Hacker Cinema
Being John Malkovich
1999 · Film · 113 min
Directed by Spike Jonze
One day at work, unsuccessful puppeteer Craig finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters its mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.
9 positive16 neutralfrom 25 commenters
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27 comments on Hacker News
Except for "Being John Malkovich". That movie was way out there on its own.
Being John Malkovich is film for film people.
> Other movies of the era (e.g. Being John Malkovich) didn’t telegraph stuff. That movie didn't win any Oscars and sold roughly 10x fewer tickets.
1999 was a bumper year for film in general. There were too many good picks that many had to be passed over. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind came out in 2004 to acclaim, and covered similar themes, so it can be done. The casting of Being John Malkovich also made it a long shot for awards, as all of the actors in it are fantastic, but there aren’t any standout roles because everyone in it is so good already, and none of the characters are redeeming in any way, so it’s a hard watch for most folks.
Spike Jonze did get an Oscar nomination for Being John Malkovich, and it was his feature film directing debut. The writer, also in his respective feature film debut (for writing), Charlie Kaufman, also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Ticket sales are the wrong metric for artsy stuff like that, imo.
Ebert said it best:
> Roger Ebert awarded the film a full four stars, writing: "What an endlessly inventive movie this is! Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich, supplies a dazzling stream of inventions, twists, and wicked paradoxes. And the director, Spike Jonze, doesn't pounce on each one like fresh prey, but unveils it slyly, as if there's more where that came from... The movie has ideas enough for half a dozen films, but Jonze and his cast handle them so surely that we never feel hard-pressed; we're enchanted by one development after the next". He concluded: "Every once in a long, long while a movie comes along that is unlike any other. A movie that creates a new world for us and uses it to produce wonderful things. Forrest Gump was a movie like that, and so in different ways were M*A*S*H, This Is Spinal Tap, After Hours, Babe and There's Something About Mary. What do such films have in common? Nothing. That's the point. Each one stakes out a completely new place and colonizes it with limitless imagination. Either Being John Malkovich gets nominated for best picture, or the members of the Academy need portals into their brains."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich
Calling the literalism "new" implies it wasn't present in older pics. You can go back to 1997 when Good Will Hunting won 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Pretty much everything was telegraphed, and that’s ok — the story resonated with millions of moviegoers and made a lot of money.
Other movies of the era (e.g. Being John Malkovich) didn’t telegraph stuff. That movie didn't win any Oscars and sold roughly 10x fewer tickets.
You got my vote. What a great name for AI dregs feeding back into AI training to turn out even more bizarre dregs.
For those unaware of the reference, movie: "Being John Malkovich".
Long ago I was the assistant to the movie tie-in editor at Tor Books. One day we're going through the mail and there's the script for Being John Malkovich. I read it, and I'm like, holy shit, we have to do this. But wait, how are we going to do this? So I show it to the editor, and he says, yeah, this is great, but how are we going to make this a book? I mean, I could think of ways, but no way that Tom would pay for. So I spend the better part of year just blabbing to people about this great script, but no one has any better idea of what do with it. Still disappointed.
She could write a movie from her story:
> On 31 August 1997, startled by the news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Amélie drops a plastic perfume-stopper, which dislodges a wall tile and accidentally reveals an old metal box which contains childhood memorabilia hidden by a boy who lived in her apartment decades earlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am%C3%A9lie
> While filing, Craig discovers a small hidden door. He crawls through it into a tunnel and finds himself inside the mind of actor John Malkovich.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich
> A woman (credited as "M") mentions to her musician husband (credited as "C") that as a child, she moved residences frequently and took to hiding little notes wherever she lived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Ghost_Story
Is the art deco inside as beautiful as cracked up to be?
Ps I also worked in a phone exchange building. Cool thing was that there were half floors. 1, 1 1/2, 2, 2 1/2 etc. These floors were in fact half height like in the movie Being John Malkovich. Except there were no offices, they were used to route the huge cable trunks between floors and rooms.
