Being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich is a
1999 film written by
Charlie Kaufman and directed by
Spike Jonze.
The film was widely praised for its originality, both in terms of the script and Jonze's direction. Kaufman's blending of fact and outrageous fiction was a theme continued in his next film with Jonze,
Adaptation. (which features Kaufman himself as a character and briefly touches on the making of
Being John Malkovich). Jonze's direction and the performances of the lead actors were also viewed favourably by most critics. As well as Malkovich's performance as himself (or at least a version of himself; his middle name in the film is Horatio, while his real middle name is Gavin), Cameron Diaz's role attracted considerable attention, at least partly as she was almost unrecognizable as the dowdy Lotte.
Taglines:* Ever wanted to be someone else? Now you can.
* Ever Wanted To Be Someone Else?
* Be All That Someone Else Can Be.
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John Cusack – Craig Schwartz
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Cameron Diaz – Lotte Schwartz
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Catherine Keener – Maxine
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John Malkovich – John Horatio Malkovich
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Orson Bean – Dr. Lester
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Mary Kay Place – Floris (Lester's secretary/receptionist)
The film centres around Craig Schwartz, an unsuccessful puppeteer involved in a forlorn marriage with his pet-obsessed wife Lotte.
On the orders of his wife, Schwartz begins to look for work and gets a job as a filing clerk for LesterCorp at their offices on floor 7½ in the Mertin Flemmer building in Manhattan. He gets to this floor by using the
emergency stop on the elevator and prying the door open with a crowbar.
One day, after moving a filing cabinet to look for an errant folder, Schwartz discovers a mysterious portal which transports him into the consciousness of John Malkovich - allowing him to observe the world through the eyes of his host for about 15 minutes before being unceremoniously dropped into a ditch by the side of the
New Jersey Turnpike on the verge of the City.
The puppeteer reveals his discovery to the beautiful Maxine (who has become the object of Schwartz's unrequited desire). After some initial skepticism, she proposes the two form a business called JM, Inc., selling the experience of being John Malkovich for $200 a pop.
Schwartz tells Lotte about the portal and she tries it, entering Malkovich's consciousness as he takes a shower. She is aroused by the sensation and becomes obsessed with the portal, wanting to return to her host's body immediately. The next time she enters Malkovich he is reading from
Chekhov's
The Cherry Orchard when Maxine calls to arrange a meeting with Malkovich at 8.00pm that night.
Lotte returns to the portal at 8.00 that night and finds herself deeply attracted to Maxine, who later claims to have sensed that Lotte was inside Malkovich during the pair's meeting.
Lotte cannot stop thinking about Maxine and invites her to dinner. After eating Lasagne and smoking a
joint, both Schwartz and Lotte attempt to kiss Maxine, who refuses both of their advances and reveals that she is not remotely interested in Schwartz but is attracted to Lotte (but only when she is inside Malkovich). The pair arrange a liaison when Lotte is inside Malkovich's body and Maxine makes love to Malkovich as soon as she realises that Lotte is incumbent in his consciousness.
Schwartz realises the only way he will be able to get Maxine is by pretending to be Lotte in Malkovich's body and forces his wife at gun point to call Maxine and arrange another meeting as Malkovich before tying her in a cage with her pet
chimpanzee.
Maxine seduces Malkovich again, thinking that Lotte is in his mind, but actually it is Schwartz who manages to manipulate Malkovich's body.
Malkovich becomes paranoid that he is being controlled by a supernatural force and, after consulting his friend
Charlie, comes to believe that Maxine is a witch. He follows her to the Mertin Flemmer Building where he discovers JM, Inc.—the company Schwartz and Maxine set up to sell the experience of being Malkovich. He enters the portal but, instead of being transported into his own mind, he is taken to a parallel universe where everyone (male or female), himself included, has his head and can communicate only with the word "Malkovich." He is then dumped at the turnpike. Schwartz meets the severely frightened Malkovich there and Malkovich orders him to close the portal. Schwartz ignores the request and again forces Lotte to arrange a meeting between Maxine and Malkovich.
After Schwartz leaves to enter Malkovich, Lotte escapes when her pet chimp unties her and she is then able to call Maxine and inform her of Schwartz's deceit. Surprisingly, Maxine tells Lotte that she was also aroused by Craig and that she will still be going to meet Malkovich with Craig, who is inside him.
This time when Maxine arrives at Malkovich's apartment Craig is able to take total control of his body and the pair make love before deciding that Craig will remain inside Malkovich permanently. Craig begins to control Malkovich and, as the story jumps forward eight months, we find that he has reinvented himself as the most successful puppeteer the world has ever seen. It is disclosed that he has become married to Maxine, but that the two are growing increasingly distant.
