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Being John Malkovich

DVD Release: Being John Malkovich

  • Release Date: 2000
  • American Arts & Culture presents: "John Horatio Malkovich, Dance of Despair and Disillusionment"
  • Aspect ratio 1.85:1
  • Widescreen 16x9
  • Theatrical trailer
  • TV spots
  • 7 1/2 floor orientation
  • A page with nothing on it
  • Intimate portrait of the art of puppeteering
  • Interview with director Spike Jonze
  • The art of background driving
  • Cast and crew biographies & filmographies
  • Spike's photo album
  • English 5.1
  • English 2.0 Dolby Surround
  • English closed captioned
  • French subtitled
  • Spanish subtitled
  • Dual layered

DVD Release: Being John Malkovich [HD]

  • Release Date: 2007
  • American Arts Culture Presents: John Horatio Malkovich, Dance of Despair and Disillusionment
  • An intimate portrait of the art of puppeteering
  • 7 1/2 floor orientation
  • An intimate portrait of the art of background driving
  • Don't enter here, there is nothing here
  • An interview with director Spike Jonze
  • Spike's photo album
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Tv spots

  • Rating: StarStarStarStarStar
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Movie Type: Fantasy Comedy, Workplace Comedy
  • Themes: Trading Bodies, Love Triangles, Gender-Bending
  • Director: Spike Jonze
  • Main Cast: John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich, Orson Bean, Mary Kay Place
  • Release Year: 1999
  • Country: UK/US
  • Run Time: 112 minutes
  • MPAA Rating: R

Plot

Would you pay money to journey into the mind of the star of Con Air, The Killing Fields, and In The Line of Fire? Puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is having money problems, so he takes a temporary job as a file clerk on the seventh-and-a-half floor of a large office building. One day, while rummaging behind a cabinet, he finds a small door that leads to the center of the mind of actor John Malkovich (played by, you guessed it, John Malkovich). Craig discovers that entering the portal allows him to become John Malkovich for a brief spell, and in time he and his beautiful but aloof co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener) get the bright idea to charge admission for the privilege of spending 15 minutes inside the head of a well-known actor. Malkovich realizes that something strange is happening to him, but can do little to stop it, as strangers take over his mind for a quarter-hour at a time. Craig's wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz) eventually takes a trip into Malkovich's psyche, and she soon finds herself in love with Maxine, with whom Malkovich has an affair; meanwhile, Maxine in time becomes infatuated with both Craig and Lotte, but only when they're inside Malkovich. Being John Malkovich marked the feature-length debut of director Spike Jonze, who previously made acclaimed music videos for Weezer, The Beastie Boys, and The Breeders, among others. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Review

Surrealist cinema at its most inventive and edifying, this feature debut by music video maestro Spike Jonze poses questions of existentialism and celebrity without the pretension of feeling like you're in a philosophy symposium. Armed with Charlie Kaufman's devilishly clever and narratively sound script, the director creates a funhouse of the mind, but never strays from its originating premise, which involves the fascination and consequences of living as someone else, even for a brief period. Filled with offbeat humor and surprisingly free of empty flash (unusual for a director whose only previous experience is in music video), Malkovich finds a genre niche that seems relatively untapped, similar to a film like David Lynch's Blue Velvet, that created a world all its own even in the midst of familiar surroundings. A mid-level success upon release, the film was honored on several critics' Ten Best lists of 1999, and garnered first-time Oscar nominations for Jonze, Kaufman, and co-star Catherine Keener, who is ruthlessly funny as the object of John Cusack's affections.

