Being John Malkovich - Corey, David & Mac

Being John Malkovich 

The title of the film is Being John Malkovich, directed by Spike Jonze, and written by Charlie Kaufman. Some notable actors in the film are John Cusack who plays Craig Shwartz, Cameron Diaz, which is Lotte Shwartz, Catherine Keener (Maxine), Orson bean (Lester) and John Malkovich who of course plays John Malkovich. The running time for this film is 112 minutes or 1 hour and 52 minutes. (Being John Malkovich, Wikipedia)

Being John Malkovich follows Craig Schwartz (played by John Cusack), an unemployed and unhappily married man, whose dreams of being a world-renowned puppeteer are nowhere close to coming to fruition. Looking for a job, he gets hired at as a file clerk, working for a company that oddly occupies floor seven and a half of a New York office building (resulting in extremely low ceilings). There, he discovers a hidden door; a portal into the mind of actor John Malkovich (who plays himself). Upon this discovery, Craig decides to start a business selling these journeys into the mind of Malkovich with his colleague Maxine (played by Catherine Keener), who he falls in love with. However, as Craig’s wife Lotte (played by Cameron Diaz) discovers the portal, she realizes that she identifies as trans and falls in love with Maxine, who in the real world has sex with Malkovich while Lotte is in his head (forming a complicated love triangle between Craig, Maxine and Lotte). Upon discovering Lotte’s intentions, Craig keeps her hostage while he takes her place in Malkovich’s mind (while Maxine is having sex with Malkovich). Craig learns how to control Malkovich, turns him into the world’s most famous puppeteer, and wins Maxine over. By the end, not only does Craig give up control of Malkovich, but both Lotte and Maxine fall in love with each other, costing Craig everything he had and wanted in his life. 

The sets from the film are included as one of the most important techniques used in the film. Certain sets in the film are references to the true nature of the lives of the characters in the film. For example, floor 7 ½ is one of the most important sets as it is known for having extremely low ceilings. This is a connection to the film’s central idea of not being in control of your own life. The humans being too small for the floor is metaphoric for being stuck in a society where people are living their lives for others. They are not free from being under someone’s control. Being stuck in such a small setting, it presents the humans as if they were puppets. Craig and Lotte’s apartment is also an important set to the film, especially at the beginning. The apartment was always a scene of chaos. With all the pets that were constantly running around the place, it was hard to keep them under control. This set is a parallel to Craig’s mental state at the beginning of the film. As someone who was not happy in his marriage, and not living the life he wanted as a puppeteer, he felt that he did not have his life in order, much like his home, which was never really in order either. 

There are a couple of important framing examples from the film, that are used to emphasize the idea of a higher power being in control, whether it be us or someone else. During the puppet shows that Craig put on for himself (the opening scene and the one with the Craig & Maxine puppets), Craig’s face was always filmed from a low angle. This poses Craig as an almighty being above his puppets. Its an illusion for Craig, as in that point of the film, it is the only thing that he really has control over in his life. On the flip side, every time that someone is inside Malkovich’s head, the scene is framed in an oval shape with black edges. It is as if the person in the mind is looking through Malkovich’s eyes as a viewfinder. This exemplifies the sense of control over Malkovich that the subject/user possesses, as if they are living his life for themselves.

Examples of lighting in the film are used to describe the nature of the sets, as well as reflect on the nature of the situations that the characters are presently in. For example, the lighting on floor 7 ½ of the office building was always lit with high-key lighting. This was not to necessarily say that it was a joyous place to be, however it expressed the normality (and dullness) of the real world. This also connects back to the idea of being under someone else’s control, as the people there (mainly Craig) are not living the lives that they want to live. The lighting in the tunnel into Malkovich’s mind is low-key (very dark). There are a lot of shadows and visibility in the tunnel is very low. This shows not only the character inside, but also the viewer that the events that are about to come are a mystery. Also, in contrast to the rest of the high-key lighting in the real world, this is a contrast as it shows a completely supernatural location. 

The film capitalizes on point of view editing. This is often shot in first person, to show what a character sees or thinks. All the scenes where someone is inside Malkovich’s head, which gives the viewer the sense that they are also living Malkovich’s life alongside the character already inside his head. It gives the viewer the sense that they, in a way, are in control of Malkovich also. In the final scene of the film, when Craig is inside Emily and fails to control her, the scene of her face is shot at a slower frame rate before fading to black (and rolling credits). This gives the viewer the true sense of the time that Craig is trapped for in Emily’s head, with no hope of escape. He is no longer in control of anyone’s life, including his own. 

