Dustin Drew

Professor Justin Blessinger

English 405, Media Studies

30 October, 2014
Finding Identity through John Malkovich
Everyone at one point or another in their lives wants to be someone else, maybe because
of boredom, or because they see someone elses life as more glamourous or fulfilling. But it may
also be because they are trying to identify with something within their own psyche that they are
afraid of or dont want to admit. Over the years the idea of living in someone elses shoes has
been captured in cinema, but seemed to come into its own during the 1990s because of the new
hyperrealist trends in film. In the essay The Hyperreal Theme in 1990s American Cinema,
Randy Laist claims that mainstream cinema of the 1990s represents a distinct break with the
unapologetic triumphalism of decades past and destabilizes the values of technology, fantasy, and
patriarchy which were reaffirmed in previous decades.1 In other words, these films rejected the
old styles of living our lives a certain way and looked at the blurred lines between fantasy and
reality; they tapped into what people were really thinking and feeling.
One of the major motion pictures in the 1990s that depicted hyperrealism was Fight Club
where a man, who we never really know the name of, creates an alter ego named Tyler Durden to
help him escape from the mundane materialistic lifestyle that he is a slave to. The movie in
essence brings up the idea of the narrators personal identity, or the idea that he didnt truly know
or like who he was, and used Durden to escape reality through the use of violence and
destruction which became common during what media and cultural critic Richard Benjamin calls
the Youth Apocalypse Films.2 In this essay, I looked at the film Being John Malkovich which,

like Fight Club, also questions the idea of personal identity, but takes a different approach in
telling the story by using different cinematic techniques and by using a more peaceful setting to
tell the story of how characters react to living their lives as someone else.
Erlend Lavik, the Associate Professor for the Department of Information Science and
Media Studies at Bergin University, believes what unites movies of the 90s, is they tend to
approach storytelling and storytelling conventions in experimental, often playful way, and do not
match standard descriptions of contemporary Hollywood cinema. He also claims that these films
are characterized by narrative complexity in the sense that they place greater cognitive demands
on audiences.3 This is what was unique about Being John Malkovich. The film took a totally
different approach in demonstrating the idea of wanting to be someone else as compared with
other films of the time. For the most part, the story was told in a more lively way. Director Spike
Jonze and cinematographer Lance Acord literally made it seem like the characters, which
crawled through the small door and into John Malkovich, were looking through his eyes, or
seeing things from inside of Malkovich. As Mark Kerins, a professor of film at Southern
Methodist University, explains, this was accomplished by use a combination of aural and visual
cues to convey a wealth of information about perspective. Visually, the image track in these
scenes is matted to provide a roughly elliptical image so that we see exactly what Malkovich
himself would see through his own eyes. Aurally, we are simultaneously placed inside two
people's heads: Malkovich's and that of the person "inside" him. The film distinguishes between
these two both by the way they are miked and by their mixing.4 A good example of this view
jumps out at the audience right after Craig (John Cusack) initially goes into Malkovich. The first
view the audience gets is of Craig looking through Malkovichs eyes while he is eating breakfast.
The audience can see Malkovich grabbing a piece of toast and lifting it to his mouth and hear the

muffled sounds of Malkovich chewing toast and swallowing coffee like they would see it and
hear it within their own heads. Throughout the rest of the film the two main characters of the
film, Craig and his wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz) keep going inside Malkovich to experience his
life, which in turn has interestingly different effects on each character with how they question
their own identity.
Spike Jonze entered some thought provoking territory with the two characters and how
they react to being inside Malkovich. The easier of the two reactions is that of Lotte. Lotte has an
inner dilemma with her own gender, and just comes out and says that she is transgender after
jumping into Malkovich while he is in the shower. In his review of this film in Film Quarterly,
Scott Repass identifies that this film looks at gender as a large part of ones identity and claims
that gender, as a trait of the now interchangeable body, becomes a form of identity that may not
always coincide with the internal experience of self.5 By going inside Malkovich, Lotte feels
comfortable with and even craves having male parts and a deep voice; she also loves the idea of
being pursued by women. So really Lotte discovers herself and her sexuality inside Malkovich,
so being inside him those few times helped her to eventually adjust her life in a good and
fulfilling way, and by the end of the film she is self-accepting and feels comfortable with her
own reality. Craig on the other hand is a little trickier.
Craig is more like the narrator in Fight Club in that he uses Malkovich to be someone
else rather than for self-discovery. When we first meet Craig he is already in a somewhat escapist
state because he is intertwined in his imaginary world as a puppeteer. He claims early in the film
that puppets are a way of becoming someone else for a little while. They are like being inside
another skin and allow him to think differently, move differently, and feel differently. So
naturally going inside Malkovich is just another way of becoming someone else for him. Like

Lotte, Craig seems to also be very unhappy with his life. One trick the cinematographer uses to
depict Craigs mundane life is with the color filter of the film. Everything seems to be dreary.
But when Craig is working with his puppets or inside Malkovich the scenes are brighter and the
colors that he sees are more vivid. We also see that all his puppets mock characters in the story,
like himself, his wife, and his coworker Maxine (Catherine Keener). This is a strange aspect of
the story because it depicts the blurred lines between Craigs fantasy and reality. Craigs major
problem though is, according to Repass, that no matter how much he escapes reality with his
puppets or in Malkovich, he cant escape his own feelings; they are always present, thus blurring
Craigs version of fantasy and reality even more.6 Sadly what eventually happens to Craig is he
tries to stay inside of and control Malkovich which eventually alienates him from the rest of the
characters and he becomes the product of his own demise, just like the narrator of Fight Club.
In conclusion, I believe that Being John Malkovich was a very cool film because it
looked at two characters and how they perceived their own identity in a fresh, fun, and
nonviolent way, which was by how they saw themselves living in John Malkovich. The film
takes on the many different ideas of identity like gender and self-depreciation, but by the end of
the film really nails down a good point; no matter how hard a person tries, they cant escape
themselves.

Works Cited:
2. Benjamin, Richard. "The Sense of an Ending: Youth Apocalypse Films." Journal of Film and
Video 56.4 (2004): 34-49. ProQuest. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.ezproxy.dsu.edu:2786/pqdiscovery/docview/212704104/CC3BEDA544124
D32PQ/1?accountid=27073>
1. Laist, Randy. The Hyperreal Theme in 1990s American Cinema. Americana: The Journal of
American Popular Culture (1900-present) 9.1 (2010): Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/spring_2010/laist.htm>
4. Kerins, Mark. "Narration in the Cinema of Digital Sound." Velvet Light Trap.58 (2006): 41-54.
ProQuest. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.ezproxy.dsu.edu:2786/pqdiscovery/docview/222869540/B78C442161BE4F
E3PQ/8?accountid=27073>
3. Lavik, Erlend. "Narrative Structure in the Sixth Sense: A New Twist in "Twist Movies"?"
Velvet Light Trap.58 (2006): 55-64. ProQuest. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.ezproxy.dsu.edu:2786/pqdiscovery/docview/222861867/B78C442161BE4F
E3PQ/7?accountid=27073>
5. 6.Repass, Scott. "Being John Malkovich." Film Quarterly 56.1 (2002): 29-36. ProQuest. Web.
28 Oct. 2014.
<http://search.proquest.com/docview/212275034/fulltextPDF/C596DB5A1C514540PQ/1
?accountid=27073>