Being John Malkovich (1999)
Director: Spike Jonze
Screenwriter: Charlie Kaufman
Actors: John Cusack (Craig Schwartz), Cameron Diaz (Lotte Schwartz), John Malkovich (John Malkovich), Catherine Keener (Maxine Lund)
Running time: 1h 52min (IMDb)
Trailer:
Film Review:
Craig Schwartz, played by John Cusack, is a puppeteer who is forced to find a job because he and his wife Lotte, played by Cameron Diaz, are struggling to make ends meet. Without many skills other than his puppeteering, Craig inquires about a job filing documents for a company because of his quick hands. When he gets to the building, he finds out that the job is located on the 7 ½ floor, a floor placed in between two others with a ceiling half the height of a normal one. While at work one day, Craig discovers a tiny door that had been hidden behind one of the filing cabinets. He enters inside to find a dark tunnel that leads directly to the brain of celebrity actor John Malkovich and after 15 minutes, shot him out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike. He tells Lotte about it, who tries it for herself and while in the mind of John Malkovich, she discovers that she is really a transexual. Craig then tells Maxine, his co-worker that he is in love with, about the portal and together they begin to start charging people $200 to take their own turn inside the mind of Malkovich. While this is happening, Lotte begins to develop feelings for Maxine as well and over a short period of time Craig and Lotte both lust for her. Maxine rejects Craig but tells Lotte that she feels the same feelings for her but only when she is in the mind of John Malkovich. Craig becomes jealous of his wife and puts her in a cage while he goes back into the mind of John Malkovich to have sex with Maxine. He starts to get better and better at controlling Malkovich by spending more time inside his mind until he is able to take full control. Craig attempts to live his dream as a puppeteer through Malkovich and alongside Maxine but this dream takes some unexpected twists and turns at the end.
( The secretary missundertanding every workd that Craig is saying )
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Being John Malkovich (1999)
Director: Spike Jonze
Screenwriter: Charlie Kaufman
Actors: John Cusack (Craig Schwartz), Cameron Diaz (Lotte Schwartz), John Malkovich (John Malkovich), Catherine Keener (Maxine Lund)
Running time: 1h 52min (IMDb)
Trailer:
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Craig Schwartz, played by John Cusack, is a puppeteer who is forced to find a job because he and his wife Lotte, played by Cameron Diaz, are struggling to make ends meet. Without many skills other than his puppeteering, Craig inquires about a job filing documents for a company because of his quick hands. When he gets to the building, he finds out that the job is located on the 7 ½ floor, a floor placed in between two others with a ceiling half the height of a normal one. While at work one day, Craig discovers a tiny door that had been hidden behind one of the filing cabinets. He enters inside to find a dark tunnel that leads directly to the brain of celebrity actor John Malkovich and after 15 minutes, shot him out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike. He tells Lotte about it, who tries it for herself and while in the mind of John Malkovich, she discovers that she is really a transexual. Craig then tells Maxine, his co-worker that he is in love with, about the portal and together they begin to start charging people $200 to take their own turn inside the mind of Malkovich. While this is happening, Lotte begins to develop feelings for Maxine as well and over a short period of time Craig and Lotte both lust for her. Maxine rejects Craig but tells Lotte that she feels the same feelings for her but only when she is in the mind of John Malkovich. Craig becomes jealous of his wife and puts her in a cage while he goes back into the mind of John Malkovich to have sex with Maxine. He starts to get better and better at controlling Malkovich by spending more time inside his mind until he is able to take full control. Craig attempts to live his dream as a puppeteer through Malkovich and alongside Maxine but this dream takes some unexpected twists and turns at the end.
Craig Schwartz is a complex character, right from the beginning of the movie he was already showing signs that he was a deeper thinker than just a regular 2-dimensional character. One line that stood out that demonstrates Craig's kind of thinking was when he said “Consciousness is a terrible curse, I think, I feel, I suffer, all I ask in return in the opportunity to do my work.” Craig envies his puppets who lack consciousness but he later discovers that he can live his dream still with his own consciousness but through the body of John Malkovich as well as control him as he would one of his puppets.
Lotte Schwartz is weird and quirky character that the viewer doesn’t know much about at the start of the film other than the fact that she is married to Craig and she is an animal lover. She starts making more and more appearances in the film as it progresses resulting in the viewer learning more about her as well as her learning more about herself. Through the mind of John Malkovich, she learns that she is actually transsexual and questions more about her relationship and her everyday life.