~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide

Cast


Charlie Sheen - Charlie Sheen; Carlos Jacott - Larry the Agent; W. Earl Brown - Erroll; Ned Bellamy - Derek Mantini; K.K. Dodds - Wendy; Richard Fancy - Johnson Heyward; Willie Garson - Guy In Restaurant; Kevin Lee - Ballet Dancer; James Murray - Student Puppeteer; Byrne Piven - Captain Mertin; Bill M. Ryusaki - Mr. Hiroshi; Gregory Sporleder - Drunk At Bar; Patti Tippo - John Malovich's Mother; Bill Wittman - Featured Character Voices; Dan Hansen - Boy John Malkovich; Greg O'Neill - Featured Character Voices; Neil Ross - Featured Character Voices; William Nichols Buck - Doctor Lester's Friend; Kevin Carroll - Cab Driver; Reggie Hayes - Don; Mariah O'Brien - Girl Creeped Out By John Malkovich; Octavia L. Spencer - Woman In Elevator; Pamela Hayden - Featured Character Voices; Gerald Emerick - Sad Man In Line; David Wyler - Doctor Lester's Friend; Christine Coleman - Doctor Lester's Friend; Audrey Gelfand - Doctor Lester's Friend; Michelle Madden - Featured Character Voices; Eric Weinstein - Father at Puppet Show; Madison Lanc - Daugher at Puppet Show; Judith Wetzell - Tiny Woman; Kelly Teacher - Emily; Jacqueline Benoit - Doctor Lester's Friend; Eddie J. Low - Doctor Lester's Friend; Yetta Ginsburg - Doctor Lester's Friend; Ralph W. Spaulding - Doctor Lester's Friend; Sylvester Jenkins - Doctor Lester's Friend; Jeanne Diehl - Doctor Lester's Friend; Roy C. Johnson - Doctor Lester's Friend; Flori Wyler - Doctor Lester's Friend; Marlowe Bassett - Ballet Dancer; Kristin D'Andrea - Ballet Dancer; Jessica Neuberger - Ballet Dancer; Jennifer Canzoneri - Ballet Dancer; Charlene Grimsley - Ballet Dancer; Sara Rifkin - Ballet Dancer; Kristie Cordle - Ballet Dancer; Christine Krejer - Ballet Dancer; Elizabeth Rivera - Ballet Dancer; Denise Dabrowski - Ballet Dancer; Erica Long - Ballet Dancer; Chelsa Sjostrom - Ballet Dancer; Yvonne Montelius - Ballet Dancer; Jayne Hess - Featured Character Voices; Christopher Bing - Himself [uncredited]

