Being John Malkovich (Bianca, Darcy, Stephania, Victoria)

Being John Malkovich (1999)

 



                                        

                                                           Directed by: Spike Jonze

                                                          Written by: Charlie Kaufman

                                                          Starring: John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener
                                                        
                                                          Running time: 112 minutes

                                  Link to Trailer:  http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3568894233
  

Review

   

     Craig Shwartz is an unemployed puppeteer who lives with his wife Lotte. He soon finds a job filing paperwork at LesterCorp and quickly develops feelings for his coworker Maxine. One day, Craig discovers a small door behind a filing cabinet and decides to enter it only to discover that it is a portal that takes him into the mind of actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes until he is ejected into a ditch. When Lotte tries it for the first time, she finds herself obsessed with it and realizes she has transgender desires and has fallen in love with Maxine while in the mind of John Malkovich. Craig becomes crazy after discovering this and ties Lotte up in their chimp Elijah's cage and dates Maxine thru John where they eventually get married and have a child. Craig stays in John's body for several months and becomes a world famous puppeteer. After seeing this, Dr. Lester, Craig's boss teams up with Lotte to get Craig out by threatening to kill Maxine. Lotte at first tries to shoot Maxine and they end up in John's subconscious. When they get out, Maxine admits that it was Lotte in John's mind when she got pregnant. When he finds this out, Craig enters the portal again but finds himself trapped in the mind of Maxine's daughter, Emily.

   

    The cinematic techniques in the film are what make it so mind blowing. Firstly, the sets and props are very significant in the movie. For example, the filing cabinet was somewhat important because if Craig wouldn't have moved it, he would have never discovered  the portal.  The portal was found in his office at LesterCorp where he works which is on the 7th and a half floor. This immediately gave viewers the realization that the film was somewhat fictional and also beginning to be crazy. However, most importantly were Craig's puppets. They were essential because they basically portrayed his thoughts and experiences. They symbolized a life Craig wishes he had. This is shown when he is interested in Maxine but was getting rejected by her. Instead of going home and joining Lotte in bed, he had gone to his workshop and made a puppet of Maxine. He then made skits demonstrating the way he wishes she would be towards him; interested and affectionate.

    

    A very interesting technique was the flashback of Elijah the chimp that he had of his childhood trauma where he had to untie his brother and father. This helped him to untie Lotte when Craig had trapped her in his cage. Throughout the whole movie, Lotte talks about Elijah having childhood trauma which Craig would always dismiss since he did not believe so. Craig does not see animals as having a conscious mind and having this flashback really challenges the idea of consciousness and how non-human animals are in fact conscious. The scene was considered funny because of the ridiculous dialogue that was taking place. But, Elijah's memories were causing him trouble as an adult, and that to get better, he will have to "work through" it, like Lotte says.
 

    As for costumes, they were similar to the characters' personalities. Maxine always dressed in either a black skirt and white blouse or a plain black dress with heels which showed how confident and seductive she was. Craig had stringy hair, small circle glasses and careless wardrobe choices that did not match. They looked wrinkled and old which essentially mirrored his more cartoon-ish style. Lotte was somewhat the same with her outrageous clothes that were mostly baggy with an odd mismatch of colors and out of this world frizzy hair. She fit the profile for crazy animal lover.

     

   The overall tone of the lighting was somber, dull and gloomy in almost every scene which further illustrates how it was more of a dark movie. It started off from the beginning in the first scene with the puppet show. It consisted of fairly blue tones which carried out throughout the movie specifically Craig and Lotte's apartment which could symbolize their rather unhappy vibe that develops.

 

     Maxine was the most iconic character in the film. Right from the start she came off as rebellious, seductive, very confident and intelligent which is exactly how she ended up being. She knew what she was doing when she played both Craig and Lotte and made them both fall in love with her. Sprung from her manipulations,  we might be persuaded to say that Maxine is the true puppet master in the movie. On the subject of puppets, no one would doubt that Craig is a fantastic puppeteer which is why he thrives, more than anyone else inside of Malkovich's body. He is able to propel him into legendary and famous status within a span of a few months. Craig has fantastic relationships with things around him that he can control but his downside is that he can only control inanimate objects. His inability to control humans or his emotions eventually leads to his downfall. John Malkovich, the character who the main plot revolves around, plays himself in this film where nearly everyone takes a turn inside of his body which raises some ethical issues of consent. He has no control over his own body when someone is in his portal, specifically Craig. When he realizes this he starts to go crazy and he even enters his own portal where he freaks out because everything he sees is himself and everything he hears is his name being said. Craig is able to transform him into a famous puppeteer for a while but towards the end he also suffers a downfall when he essentially is stripped of his real identity.