John Cusack did a very good job at portraying an awkward, almost unreadable character in Craig Schwartz. Even when he is angry, frustrated or happy he still maintains a weirdly calm and blank expression. Playing with puppets isn’t something that the common person does and John Cusack really turned himself into a typical “weirdo” for this role. Cameron Diaz played a role uncommon to the ones that she usually plays but just like her co-star John Cusack, she as well did a good job turning herself into a quirky, unusual, animal loving character that developed greatly throughout the course of the film.
The lighting used during this movie was pretty consistent, with the majority of the movie being shot with low-key lighting. Many of the scenes were filmed at night with most of the lighting coming from the actors surroundings like streetlights and illuminated signs. Other scenes that used very low-key lighting is when characters would make their way through the tunnel leading to the mind of John Malkovich. This adds gloominess and gives an uneasier feel to these scenes. It might not be noticed how dark the actual story of the movie is until the viewer looks back at the film in its entirety after watching it but the darkness of the lighting does help to add to the overall darkness of the movie in the same way that might be done in a horror film. High-key lighting was used more for scenes that were shot inside the business building. Most of these scenes were less serious and the lighting gave them a more relaxed feel. Shadows were used to add a sort of creepiness to these scenes like when Craig would be doing his puppeteering, most of the room would be dark and lights focusing on the stage and his puppets creating shadows in the back.
( Craig, Lotte and Maxine looking into John's portal to his mind)
One technique that was used to enhance the viewer's feeling of seeing through the eyes of John Malkovich was the use of a POV shot whenever a character was inside his mind. The viewer would see what John Malkovich was seeing and a black rim was added to the outside of the screen to give the viewer the impression that they really were inside the mind of this celebrity. Another interesting technique that was used was adding the dark, confusing introduction to the film of the lifelike puppet dancing around dramatically that had viewers questioning just what they were watching. This turned out to be a foreshadow of when Craig would finally make it as a puppeteer after he took over control of the body of John Malkovich.
(The resulst of John going into his own portal to his mind)
Another interesting aspect of the film was the use of editing. Short, rapid takes were used in multiple scenes, one being when Lotte found the room in Dr. Lester’s house with the timeline of the life of John Malkovich showing all the pictures of him growing up. Using these types of takes added an overwhelming feeling to the scene and got a lot of information and substance across in a short period of time. Long takes that seemed to be unfolding in real time occurred during some dialogue that only one camera was used for. Doing this made the viewer feel as if they were actually watching in on their conversation rather than the feeling of just viewing it in a movie from multiple angles. Cross-cutting was also used when John Malkovich was on the phone with Maxine and then would cut to Lotte with a POV view inside his mind. This gave the viewer the ability to experience two different perspectives, that of being somebody in the room with John and experiencing him from the exterior and give the perspective of Lotte who was in his interior.
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Likes and Dislikes:
The main thing that we did like about the film was its' uniqueness and the fact that we’ve never seen a film even remotely similar to it. It was such an odd experience watching it. When Lotte says, “I think it's kinda sexy that John Malkovich has a portal, y'know, sort of like, it's like, like he has a vagina. It's sort of vaginal, y'know, like he has a, he has a penis AND a vagina. I mean, it's sort of like... Malkovich's... feminine side. I like that,”1 you just scream, “What?” Things like that are not things we get to see often enough in movies. Something that we didn’t like were some of the frustrating scenes that happened in the beginning of the film that did not really make sense to us but that we knew were intentional once the movie continue and saw just how absurd it was. An example of this was the scene when the secretary could not understand what Craig was saying even though he was speaking perfectly fine and then when Dr. Lester was also speaking fine, he said that he had a speech impediment and that it was a miracle that the secretary could even understand him. It was later proved that all these weird, frustrating scenes were placed in the film to add to its uniqueness and to give the viewer the same frustration that the characters in the film were feeling. Something that we did not necessarily not like but that we did not fully understand was the whole concept of the 7½ floor. At first we didn’t know what exactly it had to do with the rest of the story but at the same time while being completely out of place, it seemed to fit within this film because of all the other weird aspects that were included in it. It also would’ve been nice to give the movie a longer running time to leave room to explore how Maxine can control Craig. It’s obvious and she even says it herself, we just think it’s something very interesting that the film could have exploited more.
