BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
"Being John Malkovich" is either one of the most original movies ever made or the most derivative, or paradoxically - both. The movie puts a spin on some classic story ideas and clothes them with contemporary issues to give them relevance. The result is quite unique and "Being John Malkovich" is nothing if not unique.
Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is a brilliant puppeteer without an outlet for his genius. He takes a filing job at a company run by the mysterious Dr. Lester (Orson Bean) on the seventh and a half floor. All logic ends the moment he first steps off the elevator between seven and eight. It's as if Craig passes through Alice's Looking Glass. He discovers a portal behind a filing cabinet that is an invitation to adventure, just like the rabbit hole that leads Lewis Carroll's heroine to Wonderland. Craig descends into the portal and finds himself in the brain of John H. Malkovich (John - no H - Malkovich) where he sees the world through his eyes for fifteen minutes before being dumped like refuse along the New Jersey Turnpike. Then Craig falls for Maxine (Catherine Keener), a co-worker. When he reveals his discovery to her, she suggests selling tickets for trips to Malkovich's brain. Soon business is booming. Craig's wife (Cameron Diaz) gets a freebie and joyfully discovers the male side of her psyche. She can't get enough. When Maxine discovers Craig's talent, she decides to have him and 'Malkie.' Writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, comically flesh out the skeletal plot with serious questions about the role of gender, the cult of celebrity, the price of fame, and what seems like a universe of ideas that fly through the air like buckshot. An employment test, a secretary's double speak, Maxine's bluntness, and a monkey's sense memory are all part of this illogical world. John Malkovich is even given a chance to descend into his own psyche where he sees himself as dozens of characters at a posh party. He is everything from the bus boy to a rich host with generous samplings of his feminine and perverse sides. It has to be seen to be believed. If there are any messages to be had from "Being John Malkovich," it's that we are the sum total of our experience, true happiness is illusory, and immortality could come in the guise of a portal passed from one generation to the next like the biological genes of our forefathers.
The truly remarkable thing about "Being John Malkovich" is that it creates its other worldly feeling without a lot of special effects. The plot is carefully navigated through a minefield of puns and sight gags. When asked about the low ceiling of the half floor on floor seven and a half,. Dr. Lester says he saves a lot of money on low overhead. It's an unexpected marriage of set design and vaudeville humor that works. The artful skill of story telling by Jonze and Kauffman is illustrated when John Cusack as Craig Schwartz disappears from the picture much like Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in Hitchcock's "Psycho." The Master manipulates the audience into identifying with Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). A similar cinematic sleight of hand takes place in "Being John Malkovich" when Malkovich's growing celebrity turns him into a cultural icon. Soon everyone wants to be like John H. Malkovich, even Sean Penn in a brilliant casting coup that lets him spoof his own image!
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Some of the ideas in "Being John Malkpovich" can be found in these oldies but goodies.
"The Wrong Box" (1966) - Dir. Bryan Forbes and co written by Larry Gelbart ("Tootsie") The "Being John Malkovich" of its day. The dialogue is hilariously dead pan and the jokes, puns and physical humor are plentiful and as absurd as anything on Monty Python. It's a period piece where one brother tries to kill another so his heir(s) will get an inheritance called a tontine, a kind of annuity. Cousins try to kill cousins, and a murderous psychopath is on the loose. With the then - comedy team of Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore, also Michael Caine, John Mills, Ralph Richardson and Peter Sellers. Loosely based on a Robert Louis Stevenson story.
"Psycho" (1960) - The definite split that occurs halfway through "Being John Malkovich" invites comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock's technique in Psycho for the reasons mentioned above. "Psycho" may very well may have been in the back of Charlie Kauffman's mind when writing "Being John Malkovich" unless of course if it was dreamed up in committee with Spike Jonze. Take a look.
"Orpheus" (Fr. "Orphee") (1949) Scr. & Dir. Jean Cocteau: Love, death and immortality are the shared themes. The effects are great with a mirror as the doorway to the netherworld. Just as much a one of a kind film as you'll find anywhere. Wildly imaginative and wonderfully philosophical about the nature of love. With Jean Marais who played the Beast in Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast" (1946).
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) Dir. Don Siegel Aliens in the form of space pods take on the form and replace earthlings. Originally intended as a metaphor for the McCarthy era, the same philosophy could apply to blindly following or wanting to be like a particular celebrity just because they're famous. It's a stretch but it works for me. It's great sci-fi too!
"Alice in Wonderland" - Take your pick. There's a 1933 version with an all star cast (although most became bigger stars later- including Gary Cooper and Cary Grant), a 1950 English version done with actors and puppets, a recent mini series for TV and the Disney classic from 1951.