essential character can be repeatedly re-imagined”  and “Florida is a warm, tropical place…infinitely transformable.  It is as suggestible as someone under hypnosis.”(1999:51) These images suggest creativity, fertility and change.  We also learn of the orchid as a hybrid form, and of mutations and cross-fertilization and that only complex plants rely on cross-fertilization.  On p 53 Laroche says, “Charles Darwin believed that living things produced by cross-fertilization always prevail over self-pollinated ones in the contest for existence because their offspring have new genetic mixtures and they then will have the evolutionary chance to adapt as the world around them changes.”

Stam believes film adaptations are also hybrid forms like the orchid and a meeting place of different species/genres.  He asks in his Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation (2005:3) “If mutation is the means by which the evolutionary process advances, then we can also see filmic adaptation as mutations that help their source novel to survive.”  Other images from the book that could be compared to film adaptation, or the view that prevails in some literary circles of film adaptation, is the parasite metaphor – the adapter becomes the giant orchid flower, sucking the life out of its host.  Adaptation, the film, is a 2002 American comedy-drama film directed by Spike Jonze, written by Charlie Kaufman and based on Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief. The film had been in development from 1994.  Columbia Pictures asked Kaufman to write the film script, but he went through writer’s block as he realized that there is no narrative to the book.  He then decided to write a script about his experience of adapting The Orchid Thief into a screenplay. He creates main characters that are not in the book, himself amongst others and a twin brother who writes formulaic, commercial scripts but is very successful doing just that.  Another new character in the film is script guru Robert McKee who is the author of the famous Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting.

One struggles to find anything in the plot of this film script resembling Susan Orlean’s book.  But when Orlean was asked whether she thought the film was a faithful adaptation of her book, she said that ironically it was an extremely faithful adaptation of what the essence of the book was for her and that in spirit, it was faithful. (“Its essential character can be repeatedly re-imagined”) She saw her book as a character in the movie, as the protagonist, and felt that it was far more respectful and attentive to her work than she would have expected. http://movies.about.com/library/weekly/aaadaptationintc.htm

In terms of adaptation as enhancing quality, Orlean said in a Texas Book Festival audience interview in 2008: “Charlie [Kaufman] unearthed themes that were not explicit in the book.  There were qualities of the book that emerged through the film that I did not have a grip on myself.” (Heller: 2008)  In his discussion of the film, Adaptation, Robert Stam notices that Charlie even struggles to “adapt” to everyday life – he cannot even survive, much less evolve.  Stam also finds it apt that the film is set in Hollywood, the cut-throat city where it is a matter of survival of the fittest. (2005:3)  The film starts with two of Robert McKee’s big no-no’s.  “God help you if you use voice-over” and “never call attention to yourself.”  We hear the voice of Charlie the scriptwriter in a neurotic monologue about his own short-comings and eccentricities.  He ends it with the observation that it is so depressing that his psychological problems are probably all due to some “chemical misbalance” or “misfiring neurons” in his brain.

The film is full of evolution and adaptation images – many more than in Orlean’s book (“There were qualities of the book that emerged through the film that I did not have a grip on myself.”) (Heller: 2008)  An evolution fantasy sequence, created by Digital Domaine starts with events “four billion and forty years ago” and ends with the birth of Charlie – in the city of ”adapt or die” – Hollywood.  Laroche listens to a recording of Darwin’s book The Origin of Species while he drives his truck to the Fakahatchee to collect orchids.  Throughout the film he has a lot to say about adaptation and evolution.  According to him adaptation is “to figure out how to thrive in the world.”  References to evolution and adaptation are also uttered by scriptwriter Charlie. He says adaptation is “the journey we all take… trapped in our own bodies.”  After the Robert McKee course on script writing, he confesses that McKee’s words shocked him. He echoes the meaning of adaptation in biological terms when he says, “It was about my choices as a human being”.  The character Robert McKee advises him “The characters must change and the change must come from them.”  But then, according to the Susan Orlean character in the film, “change is not a choice… it happens.”  Remember that Douglas Futuyama said in his definition, "In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change.”  Laroche, as if responding to Orlean’s “change is not a choice, it happens” idea, tells her later in the film, “The drug helps people to become fascinated,”  which is the one change she would like to see happening in herself.