Credit

Dan Bradley - Stunts Coordinator; Carter Burwell - Composer (Music Score); Tim Clawson - Unit Production Manager; Tim Clawson - Executive in Charge of Production; Steve Golin - Producer; Joe Hutshing - Additional Editing; Mirage Effects - Title Design; Daniel Radford - Visual Effects Supervisor; Sandy Stern - Producer; Michael Stipe - Producer; John Vulich - Makeup Special Effects; Casey Storm - Costume Designer; Pacific Title - Title Design; Michael Kuhn - Executive Producer; Jim Fealy - Additional Cinematography; Peter A. Ramsey - Storyboard Artist; Thomas Patrick Smith - First Assistant Director; Dawn Solér - Musical Direction/Supervision; Fanee Aaron - Set Designer; Margaux Mackay - Visual Effects Producer; Tony Maxwell - Choreography; Richard L. Anderson - Supervising Sound Editor; John Cucci - Foley Artist; Kirk R. Gardner - Steadicam Operator; Gary Gegan - Re-Recording Mixer; Matthew Iadarola - Re-Recording Mixer; Elliot Koretz - Supervising Sound Editor; Dan O'Connell - Foley Artist; Ren Klyce - Sound/Sound Designer; Kimberly Davis - Casting; Lance Acord - Cinematographer; Björk - Songwriter; Spike Jonze - Director; Justine Baddeley - Casting; Eric Zumbrunnen - Editor; Peter Andrus - Art Director; Forrest Brakeman - Sound Mixer; Forrest Brakeman - Sound/Sound Designer; Charlie Kaufman - Executive Producer; Charlie Kaufman - Screenwriter; Sloane U'ren - Set Designer; Carol Lille - Head Animal Trainer; Kim Davis-Wagner - Casting; Adam Milo Smalley - Music Editor; Mark S. Constance - First Assistant Director; Emanuel "Manny" Millar - Hair Styles; Malcolm Fife - Sound/Sound Designer; Gray Matter FX - Visual Effects; Joe Everett - Unit Publicist; Lori Guidroz - Hair Styles; Gray Marshall - Visual Effects Supervisor; Vincent Landay - Producer; KK Barrett - Production Designer; Karen Ruth Getchell - Production Coordinator; Linda Rae Shamest - Post Production Supervisor; John Ziegler - Special Effects Foreman; Greg Lazzaro - Location Manager; Shari Gray - Costume/Wardrobe; Ryan Arndt - Special Effects Technician; David Alstadter - Foley Mixer; Lynn Barron - Makeup; Elisa Bussetti - Set Designer; California Ballet - Choreography; Debra L. Ferullo - Makeup; Daphne Flescher - Animal Trainer/Wrangler; Goin' Ape - Animal Trainer/Wrangler; Barbara Gorden - Animal Trainer/Wrangler; John Gray - Special Effects Coordinator; Peter Gulla - Camera Operator; Wendy Horton - Animal Trainer/Wrangler; Linda Lew - Foley Recordist; Loop Troop - ADR Voice Casting; Michelle Madden - Casting Associate; Maxine Mahon - Choreography; Mit Out Sound - Sound/Sound Designer; Hilary Momberger - Script Supervisor; Susan Nickerson - Research; Nick Peck - Sound/Sound Designer; Gilly Ruben - Production Supervisor; Curt Shulkey - Dialogue Editor; Robert Small - Digital Effects; Marvin Walowitz - Sound Effects Editor; Gucci Westman - Makeup Supervisor; Sean Wimmer - Post Production Supervisor; Andy Jenkins - Title Design

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Wikipedia: being John Malkovich
Being John Malkovich
Being_John_Malkovich_poster.jpg
Being John Malkovich movie poster
Directed by Spike Jonze
Produced by Steve Golin
Vincent Landay
Sandy Stern
Michael Stipe
Written by Charlie Kaufman
Starring John Cusack
Cameron Diaz
Catherine Keener
John Malkovich
Music by Carter Burwell
Cinematography Lance Acord
Editing by Eric Zumbrunnen
Distributed by USA Films (1999-2002)
Universal Pictures (non-USA only 1999-2002, worldwide since 2002)
Release date(s) USA September 2, 1999
Australia December 26, 1999
UK March 17, 2000
New Zealand May 18, 2000
Running time 112 min
Language English
Budget $13,000,000 (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Being John Malkovich is a 1999 film written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Spike Jonze and starring the actor John Gavin Malkovich as John Horatio Malkovich.

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. Malkovich's performance as himself attracted considerable attention, as did Cameron Diaz's role as the dowdy Lotte.

Taglines

  • "Ever Want To Be Someone Else? Now You Can."
  • "Be All That Someone Else Can Be."

Plot

The film is about a man named Craig Schwartz (Cusack), an unsuccessful puppeteer involved in a forlorn marriage with his pet-obsessed wife Lotte (Diaz), who secretly desires to be a transsexual.

Asked by his wife to get a job, Schwartz begins to work as a filing clerk for LesterCorp at their offices on floor 7½ - a floor between floors - in the Mertin Flemmer building in Manhattan. It is while working here that Schwartz discovers a mysterious portal in a wall, which when entered 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 thrown into a ditch adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike. The puppeteer demonstrates his discovery to Maxine (Keener), a co-worker he has an obsession for, and she takes control and proposes the two form a business to sell the experience of being John Malkovich at $200 a time.