Course Connections:
Being John Malkovich is a complex movie that can easily cover all of the content of the course because of it's diverse and elaborate concepts and ideas. The three topics chosen for the course connection is the question of a material soul, the core or minimal self and the Matrix (1999).
It’s hard to not associate, “Being John Malkovich,” with, “The Matrix.” Dr. Lester’s character is constantly mentioning his speech impediment and apologizing for how probably no one can understand a thing he’s saying. The thing is, the characters, as well as the viewer, can understand every word and don’t hear a speech impediment at all. Even the secretary, or at least who we thought was a secretary, can’t understand a single thing Craig is saying even though he is speaking completely clearly. So some people’s perceptions can be different to others. Maybe my reality is not the same as someone else’s or that my perception of the smell of apple pie is a completely different smell than someone else’s. Just like in, “The Matrix,” what is real? Is it how we feel, how we feel our reality is or how one may feel what the smell of apple pie is or is it the real world, the real world that is outside the matrix and the real smell of apple pie, if there is such a thing.
The first connection to this movie is the question of material soul. Material soul questions the mind and if the mind is material or if it’s not. The brain can be said to work independently from the body. This connects to Descartes’ dual substance problem, where everything is seen to be binary while they can actually be things to work in cohesion. These ideas mean that we could not need a physical brain to have a mind, a cognition. In the movie, Craig and other people are able to go into John’s mind while they still have their own consciousness and so does John. In this movie, it is possible to use your own mind to get inside someone else’s and at a certain point take control of their body. Maxine fell in love with Lotte when Lotte was inside John’s mind. This means that in some way Maxine was able to see or feel past the physical boundaries of John and into the mind that Lotte has taken over. This movie overall theorizes that everyone has a soul of their own and that the soul only works when attached to a brain. The movie is saying that the someone's soul is able to travel into someone's else’s mind and can even take control if their brain. Also, brains are transported to bodies here as if they work independently from one another.
Also, the question of core or minimal self is brought up when Craig is talking to a chip. He is on the couch and watching the largest puppeteer show in the world which makes him feel bad about his own puppeteering. So he turns to the monkey and says “You don’t know how lucky you are being a monkey. Because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think, I feel, I suffer.” When Craig was talking to the monkey, he believed that it was a core or minimal self. That it can only function and behave due to internal animal instincts. But when Lotte would interact with the monkey, she talked to is as if it was aware and cognitively sophisticated, just like another part of the family. In the movie, Craig had assumed that the monkey was not a conscious being most probably because it couldn’t verbally speak or interact with him. For Lotte, on the other hand, she believed that the monkey was, in fact, because she interacted with it more and was able to sense it from the monkey’s interactions with her. There’s even the fact that the monkey has flashbacks of its childhood trauma when it saves Lotte from the cage due to empathy. It even goes through therapy, like a human would.
It’s hard to not associate, “Being John Malkovich,” with, “The Matrix.” Dr. Lester’s character is constantly mentioning his speech impediment and apologizing for how probably no one can understand a thing he’s saying. The thing is, the characters, as well as the viewer, can understand every word and don’t hear a speech impediment at all. Even the secretary, or at least who we thought was a secretary, can’t understand a single thing Craig is saying even though he is speaking completely clearly. So some people’s perceptions can be different to others. Maybe my reality is not the same as someone else’s or that my perception of the smell of apple pie is a completely different smell than someone else’s. Just like in, “The Matrix,” what is real? Is it how we feel, how we feel our reality is or how one may feel what the smell of apple pie is or is it the real world, the real world that is outside the matrix and the real smell of apple pie, if there is such a thing.
Questions:
1. If you could get everything you’ve ever wanted in life and leave the wretched one you currently have behind by taking control of somebody else’s body and removing their control of it, would you at least think about doing it?
3. Do you think there’s any evidence in the movie that shows where Craig’s need to control stems from, besides puppeteering?
2. Why do you think Lotte never got surgery to have a penis?
3. Do you think there’s any evidence in the movie that shows where Craig’s need to control stems from, besides puppeteering?
Works Cited:
Mo, M. (2007). The Philosophy of The Matrix. ScienceBlogs, Retrieved from http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/08/04/the-philosophy-of-the-matrix/.
Seth, A. (2016). The material soul. Spiked, Retrieved from http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/the-material-soul/17970#.WOWJGTvyvIU
Being John Malkovich. Directed by Spike Jonze, performances by John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, John Malkovich, and Catherine Keener, Universal Studios/Focus Features, 1999.
