Being John Malkovich (15.)
Directed by Spike Jonze.
Starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich, Orson Bean, Mary Kay Place and Charlie Sheen.
2019 has not been a good year for films. In fact, it's been a wholly terrible year for films, a what-is-the-bloody-point-of-it-all year for films. It hasn't even been a very good year for 20th anniversary re-releases of films, considering 1999 was probably the last year that could be described as a great year for films. It was the year of, among others, Fight Club, Magnolia, Blair Witch, Sixth Sense, Ghost Dog, South Park, Office Space, American Beauty, Three Kings, Toy Story 2 and (in this country) The Thin Red Line. Plus there was Phantom Menace and Eyes Wide Shut, events movies whose merits we might find debatable. But of the gems from that year so far only The Matrix has made it back into cinemas. So, nice one Arrows Academy for releasing the film that has some claim to be the best of the last great year of cinema. It was almost certainly the most prescient.
Twenty years ago Charlie Kaufman's script about an avant-garde puppeteer who finds a portal that allow access into John Malkovich's brain for 15 minutes (damn, did it really take me twenty years to spot the Andy Warhol reference?) before being flung out by the New Jersey turnpike, was mostly seen as an oddball satire on celebrity. Now it is an effortless expression of all those 21st-century obsession of sexual fluidity and the erosion of privacy.
The wonder of Kaufman's script is that it has maybe four or five ideas good enough to centre whole films on. It was his first movie credit, after some work on TV comedies, and it has the clear, crisp vision of a first effort, a work that uses up all the good ideas they had while trying to make it. It has the freshness of the unknown, but the skill of an establish writer: it has great, original ideas and knows exactly how long to spend on them. Possibly the most surprising thing about Being John Malkovich is that it isn't even his best work, there were many more great ideas where that came.
Still, we shouldn't bang on about the writer too much. All the elements work. The cast is all on top form, though I guess JM should get the biggest plaudits for being a good sport about it. It has one of Carter Burwell's best score. But most of all is has Spike Jonze's direction.
Kaufman's greatest good fortune is that director Jonze established the default visual approach to his work from the very beginning – that however outlandish the ideas, the look of the film should be as straight as possible. The film is really funny (Charlie Ma Sheen's cameo, Keener casually gesturing towards the skyscraper window when Cusack says he can't live without her) but for the most part, it has the sombre, restrained look of an Oscar pleading adaptation of a Great American novel about a midlife crisis.
Can you imagine what it would've been if say Terry Gilliam had got his hands on it? Probably, fantastically entertaining, possibly funnier than it is now but he'd have played up the wacky elements and it would be something less than the version we have now. Yes, we'd still be watching it twenty years on, but it wouldn't have the haunting impact it has now. And the poignant thing is we wouldn't even know what we had lost.
Extras.
Select scene audio commentary by Jonze’s friend and competitor, the filmmaker Michel Gondry
John Malkovich and John Hodgman, a conversation between the film’s star and the actor, writer and humourist
Strung Along, a new featurette exploring the marionettes made for the film, featuring newly shot interviews with puppeteer Phillip Huber and puppeteer/designer/fabricators Kamela Portuges and Lee Armstrong
The 7½ Floor, the full corporate orientation video seen in the film
John Horatio Malkovich: Dance of Despair and Disillusionment, the full pseudo-documentary seen in the film
An Interview with Director Spike Jonze, a brief chat with the director filmed under duress by Lance Bangs
An Intimate Portrait of the Art of Puppeteering, an archival interview with Phillip Huber filmed on set by Lance Bangs
An Intimate Portrait of the Art of Background Driving, an on-set look at filming the New Jersey Turnpike sequence by Lance Bangs
Don’t Enter Here, There Is Nothing Here
Theatrical trailer and TV spots
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Vero Navarro
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Roger Keen and archive publicity materials
Directed by Spike Jonze.
Starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich, Orson Bean, Mary Kay Place and Charlie Sheen.
2019 has not been a good year for films. In fact, it's been a wholly terrible year for films, a what-is-the-bloody-point-of-it-all year for films. It hasn't even been a very good year for 20th anniversary re-releases of films, considering 1999 was probably the last year that could be described as a great year for films. It was the year of, among others, Fight Club, Magnolia, Blair Witch, Sixth Sense, Ghost Dog, South Park, Office Space, American Beauty, Three Kings, Toy Story 2 and (in this country) The Thin Red Line. Plus there was Phantom Menace and Eyes Wide Shut, events movies whose merits we might find debatable. But of the gems from that year so far only The Matrix has made it back into cinemas. So, nice one Arrows Academy for releasing the film that has some claim to be the best of the last great year of cinema. It was almost certainly the most prescient.
Twenty years ago Charlie Kaufman's script about an avant-garde puppeteer who finds a portal that allow access into John Malkovich's brain for 15 minutes (damn, did it really take me twenty years to spot the Andy Warhol reference?) before being flung out by the New Jersey turnpike, was mostly seen as an oddball satire on celebrity. Now it is an effortless expression of all those 21st-century obsession of sexual fluidity and the erosion of privacy.
The wonder of Kaufman's script is that it has maybe four or five ideas good enough to centre whole films on. It was his first movie credit, after some work on TV comedies, and it has the clear, crisp vision of a first effort, a work that uses up all the good ideas they had while trying to make it. It has the freshness of the unknown, but the skill of an establish writer: it has great, original ideas and knows exactly how long to spend on them. Possibly the most surprising thing about Being John Malkovich is that it isn't even his best work, there were many more great ideas where that came.
Still, we shouldn't bang on about the writer too much. All the elements work. The cast is all on top form, though I guess JM should get the biggest plaudits for being a good sport about it. It has one of Carter Burwell's best score. But most of all is has Spike Jonze's direction.
Kaufman's greatest good fortune is that director Jonze established the default visual approach to his work from the very beginning – that however outlandish the ideas, the look of the film should be as straight as possible. The film is really funny (Charlie Ma Sheen's cameo, Keener casually gesturing towards the skyscraper window when Cusack says he can't live without her) but for the most part, it has the sombre, restrained look of an Oscar pleading adaptation of a Great American novel about a midlife crisis.
Can you imagine what it would've been if say Terry Gilliam had got his hands on it? Probably, fantastically entertaining, possibly funnier than it is now but he'd have played up the wacky elements and it would be something less than the version we have now. Yes, we'd still be watching it twenty years on, but it wouldn't have the haunting impact it has now. And the poignant thing is we wouldn't even know what we had lost.
Extras.
Select scene audio commentary by Jonze’s friend and competitor, the filmmaker Michel Gondry
John Malkovich and John Hodgman, a conversation between the film’s star and the actor, writer and humourist
Strung Along, a new featurette exploring the marionettes made for the film, featuring newly shot interviews with puppeteer Phillip Huber and puppeteer/designer/fabricators Kamela Portuges and Lee Armstrong
The 7½ Floor, the full corporate orientation video seen in the film
John Horatio Malkovich: Dance of Despair and Disillusionment, the full pseudo-documentary seen in the film
An Interview with Director Spike Jonze, a brief chat with the director filmed under duress by Lance Bangs
An Intimate Portrait of the Art of Puppeteering, an archival interview with Phillip Huber filmed on set by Lance Bangs
An Intimate Portrait of the Art of Background Driving, an on-set look at filming the New Jersey Turnpike sequence by Lance Bangs
Don’t Enter Here, There Is Nothing Here
Theatrical trailer and TV spots
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Vero Navarro
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Roger Keen and archive publicity materials