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    The film raises the philosophical issue of personal identity. It raises questions about the nature of celebrity, and why we are fascinated by them. It raises issues of self-identity and role-playing. Is it a coincidence we are sent into the brain of an actor? It also raises issues of homosexuality and sexuality in general.

 

Word Count: 1002 words

 

 

   "Being John Malkovich" meets most of the basic requirements that make a film watchable. It has a gripping plot, which provides philosophical debate, intellectual material and humor in addition to being wound up in a terrible, destructive, and kind of funny love story. In that way, we can say that the movie reaches out to a few different demographics such as the intellectual crowd but also the more laid back viewers, such as most college students. 

 In addition, the use of absurdism is used as a medium to demonstrate greater philosophical debate revolving around epistemological problems and issues of the nature of consciousness. It was something that gave the film even more humor for understanding the difficult concepts thrown at the viewers. However, we also found that the use of absurdism obscured the point of the film and made it harder to suspend our disbelief of the movie.  We would argue that because the theme of the Absurd is not completely revealed to us at the introduction of the movie, it leaves less of a foothold for newcomers to enter the philosophical discussion and grab hold of the greater ideas this movie talks about. The only thing we see before Craig walks into the obviously absurd Lester Corp. building, is his family life. The viewer knows that the film is not realistic only once Craig goes into Lester Corp., but as strange as his home life is, taking care of a sick monkey with his frizzy girlfriend is something people would accept and not see as a reason to watch the movie with a critical eye. Overall, we believe that with the combination of its dense intellectual implications, its commentary on the relationships between people, its sense of humor, and good cinematography, it overcomes a weakness which could only be called a "complicated movie".

   1) Consciousness is a key term present in both the film and course material.  At the very beginning of the movie, Craig says “you don’t know how lucky you are being a monkey because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think, I feel, I suffer.” A subject that has been brought up often in class is whether animals are conscious and if they feel pain or not. We saw a video which demonstrated how monkeys feel empathy and how other animals are self-aware, etc. In the film, Lotte brings up how the monkey has childhood trauma and there is a scene which shows the monkey remembering the trauma he went through when he was younger. That is an example of the idea that he is conscious and he does feel pain and is self-aware even though Craig is being ignorant in a way, and does not believe animals are conscious while Lotte does.

    2) Another connection is the idea of metaphysics. In the movie, after Craig went into the portal for the first time, he said to Maxine “this raises all sorts of philosophical-type questions about the nature of self, about the existence of soul.”  He then said that he had a piece of wood in his hand when he went in and when he came out it was gone. “Where is it? Did it disappear? How could that be? Is it still in Malkovich’s head?...Do you see what a metaphysical can of worm this portal is?” In class, we learned that metaphysics “encompasses everything that exists, as well as the nature of existence itself.”
   3) The idea of personhood is present in “Being John Malkovich” which we have also seen in class. Personhood is defined as the status of being a person. People that are not considered to have personhood are usually slaves, fetuses and ancestors. In this case, John would technically not be granted personhood because he is considered Craig's slave because he is the one in control of his body. A slave is someone who cannot control his or her actions, have any rights or how they should live their life. This is exactly what its like to be John because he no longer has a say in anything. Craig controls John and he starts to take over his sense of self by controlling him through changing his career from acting to being a puppeteer, as well as controlling his whole relationship with Maxine.

Questions

1. If you could, would you want to experience someone else's inner life? If so, who?

2. If you were going to die, would you trap yourself inside an infants mind to continue some form of life?

3.What is the meaning behind the 7 and a half floor?

Web links
 

This reddit thread explores the theme of dehumanization shown throughout the film. Principally,  that Malkovich serves as a vessel for many people. It also discusses the relationships that develop in the film which are defined by love as obsession, particularly between Craig and Lotte with Maxine.



https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/4rhqa5/being_john_malkovich_1999_discussion_and_analysis/

This film review informed by Christian Faith highlights the controversy of sex and gender politics as some of many themes that have come up. It also touches upon identity, manipulation, immortality, voyeurism, commercialism, the subconscious, and the celebrity-fan relationship.

http://decentfilms.com/reviews/beingjohnmalkovich

 

Work Cited



 "Being John Malkovich - Review." Imdb, 1 April.    2017, www.imdb.com/reviews/230/23063.html.

Faith, Christian. "Being John Malkovich Review." decentfilms,     
              http://decentfilms.com/reviews/beingjohnmalkovich. Accessed 4 April 2017.

 

LeManLeLegend. "Re: Being John Malkovich Discussion and Analysis of Themes." /r/truefilm,
            4 April. 2017,https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/4rhqa5/
            being_john_malkovich_1999_discussion_and_analysis/