These days with single fibers replacing thousands of cable pairs I'm sure they're a lot more roomy than they were back then.
A movie like "Being John Malkovich" except it's you!
It can occasionally work in films but they need to be used very intentionally. I'm think like in The Big Lebowski or vaguely Being John Malkovich
Definitely up there as one of the greatest endings, the melancholy it represents is just so on point. Another similar film like that would be 'Being John Malkovich', - a film that was utter perfect all the way til the end.
The thing I absolutely love about the end is that what happens after is completely left open. Did he find peace or was it disappointment at the horrors of what was outside the dome? We will never know, it is just something you have to wonder and accept. It is not for us to know, it is but the feeling a dream you can never grasp like the clouds behind a distant mountain.
I have seen maybe half of these films. I was able to correctly name some of them immediately upon looking at them: Wizard of Oz, The Matrix, The Big Lebowski.
Some were obvious after reading the title: Star Wars, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (never saw it), Being John Malkovich, Space Jam (never saw it), Miami Vice (never saw it), Office Space.
Some that I half guessed or felt like I knew the name of the film but could not immediately recall the name: Castaway, Mad Max: Fury Road, Edward Scissorhands (Thought it was The Nightmare Before Christmas but Tim Burton so close enough)
Obvious ones: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Same here. After looking at the movie name, I can see the connection, but it's just not strong enough for me to identify the movie from the picture.
Not that this should matter in this context, and no idea how common or uncommon this particular "skill" is, but I can often identify a movie that I've seen years, even decades ago, by seeing just a few seconds of it. I guess this is a form of photographic memory. But, it's not only the raw snapshots, instead it's a mix of image quality, content and if I catch a glimpse of it, the story and characters too. Is there such a thing is "moving pictures memory"?
Edit: I did identify "Being John Malkovich (1999)"! Then again, his face appears in the picture.
You're focusing on a very specific niche. Sci-fi and adventure were rarely the interest of good film makers, so few sci-fi or adventure films were made.
But that does not reflect on the larger film industry of the 80s and 90s, which was producing many more incredible movies which stood the test of time. 1999 alone gave us Fight Club, The Talented Mr Ripley, Being John Malkovich, American Beauty, The Iron Giant, Eyes Wide Shut, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, The Green Mile.
There has always been a lot of schlock cinema being produced, but right now it is dominating much more than in the last few decades.
> in “Being John Malkovich,” the actor John Malkovich (John Malkovich)
I can't help but think this is a movie reference.
See we are referencing both pg and Being John Malkovich, I can't help but point to his essay where he brings up a scene from the movie in the context of ambitious startup ideas:
http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html
A great essay to (re)read as well!
Just want to mention that I re-watched Being John Malkovich on Netflix a few weeks ago. This was the movie that made Kaufman famous (along with director Spike Jonze), around 1999.
It still holds up! Great movie. To be honest a lot of movies can't hold my attention these days -- they're "thin" and contrived to elicit certain reactions in the audience -- but this movie did after more than 20 years. I rarely rewatch a movie; it's usually one and done for me.
This brings to mind this observation by PG: Novels seem so impoverished compared to history and biography. But reading Austen is like reading nonfiction. She writes so well you don't even notice her.
http://paulgraham.com/heroes.html
Basically I have a hard time with a lot of fictional movies and fictional writing because they seem "impoverished". Kaufman sets up absurd situations, viewed from absurd angles, but they have a realistic texture that you get something out of.
Fun fact: that dancer in front at the beginning of this video-striped shirt, mustache, glasses-is Spike Jonez.
He directed this music video. And the excellent video for Weapon of Choice by the same artist (https://youtu.be/wCDIYvFmgW8), as well as Sabotage by The Beastie Boys, and the excellent mind-fuck movies Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Her (which he also wrote and won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for).
It’s funny watching a contemporary creative genius just kinda goof around.
do you know the origin of this? I suppose from the film "being john Malkovich"...