Lotte goes to see Lester, Schwartz's boss, who confesses to her that he has known about the portal for many years and has in fact used it on several occasions in order to live forever in the body of hosts like Malkovich. He has been monitoring Malkovich from a young age and plans to enter his body when it becomes ripe along with several of his close friends, and then, they will be able to control it in the way Schwartz has been controlling it. Lester also explains to Lotte that after midnight on the day the host becomes ripe, the portal will move to the next host candidate and that anyone entering after midnight will become trapped in the new host, whose subconscious will be powerful enough to overpower whoever has entered the portal. Lotte explains that Schwartz is controlling Malkovich and Lester believes he will be too powerful to remove, so a plan is hatched to force him out of Malkovich.
Lester and his cohorts capture Maxine, then call Malkovich to tell Craig they will kill her if he does not leave. Craig reluctantly leaves Malkovich and Lester and his friends are able to enter his body in time to take it over. Maxine and Lotte fall in love when Maxine reveals that she has had feelings for her since she and Malkovich first had sex, and that she is carrying the baby of Malkovich from when Lotte was inside him.
Craig becomes distraught when he finds this out and rushes back to the portal to attempt to re-enter Malkovich, but he is too late. In a cruel
twist ending, we see that he is trapped in the body of the next host, who happens to be Maxine's daughter Emily, conceived by Lotte when she was in Malkovich. Suppressed by the host's subconscious he is unable to do anything but watch Maxine and Lotte live happily ever after through the eyes of their child.
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Maxine (Keener) and Craig (Cusack) meet on the 7 1/2 floor |
*An early draft of the script which circulated on the Internet showed a version of the plot that differed significantly, especially in the second half; in this early version,
Satan is shown to be behind the entire concept of inhabiting others' brains. In fact, the unseen "Flemmer" of the Mertin Flemmer building was supposed to be him.
*In the original script, the closing credits were going to play "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" by
They Might Be Giants.
*Craig discovers that LesterCorp is on the 7 1/2 floor of the Mertin Flemmer building by seeing a "7 1/2" on a building directory in the lobby. This moment occurs at the 7 1/2-minute point of the film.
*After the script was written, Kaufman was surprised to learn that 7 1/2 was the actual apartment number of John Malkovich's apartment. He recalls, "it was kind of cool because I thought I might have tapped into something."
*The play that Malkovich is reading into a tape recorder is Chekhov's
The Cherry Orchard. The line beginning "I'm as hungry as the winter..." is at the end of Act Two, where Trofimov is speaking to Anya, pontificating on his rejection of materialism.
*The play that John Malkovich is rehearsing on stage is Shakespeare's
Richard III. The lines "Was ever a woman in this humour woo'd? / Was ever a woman in this humour won?" are I.ii.239-240, where Richard is gloating over his use of power, lies and crime to obtain the woman he desires, Queen Anne. This rehearsal scene is immediately followed by the first time that Craig has sex with Maxine via Malkovich.
*At the beginning of the film when Craig is trying to guess Maxine's name, one of the names he mumbles is "Emily," the name of the child that Maxine gives birth to at the end of the film. The other names Craig mumbles are an allusion to Dr. Lester and his group of friends that can exist within other souls.
*The 1990 Steppenwolf Theatre building in Chicago (Malkovich was one of the first members of the
Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and remains one today) includes a half-floor used for storage.
*Charlie Kaufman sent the screenplay to
Francis Ford Coppola after he wrote it. Coppola liked it very much and showed it to his
daughter's husband, Spike Jonze. Jonze liked the screenplay so much that he approached Kaufman about directing the movie.
*In the first draft of the script, Lester and his friends weren't using Malkovich's portal as a means for extending their lives, but in a plot to take over the world in the name of Satan. Satan was the mysterious 'Flemmer' that the Mertin Flemmer building was half named after.
*In the scene in the Mertin Flemmer building lobby, when Craig browses the floor listings to find LesterCorp, the camera scrolls past the listing "Eric Zumbrunnen, CPA." Eric Zumbrunnen is the film's editor.
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Spike Jonze makes a
cameo appearance as Derek Mantini's assistant.
Brad Pitt also has a half-second-long cameo, as a miffed star in the documentary on Malkovich's career. He seems to be on the verge of saying something before the shot ends.
*The play that Craig was performing on a street corner with his puppets (when he gets smacked by an angry parent) is based on the letters of
Abelard and Heloise, written between 1115 and 1117 AD, which were found, copied and abridged by
Johannes de Vepria, a 15th century Cistercian monk, into "Ex Epistolis duorum amantium" ("From the Letters of Two Lovers"). This became a classic document of early tragic romance used by many artists in their work including
William Shakespeare in
Romeo and Juliet. In addition, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's later project,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), took its title and no small amount of inspiration from
Alexander Pope's
Eloisa to Abelard.
*A fictional behind-the-scenes glimpse of the making of this movie appears in screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's subsequent movie,
Adaptation. (2002).
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Orson Bean, who played Dr. Lester, had a role in the film
Innerspace (1987), which is also about a man taking control of another man's body.
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Queer Cinema*