The word “orchid” comes from the Greek word “orchis” which means testicle.  It is ironic that Charlie is not only going through a “sterile” phase as adaptation script writer, he is also sterile in his relationships with women.  He masturbates constantly and fantasizes about sex with every woman he meets, but his “real-life” relationship is at a dead-end because of the choices he makes.  Remember, Brian Boyd defined art as being “cognitive play with pattern” and biologist Stephen Jay Gould said “The human mind delights in finding pattern.”  The idea of pattern and finding patterns to make sense of an otherwise overwhelming world is also a key idea in the film.  Orlean says in the film, “There are too many directions to go in, too many choices.  Obsession limits it to something digestible.”  In the dream-sequence Charlie imagines her talking to him and telling him, “Focus on one thing in the story that you feel passionate about and write about that.”  We recall Murray Smith’s remark that emotions motivate us firstly to act decisively in the world and not just drift among equally weighted options.  Charlie has Orlean confessing, “I want to feel what it feels like to care passionately about something.”

The suggestive metaphor of pollination and cross-pollination as well as mutation is also beautifully illustrated in the film with close-ups of butterflies and orchids. It is often also cross-pollination and mutations that helps a source novel to survive and to adapt to changing environments and tastes as well as to a new medium. Stam reminds us that film is a form of writing that borrows from other forms or writing:  “Do not adaptations ‘adapt to’ changing environments and changing tastes as well as to a new medium, with distinct industrial demands, commercial pressures, censors’ taboos and aesthetic norms? And are adaptations not a hybrid form like the orchid, the meeting place of different ‘species?’” (2005:3)  Ironically, Charlie does not allow himself to be cross-pollinated at the start of the film.  He fears the Hollywood block buster story and the Robert Mc Kee “recipes”.  He does not want to share his work with his brother Donald, although Donald constantly talks about his work to everyone who wants to listen and he is always enthralled with other people’s ideas.  And then we find out that against all odds, Donald has written a successful script.  Charlie tells his agent and the producer, that he does not want to tarnish the film with car chases, drugs, sex and murders as the typical Hollywood film does.  In the end that is exactly what he does – the one piece of advice that he takes from McKee - to “wow them in the end” and he forces his characters to go through a catharsis, another one of McKee’s requirements.  The other McKee “principles” he ignores – don’t use voice-over, never call attention to yourself and you cannot have a protagonist without desire.  Eventually he writes a digressive, non-linear plot with fake catharses in the end. 

The final scenes in the film echo the pursuit of the orchid hunters in the olden days – running through swamps, escaping murderers, being eaten by crocodiles… Susan Orlean’s last words in the film have definite evolutionary connotations: “I want to be a baby again, I want to be new…”  And then we have the last shot: The fast-forward of growing and dying flowers in the foreground and the Hollywood traffic and fast lane cut-throat life in the background. It gives us a time-frame.  Life is short and life is very long – the life of a flower lasts for a couple of days, that of a human being some decades and of the evolution of a species, a couple of eons.

I want to conclude that the integrated explanatory framework of evolutionary anthropology, biology and psychology can in fact offer many insights that we can apply to literature and film.  And we will always be looking for more insights, because as Brett Cooke wrote in his 2002 essay, Human Nature, Utopia and Dystopia (Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall 2010:381): “We will always be driven to discover what it is to be human, to be ‘us’.”

Bibliography

Boyd B, Carroll J & Gottschall J. (eds.) Evolution, Literature & Film 2010, Columbia University Press, New York

Darwin, Charles The Origin of Species 1929, Watts&CO Fleet Street London.

Dobzhansky, T.; Hecht M.K.; Steere, W.C. 1968, On some fundamental concepts of evolutionary biology, Evolutionary biology volume 2 (1st ed.).  New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. pp.1–34.

Ekman, Paul, (ed) Emotion in the Human Face 1982 2^nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Haddon, Mark, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time 2003, David Fickling Books, London.

Heller, A. Texas book festival interview with Susan Orlean 2008, Youtube video, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUwrIeEB9-Y

Mascie-Taylor, CGN &Rosetta L (eds.) Reproduction and Adaptation 2011 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Murray R & Topel F Interview with Susan Orlean and producer Edward Saxon about Adaptation and The Orchid Thief  http://movies.about.com/library/weekly/aaadaptationintc.htm

Orlean, Susan, The Orchid Thief 1999 “Vintage” Random House London.

Parker, A. In the blink of an eye: the cause of the most dramatic event in the history of life 2003 Simon & Schuster UK Ltd London.

Sansom R & Brandon R.N. Integrating Evolution and Development 2007, MIT Press, Cambridge.

Stam, R & Raengo A. (eds) Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford.

Wilson, EO, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge 1998, Afred A. Knopf Inc. New York.

Filmography

Adaptation. Dir. Spike Jonze Columbia Pictures, 2002.