Adaptationalising The Three

At the end class Jason threw the idea out that The Three could refer to Susan Orlean, Donald and Charlie all being the same person. This idea wasn’t apparent when we actually began to cut but during the process I realised that subconsciously it was exactly what I was aiming for—how could I re-cut the ending such that it implied that the three of them were one and the same?
We had to cut out all the parts referring to Donald after the phone-call to Charlie’s mother and the continuation of the script. So we had to cut the sequence where we see Charlie at his typewriter recalling the conversation between him and his twin while in hiding. We also removed the shot where Amelia asks Charlie in the subsequent sequence how the script is going. So Donald dies—that’s one down.
We don’t actually see Susan being taken away which could then imply that Susan never really existed. If to that you were to say that Laroche could verify her existence, I say that Laroche was driven to insanity by the death of his wife and the drugs got to his head. He is unreliable to us and hence also to the police. Her imprisonment is not physical but of the mind. This jarring experience paved the way for Charlie to purge himself of Susan which is why he is free to pursue Amelia.
There is a tiny 6-second shot of the chair which Charlie looks to off-screen which we removed and placed at the end of the sequence. This was crucial to the coherence of the sequence because it is the only common place where we see all three characters. How do we show three split personalities of the same person without giving it away? By using different characters but the writer’s chair is what places all of them on common ground.
Now the last shot may seem short but I definitely had more than three seconds in my cut. I think something went wrong in the exporting to quicktime process so please excuse the ambiguity and keep in mind that we would like you to linger on that image. Even though it isn’t a work-in-progress treat the last shot as one por favor.

xoxo Waylon

Adaptationalising

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