81. Being John Malkovich

Spike Jonze, 1999

Dr. Lester: Which of these letters comes first, this one or this one?
Craig: The symbol on the left is not a letter, sir?
Dr. Lester: Damn, you’re good. I was trying to trick you.

This was, most definitely, a huge “What the fuck was that?” movie for me. This came out while I was still in high school, sophomore or junior year. I knew nothing about this movie, nothing at all. All I knew was that one John Welsh was raving about it. So, I go. Holy God. What a movie! Bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe it. True, I’ve seen weirder, much weirder since then, but, at the time, this film was an epiphany for me of exactly how out there a film could be and still work within the strictures, more or less, of the classical narrative system. The plot is this: John Cusack plays Craig Schwartz, a puppeteer who performs marionette shows, such as one involving a priest and a nun who are in love with each other, but can who can only hump the wall which separates their rooms for relief, on street corners. He goes to work for a Dr. Lester on the 13 1/2 floor of an office building. The 13 1/2 floor is just that, half of a floor. It is only about five feet high from floor to ceiling, requiring all of those who work their to crouch down uncomfortably throughout the work day. It’s a lot like spending all day in your crawl space. He works for Dr. Lester, as I said, who is an absolute mad man, who spouts lines like, “My spunk is manna from heaven,” played to perfection by Orson Bean. While at the office, Craig discovers a secret portal to the inside of John Malkovich’s head, which, when entered, allows a person to see and hear everything from Malkovich’s perspective and, with practice, even control Malkovich. Craig spends more and more time in Malkovich’s head and eventually takes over his life, pissing off Lester, who had planned to move into Malkovich as part of his continued bid at immortality over the centuries. There is also Craig’s wife, mistress, Craig’s wife’s monkey, Charlie Sheen, and Craig/Malkovich’s new career as the world’s preeminent puppeteer to consider. Really weird stuff.

The film is born from the fevered imaginations of director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman. This is one of only two films from Jonze, who is primarily a music video director. His videos, however, are just as gloriously bizarre, resulting in such greats as the “Oh So Quiet” Bjork video and the Fat Boy Slim “Weapon of Choice” video featuring a dancing Christopher Walken. Jonze clearly has a genius for imagining and creating truly bizarre and eclectic images, as is also evidenced in Adaptation, his other teaming with Kaufman. The true genius of Malkovich, however, must be Kaufman. Kaufman’s scripts have, since Malkovich, exhibited a true fevered genius. His films move at a breakneck pace, giving us strange comedy, complicated plots, but always the most human of moments. His other films include the equally weird Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The importance of the right director to team with Kaufman can be seen in a survey of his films. Spike Jonze gets Kaufman, bringing his unusual print to the screen with strange pinache, as does Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, however, while well written, just doesn’t come across as well in direction. It was directed by George Clooney, who, while not a bad director, is clearly to conventional and conservative for a Kaufman film. Still, I do like, on one level or another, all of Kaufman’s films, but Being John Malkovich is the one that helped open my eyes in my high school years to the wonderful and weird possibilities of film, and for that I will always love it.