The costumes that certain characters wear in the film give insight on the true nature of their characteristics. For example, throughout the film, Maxine’s wardrobe included mostly business attire. This was mainly for all the scenes of her on floor 7 ½. Asides from being proper office attire, her choices of clothing reflected a lot on her character’s personality. It portrayed her as someone out for money and power. She was not on the same level as people like Craig, and upon discovering the portal, monetized it for her benefit. In contrast, Craig’s choice of clothing in the office was a lot more casual than regular office attire, such as jeans, loafers and oversized coat. It portrayed him as somebody who was not top tier in society and made his character stand out a lot more as being the odd one. His messy look also reflects on his unhappiness and current disorder he has in his life. 

A primary theme in Being John Malkovich is the desire for control. In more specific terms, it refers to the desire to be in control of not only your own life, but be in control of everyone else. Throughout the film, we can see that Craig desires the need to control others, which is why he possesses such a passion for puppeteering. At the beginning of the film, he is miserable. He is not happy in his marriage, and his career in puppetry is going nowhere. He has no control over how he wants his life to go. However, as he falls more in love with Maxine, he grows jealous of Lotte stealing her love, and holds her hostage. He then goes into John Malkovich’s mind to get closer to Maxine, and learns how to control Malkovich’s mind. At this point, his desire for control over others becomes much stronger. And as he becomes the master puppeteer he has always wanted to be (through Malkovich), he becomes the happiest he has ever been. This happiness disappears when he surrenders control of Malkovich and discovers that both Lotte and Maxine run off without him, returning him to the desperate state he was in at the beginning of the film. 

Another theme is that of finding one’s self and identity, which is an issue Craig deals with throughout the film. This connects directly back to the desire for control, as Craig’s lack of identity is the main reason for this. At the beginning, the viewer sees that Craig’s puppeteering career has gone nowhere. He is working an office job where not even the people who work there really recognize him. His identity is not the one that he envisions or wants for himself, which drives his desire to control others to be able to make some ground in his career. By the end of the film, Craig learns how to control Malkovich, and uses Malkovich’s status to gain the identity he’s always wanted as a world-famous puppeteer. (It’s a bit ironic that in order for Craig to find his identity, he needs to take possession of someone else’s body). 

The film discusses the ethical question of violating someone else, especially controlling someone else’s mind and body. Throughout the film, we can see that not only do Craig, Lotte, Dr. Lester and his group enter the mind of Malkovich on several occasions, but Craig and Maxine monetize the portal and let anyone in willing to pay $200. This raises the issue if it is morally acceptable to invade somebody’s mind (and privacy), whether they are a celebrity or not. Also, Craig taking control Malkovich’s body, for his own personal gain, can be seen as extremely selfish and immoral, considering that he is robbing Malkovich of his own self-aware self to replace it with his own. Same goes for when Dr. Lester and his group occupy the vessel, and keep Malkovich’s consciousness suppressed forever.  

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Being John Malkovich directed by Spike Jonze is a unique movie unlike others. It tackles some strange topics about consciousness and makes you reflect on the control you have of your own. While watching the film, I really enjoyed the abstract ideas and filming. A good example of these unique scenarios in the movie was with the opening scene, a dramatic puppet show scene followed by Craig sitting depressed on a sofa with a monkey beside him telling him he’s lucky to be a monkey. Another strength in the movie is the choice of actors and actresses. The young John Cusack as Craig Schwartz was a perfect fit for the movie, John was able to portray Craig’s awkward nature perfectly when meeting new people in the movie, like Maxine played by Catherine Keener who does an amazing job of being a bitchy and sexy business woman. Aside from the interesting quirkiness of the movie and the great acting, I found it strange how they chose John Malkovich to be the person on the other end of the tunnel. Like yes of course John Malkovich is an awesome actor and he’s comedic as the character in the movie but realistically anybody could have taken that role. In fact, I find that since the story follows John Malkovich so closely it actually takes importance away from the themes of consciousness and manipulation. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

We rate this film 4 out of 5 stars. 