Visiting Lester (Orson Bean), Schwartz's boss, Lotte stumbles upon a strange room with a timeline of John Malkovich hung onto the walls. Schwartz tells Lotte about the portal; she tries it and becomes obsessed with the experience, wanting to return to Malkovitch's mind immediately. She enters Malkovich again when he is at home reading, and is present in his consciousness when Maxine calls and arranges a meeting with Malkovich at 8:00pm that night. Lotte covertly returns to the portal at 8:00 that night as well, and finds herself deeply attracted to Maxine, who later claims to have sensed Lotte's presence inside Malkovich's mind during their meeting.

Lotte invites Maxine to dinner. Maxine refuses both of their advances and reveals that she is not remotely interested in Schwartz, but is attracted to Lotte when she can sense Lotte inside Malkovich's mind. The pair agree to meet again in this fashion, and Maxine meets and then makes love to Malkovich as soon as she realizes that Lotte is present in his consciousness.

Left alone by the two women, Schwartz realizes the only way he will be able to get close to Maxine is by pretending to be Lotte in Malkovich's body. He 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 "Elijah." Maxine seduces Malkovich again, thinking that Lotte is in his mind, but actually it is Schwartz, who discovers this time that he is not a mere passive observer - he can actually manipulate and control Malkovich's body too.

Malkovich becomes paranoid that he is being controlled by a supernatural force and, after consulting his friend (a cameo appearance by Charlie Sheen), 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 his own portal, which manifests itself as a world where everyone (male or female) has his head and can only say the word “Malkovich.” He is then thrown into the turnpike. Schwartz meets the severely frightened Malkovich there and Malkovich orders him to close the portal. Schwartz ignores him and again forces Lotte to arrange a meeting between Maxine and Malkovich.

After Schwartz leaves to enter Malkovich, Lotte's chimp is inspired to untie her, recalling a childhood memory when he and his parents were captured in the jungle and he tried in vain to untie his father. After the escape, Lotte is then able to call Maxine and inform her of Schwartz's deceit. Surprisingly, Maxine tells Lotte that she was also aroused by Schwartz and that she will still be going to meet Malkovich with Schwartz, who is inside him.

This time when Maxine arrives at Malkovich’s apartment Schwartz is able to take total control of his body and the pair make love before deciding that Schwartz will remain inside Malkovich permanently. Schwartz 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, helping to revitalize the medium. It is disclosed that he has become married to Maxine, but that the two are becoming increasingly distant, and that this distance has been growing as Maxine's now 8 month pregnancy has progressed.

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 at age 44, 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 very young 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 Schwartz they will kill her if he does not leave. Schwartz 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.

Schwartz becomes distraught when he finds this out and rushes back to the portal to attempt to re-enter Malkovich, but it is now after midnight. 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.

Trivia

  • Craig Schwartz is one of the many names of Radio Man, the famous homeless New York City denizen who cameos in many films.
  • 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, are from when 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 completed 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 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.
  • 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 punched 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).
  • The scene when John Malkovich is hit in the head by a can thrown by a passenger in a passing car was possibly unscripted. Apparently an extra brought beer on set, got drunk, and decided to throw one of his beer cans at John Malkovich. The director liked the scene so much that he left it in the film. The extra got his SAG card, a pay raise since he now had a line in the movie. See the director's commentary on the DVD.[1] However, this recollection is possibly apocryphal since this exact scene-ending appears in a very early Kaufman script for Being John Malkovich (widely available on the web) which differs greatly from the final shooting script, especially in the second half of the story.
  • Craig's Dance of Despair and Disillusionment is choregraphed to the end of the second movement of Bela Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta.
  • Dr. Lester mentions Gary Sinise, who starred in a 1992 adaptation of Of Mice and Men with John Malkovich. Malkovich's character in this film, Lenny, is the man with learning difficulties referenced earlier in the film by the fan Malkovich meets in the restaurant.
  • Film Director David Fincher makes an uncredited appearance as Christopher Bing in the American Arts & Culture John Malkovich pseudo documentary. Spike Jonze had made an appearance in David Fincher's 1997 film The Game.

External links

References

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