• by Karl Greenberg , Staff Writer, November 24, 2015

I watched “Adaptation” last week. It’s the Charlie Kaufman movie about Charlie Kaufman trying to make a movie about a book, “The Orchid Thief,” by Susan Orlean. In the movie, Kaufman, played by Nicolas Cage, ends up taking Robert McKee's (played here by Brian Cox) famous screenwriting class. I took that class, too, and I'm thinking of doing something Kaufman-esque about the auto industry, the Korean auto industry.

It would be kind of a cross between "Lost in Translation" and "Scanners." I got the idea in Los Angeles last week after an interview with Peter Schreyer, the global head of design for Kia and Hyundai. We had a long, rambling conversation. But it bolstered my view that, over the years, the Hyundai and Kia organizations have evolved vis-a-vis their American operations, to survive the U.S. market.

A few years ago, someone suggested I write a book about what the Korean auto business is really about, from the inside, about how difficult it was at that time for Americans to work under the strict top-down hierarchy of the organization's culture in Seoul. But the company, which, like other import brands started out in the U.S. by taking U.S. executives’ advice with a grain of salt, seems to have loosened up a lot over the past 10 years. You can't have cars that look and perform as theirs do without communications going in both directions. 

But back then? I remember getting involved in a fact-finding mission one Korean automaker had put together to figure out whether they should market a certain luxury saloon in the U.S. For the day-long affair, executives flew in from Korea, and American experts flew in from the left coast. By day's end I was ready to fly the coop. First, the work ethic: eight hours with a couple of five-minute breaks. There would have been a revolt if that had been an American company. But the Korean execs sat there, all of them, plus their PR staff, and underlings, for hours and hours, completely focused. That scared me on behalf of American business.

Second, they evinced a complete indifference to the Americans who showed up for a paycheck to give their opinions. It struck me that, prima facie, someone at the top had made up his mind and wasn’t going to budge. The whole thing was theater. 

Third: After the event, the Korean execs decamped for tie-loosening at a Korean restaurant. That struck me, at the time, as weird. I imagined a group of Ford execs doing something like that: capping a nine-hour flight to Berlin and a day of meetings with Budweiser and burgers at the Berlin Applebee's.  

Opening scene with Schreyer at the L.A. auto show (Schreyer played by Christoph Waltz). 

He: Your designs are wonderful. You've given Kia a great physical personality. 

Schreyer: Things have changed. They get me, I get them. I don't get you, however.  

(Cut to the Korean automaker's headquarters, where the journalist completely misunderstands and is completely misunderstood, and vice versa, if that were possible. Cut to hotel bar, 3 a.m., where he meets an U.S. automotive expert there to opine to said company about the virtues of introducing a luxury brand to the U.S. exec is played by Scarlett Johansson.)

He: So, what are you telling them?

She: It doesn't matter what I tell them. I don't think they care. They're just checking the boxes. They won't listen.

He: I mean, if they were to listen...

She: I'd probably tell them it makes no sense. But that's not what they want to hear.

He: Yeah? What do they want to hear?

She: What do you think? 

He: It’s a great idea? 

(pause)

He: …and that's what you told them.

(meaningful pause. They stare at each other)

She:…that's what they're paying me to tell them.

(Cut to a fence at the DMZ, where he is looking meaninglessly at a DPRK soldier, who is looking back at him. It is a meaningless scene full of meaning. Cut to church, where he is attending Mass. Back to bar, 3 a.m.) 

He: I had an idea. A movie: about a guy writing a book about the Korean automotive industry, something that nobody has done, really. It would be called Korea Has Cars!! and the cover jacket would be a pastiche from a post-war celebration of Korean independence from Japan, and an exhortation to rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, or…or maybe it would be early print ad for the Hyundai Pony. But he can’t figure out what to write...

She: Two words: Robert McKee.