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The first connection is after Craig passes through John Malkovich and returns to Maxine's office to tell her what happened. He says to her, “The point is that this is a very odd thing, supernatural, for lack of a better word. It raises all sorts of philosophical questions about the nature of self, about the existence of the soul. Am I me? Is Malkovich Malkovich? Was the Buddha right, is duality an illusion? Do you see what a can of worms this portal is? I don't think I can go on living my life as I have lived it. There's only one thing to do. Let's get married right away.” (Being John Malkovich Script) The nature of self as well as if the soul exists is something we talk about often. In this case I would consider the soul of John Malkovich to be material. A material soul is considered a sort of matter or energy and that when we die, it is just a transformation of that energy (McKinney 4). Perhaps the portal is not into the mind of Malkovich but rather into his soul and that the transformation of the soul is when lester goes inside of him. Furthermore, how can his soul be immaterial if Craig was able to control it while he was inside of him? We can only truly manipulate things that are material. In a more scientific manner, we could use the idea of quantum consciousness and say that perhaps the door is a portal into John Malkovich’s brain at an atomic or even nuclear level when the matter or energy of the soul is found. As for the nature of self, although we would consider Malkovich to have a self-aware self, which is a “self that can represent itself”, “The feeling of being a subject inside your head,”how can we really consider him as that when Crag is also a subject inside of his head? How can Malkovich represent himself if Craig is also representing himself inside of Malkovich's head? These questions are considered hard problems of consciousness because the answer would surpass human knowledge. Therefore we can only hypothesize if he has a self-aware self. 

The second connection is when Lotte is insid the cage after Craig has trapped her in there to go have sex with Maxine. The scene shows “a memory: blurry and overexposed, the color washed out. We see a weathered wooden sign which reads "Africa."The sound of running feet, huffing frantic breathing. We watch from up in a tree (Elijah's POV) as two men in safari suits chase a couple of chimps across the jungle floor. The chimps are screaming as the safari men tackle them and tie them up. The safari men laugh.” “Elijah shakes off the memory and looks determinedly at the ropes on Lotte's hands. He attempts to untie the knot. He works furiously and succeeds. Lotte pulls the tape from her mouth.”  (Being John Malkovich Script) This raises questions of cognition in Non-human animals. Can NHA’s solve problems? Do they feel empathy? In this scene we are shown that yes, they can. Elijah was able to feel what Lotte was feeling through experience and emotion. He remembered the feeling of trying to untie his family being captured and he related it to Lotte’s situation. This would then infer that non-human animals or at least chimpanzee’s are actually not automaton because they can act without having a predetermined set of functions. Elijah was able to untie her not because he was created for that reason but simply because he wanted to and because he felt bad for her. We know that he felt bad for Lotte because he kissed her out of sympathy a couple of scenes before this.  Perhaps this film wanted to shatter the scientific paradigm in relation to the subject on whether non-human animals were able to perceive and able to use a certain level of cognitive function as to which is close to that of a humans cognition. 

The third connection would be the whole idea of craig controlling Malkovich's mind. “there's something profound here, Maxine, we can't exploit it.” (Being John Malkovich Script)  Is it ethically correct to exploit a man’s mind for money? In my opinion, this idea really brings me back to the the ethics of sex robots. I mean should they be destined for sex just because they are robots, or should they be able to think and make their own decision on whether they wanted to be used for that or not? Shouldn't malkovich be able to decide whether his mind is observed from the inside? It’s really objectification because he’s being treated as an object or a service and not as a sentient being. As Craig said, can you really put a price on this kind of exploration? Even if it was for research purposes, is it truly morally correct if we use a man’s conscious without his permission. Even having a timeline of his life in a room, as in Lester's house, would be considered stalking and morally wrong in our western society at least. 

Question 1: Do you think Craig is experiencing is own perception in John or is he experiencing John’s perception as well as his own?

Question 2: Do you agree with what Craig says to Elijah the chimpanzee at the beginning of the movie: “Consciousness is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer. And all I ask in return is the opportunity to do my work”?

Question 3: Do you think the Maxine and Lottie share true love even since their relationship is built on experiences with other bodies? 