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was written by Charlie Kaufman, who is definitely a Dickhead. He wrote a screenplay of Scanner Darkly that went unproduced after the Linklater version came out. And of course, he wrote my favorite PKD movie not based on a PKD book, Being John Malkovich.
In the first movie, he kills a bunch of policemen and feels he and his friends have been abandoned by the military.
In the second, the military is actively concealing the existence of live POWs in Vietnam. He ends the movie by threatening a military official.
In neither case can you reasonably call the movie "propaganda", at least not without logic that you could use to connects the dots between any movie, from Bridget Jones Diary to Being John Malkovich, to propaganda.
I'm not arguing that the movies are anti-propaganda. I'd call them neutral in that regard.
Am I wrong in thinking a VR movie would be something like the experience in 'Being John Malkovich'? Even without a compelling narrative I can see that being quite enjoyable; especially for things that are difficult to do in real life - extreme sports, driving a stupidly expensive car or a tour of the ISS.
A nice surprise for me was the effectiveness of 1st-person, live-action, 3D recordings viewed through the Rift. With the Rift and decent headphones, it's truly a Being John Malkovich / Strange Days experience. VR goggles can convey that experience much better than a TV/movie screen ever could. Ex: Avatars in the Rift have personal space. If you get too close to someone in VR, it's uncomfortable just like going nose-to-nose in real space. No movie screen has ever made me feel like that.
Here's my list of favorite videos so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXaxVLNMIxU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8zaYrd0LvI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eByvt8he58U&t=1m10s
http://vimeo.com/64769947 NSFW
I have viewed 360 vids on the Rift. It's true they are not stereo, but they are still very effective. Simply being able to turn your head an look around is a significant aspect of presence. These two vids http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN7HtvXc-Bo and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4iltd0wMlU played through http://vrplayer.codeplex.com/ are great examples.
Non-360 but wide-angle videos like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgox84KE7iY (spy-movie violence) still work pretty well (you can look around, just don't bother turning 360 degrees) and could be stereo.
So movies are a pretty big business. Not as big as people usually think, compared to energy, food, defense. But pretty big. Culturally, people go to the movies as a form of escapism, because story-telling seems to be a deeply ingrained human need (I don't think there is a single culture we know about that doesn't tell stories). Some of these stories are quite inspirational: they inspire thought, debate, criticism, self-reflection, etc. And some of us, the ones that are inclined to, write reviews. I've written one or two myself. Occasionally conversations get started around movies with friends - arguments about the meaning of Being John Malkovich or why they only made one Highlander movie....
Listening to stories (or watching them, as the case may be) is a usually enjoyable experience - which is why we choose to listen and even pay for the opportunity to listen to a really good story from a really good storyteller. All of the "pain points" around this process have been thoroughly addressed: it's easy to discover movies, buy tickets, download to your computer, get reviews, write reviews. Even the watching experience itself has been improved with 3D (although this is open to debate) and better sound, even things like IMAX and more experimental experiences e.g. Star Tours at Disneyland. There are some places in the world where they even serve food and drink during the movie (or at least during an intermission).
The biggest pain people feel about movies is dealing with the proliferation of choice. It doesn't seem to me that there is an underserved market of people who would see more movies if only they knew about the good ones.
Imagine, if you will, your own personal Heaven. Presumably storytelling and movies are still happening. What is the heavenly, perfect movie-going experience? Does the movie take over your visual cortex? Are movies recommended by God - or indeed, created by Him to perfectly stimulate your mind in the way He knows you like? Does your reaction telepathically propagate to everyone else in Heaven? (Is telepathic propagation connectionless? I suppose that's another thread).
Wikipedia on Charlie Kaufman [1]. His film work includes Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Adaptation., Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kaufman
Talk about timing. I just wrote up a list for a friend that includes a bunch of weird movies (most of them being head trips). My list includes two Cronenberg movies as well! Though, to be honest, I'm not really a fan of either. Heh, I know this is a little off topic but for those that dove this deep into the thread, maybe you would like to expand your weird movie viewing experience.
01. Eraserhead-- This feature film was the debut for Writer/Director David Lynch. The film is noted for its usage of sound as a theatrical device and "the baby" which is rumored to be created from an embalmed cow fetus. The films script is a scant 21 pages despite a running time of 85 minutes (script pages typically match runtimes).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074486/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraserhead
02. Dead Leaves-- Produced in 2004, this Japanese animated film clocks in at 55 minutes long. The films (thin) plot is composed almost entirely of a chase/fight scene that begins on earth and ends on a space station. The movie's weirdness climaxes when when the mutant baby of the the film's protagonists is born and proceeds to kill a giant space catepillar which is attempting to eat the earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Leaves http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439533/
03. House -- This 1977 Japanese film certainly ranks as one of the weirdest (if not the weirdest) movies of all time. It was unreleased in the U.S. until after a screening at the 2009 New York Asian Film Festival. In an iconic scene, a Japanese girl is consumed by piano monster as a green eyed catch watches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_(1977_film)
04. Jacob's Ladder- Fans of the game Silent Hill should well be aware of this movie from 1990 that inspired many of its elements. Tim Robbins stars as a vietnam war vet suffering from demonic images increasingly polluting his fragile reality. One paticularly gruesome scene includes Robbins being wheeled through a bloody hospital corrirodor filled with limbs and mutating torsos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobs_Ladder_(film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/
05. Barton Fink- This Cohen Brothers film stars John Turturro as a novelist. The 1991 film closes with a set of iconic scenes including John Goodman exiting a burning hallway (like a badass).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Fink http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101410/
06. Naked Lunch- The first of two Cronenberg films in this category. This 1991 film adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel features a protagonist who uses bug spray as a chemical escape from reality. Talking insects and failed "William Tell Routines" are just some of the madness this movie contains.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch
07. Videodrome- David Cronenberg wrote and directed this movie staring James Woods. The movie centers around Wood's character, a sleazy TV exec, who inreasingly loses touch with reality after he comes across a station which airs extreme violence and torture. Key scenes include his merger with a TV set and a VHS tape being thrust into his stomach.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome
08. Donnie Darko (Jake and Maggie Gyllenhall sp?)- Donnie Darko served as philosophical fodder for a whole generation of "Emos". Written and directed by Richard Kelly. The movie stars this brother-sister hollywood team. The movie covers a wealth of ideas including fatalism and time travel. Movie goers will inevitably remember the creepy bunny head that pervades entirety of the film.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko
09. Human Centipede- This 2010 dutch horror film quickly became a meme rivaling Two Girls One Cup for gross-out factor. The film features a mad doctor who connects three unfortunate souls in the most unfortunate way possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_centipede http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1467304/
10. Brazil- The second installment of Terry Gilliam's "Imagination Trilogy". This 1985 film represents the dreams of adults including navigating beurocracy and chasing true love. Robert DeNiro also provides a notable role as a rebel repairman in the film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/
11. Black Swan 12. Paprika 13. Being John Malkovich 05. Teeth
You think that you are being so extreme that it is ridiculous.
Well, lawyers already went there: http://www.plotpatents.com/
"A Plot or Storyline Patent application seeks to patent the underlying novel and nonobvious storyline of a fictional story. Such protection is to be contrasted from the copyright protection of one of millions of possible expressions of an underlying storyline. The field of possible applications is broad, and may tentatively be split into an entertainment-advertisement dichotomy. The epitome of an entertainment application is an original, thought-provoking, often shockingly unique movie plot. Several potentially patentable features may have been found in the plots of, Memento, The Thirteenth Floor, Being John Malkovich, Butterfly Effect, The Game, Fight Club, The Matrix, Total Recall, The Truman Show, Minority Report, The Village, Groundhog Day, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to name a few. The epitome of an advertisement application is one of the many thoughtfully hilarious Super Bowl commercials."