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1. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/28/426753409/a-sense-of-self-what-happens-when-your-brain-says-you-dont-exist

This article called “A Sense of Self: What Happens When Your Brain Says You Don’t Exist” Terry Gross interviews Anil Ananthaswamy in the Fresh Air show about the book he wrote “The man who wasn’t there”. In his book Ananthaswamy explains his way of defining the “self” and how certain diseases and disorders can change the concept of the self. In Ananthaswamy’s book he explains how people with Cotard’s syndrome tend not to perceive their own body, thinking it is not theirs and that they are non existent. This is a very similar concept to Craig’s puppeteering and his ability to take control of John Malkovich. Ananthaswamy also talks about how Parkinson's disease affects the narrative self. The narrative self is like the inner voice in your head that tells you who you are and how you think. According to Ananthaswamy the narrative self is constructed of memories and the less of a narrative one has, the more the memories that constructed it are lost. This idea is sort of like when John could starts to hear someone else’s narrative in his head, this is when he starts to lose control of his vessel.  

2. https://www.assitej-international.org/en/2016/06/the-role-of-the-puppet-in-making-early-years-theatre/

In this article, the creative director of the company “Imaginary Leaps” tests the affects of puppetry at the Kulunga Aboriginal Kindergarten in Western Australia on young children. In the experiment they give the children puppets allowing them to alter its appearance and would observe how they would play with them. They found that with most of the children the puppet helped them find their own confidence, role and identity through play. Fundamentally, most of the children would convey themselves as the puppets constructing their first sense of self. They also found that the children would make the puppets say and do things which they would feel unable to normally do. This is similar to how Craig’s main puppet in his shows matched his physical description but had every personality trait he wished he had. Also in both cases we can see how constructing a puppet of yourself could be the best way to observe your ego and what you really think of yourself. 

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Works Cited

“A Sense Of Self: What Happens When Your Brain Says You Don't Exist.” NPR, Fresh Air, 28 July 2015, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/28/426753409/a-sense-of-self-what-happens-when-your-brain-says-you-dont-exist.

“Being John Malkovich.” Google Image Result for Https://is3-Ssl.mzstatic.com/Image/Thumb/Video/68/f1/Fd/Mzi.gxvjgocb.jpg/268x0w.Jpg, Itunes (Apple), 1999, https://images.app.goo.gl/gYSbvPPQmvdC2ND9A.

“Being John Malkovich .” Google Image Result for Https://s3.Drafthouse.com/Images/Made/Being-John-Pic-2_756_426_81_s.Jpg, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema , https://images.app.goo.gl/hvWkvKcHd7GjMqN17.

“Being John Malkovich.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Oct. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich.

“‘Being John Malkovich’ Quotes.” Being John Malkovich Quotes, Movie Quotes – Movie Quotes .Com, www.moviequotes.com/s-movie/being-john-malkovich/.

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“Being John Malkovich (1999) Movie Script: SS.” Springfield! Springfield!, https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=being-john-malkovich.

“Being John Malkovich Script by Charlie Kaufman.” Daily Script, https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/beingjohnmalkovich.html.

“Being John Malkovich.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Oct. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich.

Chaw , Walter. “Being John Malkovich (1999) [The Criterion Collection] - Blu-Ray Disc.” Google Image Result for Https://Www.filmfreakcentral.net/.a/6a0168ea36d6b2970c017742b38f02970d-600wi, Film Freak Central , 25 June 2012, https://images.app.goo.gl/uiXhTA8obTqtnQXN8.

Girap , Sneha. “Google Image Result for Https://Alchetron.com/Cdn/Being-John-Malkovich-Images-9fe41700-7ea4-4185-a95f-22b495e0598.Jpg.” Images, Alchetron , 6 Aug. 2018, https://images.app.goo.gl/RmunC2HSNhkwoPa67.

Jonze, Spike, director. Being John Malkovich. Gramercy Pictures, 1999.

 JWalton. “Announcement.” Filmtank.org Forums, 7 Feb. 2013,      filmtank.org/forum/forum/film-development/films/1469-being-john-malkovich-spike-jonze-1999-alienation-and-identity.

Kelly McKinney, Knowing the Inner Self , Copibec, Department of Humanities, Philosophy and Religion 

Krier, Alyson. “7 1/2 Floor.” Google Image Result for Https://Thebestpictureproject.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/beingjohnmalkovich1.Jpg, WordPress, 11 Oct. 2011, https://images.app.goo.gl/4QiMvq9XsFJKN3My9.

Riggs, Rachel. “The Role of the Puppet in Making Early Years Theatre.” ASSITEJ International, https://www.assitej-international.org/en/2016/06/the-role-of-the-puppet-in-making-early-years-theatre/.

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Questions 1, 2, 3, 6, 6 done by Corey

Questions 5, 7, 8 done by Mackenzie

Question 4 done by David