BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
(1999; d. Spike Jonze, w. Charlie Kaufman)

Opening puppet-play of tortured-genius not-puppeteer Craig Schwartz-puppet casting about (self-)destructively till gazing up at Maker, at which point acquires grace + dexterity: prelude to what doesn’t happen, fixation instead on title actor/celebrity instead of Prime Mover/divinity driving potential creativity to obliviation.

Schwartz living in animal-filled apartment (base, unevolved existence – or, natural, uncivilized purity) w/ petshop wife Lottie (unfulfilled plenitude/agape: Cameron Diaz playing frumpy her character’s undiscovered beauty), driven by lack of success on street (world’s inappreciation of art, mimicking passersby [à la wife’s parrot] public’s/unconscious mind’s lodging in reiterative mode rather’n original) to take job at Lester Corp filing service (unconscious’s most menial job) on 7 ½ floor (margins of consciousness; btwn realms, à la Harry Potter’s Platform 8 3/4); hard-of-hearing receptionist Floris (sleeping mind at remove from sensible world [or is she messing w/ people?]) dubs him Mr Juarez (becoming not-himself in dream), frustrated, libidinous health-nut company "head" Dr Lester (organic Self containing drama) Dr Schwartz (not-Craig, again: step in becoming really-not-Craig + mind’s recreation of outer reality after itself).

Meets sexy putoff Maxine (exotic name à la Lottie’s + Floris’s vs mundane men’s the allure of the feminine; guessing her name his a priori recognition of part of self) during orientation video (history of bldg psychological orientation + archaic origin of pathology: ½-floor put in as haven for misfits [artist Craig; all characters psychic castoffs from dayworld "filed" into narrow unconscious space] on builder Mertin’s arbitrary marriage to small person [puppetlike stature Craig’s "marriage" to small-time status as well as small-mindedness, her independence à la his later Maxine-doll]: "erection" of "skyscraper" in honor of miniature/ideal the wages of low self-regard) + finds "portal" behind filing cabinet (means of transcendence obscured by orderly consciousness; debt to Rosemary’s Baby’s communicating closet behind secretary) leading into title actor’s mind (feminine w/i masculine, JM’s enigmatic sexuality pwrful fem-attractor, mental vagina – "penetrability" – making identification possible, likewise ambiguous "Max" Craig’s similar conduit to fame), his life as average as anyone’s (emptiness of false idols, cabbie misidentifying him Craig’s desire 2B recognized at all), jettisoned after Warholian 15m to side of New Jersey Turnpike (another passageway to mundanity) covered in afterbirth (JM’s "brainchild": eternal self-doubt visiting even accomplished artist); uses experience to intrigue Max, who sets to exploiting portal (commercialism the "lot" of fallen idealism, profiting off lost souls opposite Mertin’s exaltation of same [she fly-in-ointment floor occupant w/ indeterminate job]).

After Lotte "goes thru" (similarities also to 1983 Brainstorm), convinced she’s transsexual (aroused to own "masculine" pwr, experiencing him in shower cleansing of old self + sensuality of new, each character seeing self when seeing thru his eyes [as in showstopping dinner scene when JM enters own portal + sees restaurant full of – Malkoviches!]) + also falls for Max (own androgynous img); at dinner w/ Lester (as other meals, w/ Max, JM, Lotte + [script only] boring friends: various combinations of fe/male distilling into one – the selves communing w/ the Self), discovers shrine to JM (memory mythological history of the self; debt to Mephisto Waltz’s gallery of life-masks), returning to portal while Max seduces her/Malk thrill of communing w/ idealized masculinized self.

Jealous, pistol-wielding (hyper-masculinized) Craig cages her w/ chimp (conversely trying to contain feminine counterpart) + enjoys proxy-sex w/ Max (ecstasy of mtg ½way, "masculine" wmn only attained by masquerading as "feminine" man), during which JM discovers plot + goes thru own portal (progression from wmn-in-man to man-in-man to man-in-self descent into private unconscious populated by multiple Selves [all aspects of same personality: the actor’s multifaceted psyche]); Lotte escapes w/ chimp’s help on latter’s recovered memory of African abduction from parents (divorce from original primal unity of male + female [opposite Mertin-Flemmer bldg’s conjugal history], recollection "freeing" her) + flees to Dr Lester’s, who reveals MWaltz/RBaby plan to take over JM permanently on his 44th birthday (middle age, when senior personality born), he h’self containing multitude of souls (as does actor).

Craig hijacks JM after doing opening puppet dance for Max (minus glance heavenward: self-actualization w/o God/spirit doomed) + transforms actor into puppeteer (ascendance to controller midlife self-recreation à la frustrated TV-writer Kaufman to scrw + similar directing aspirations) until Lester et al stage coup + claim him, Maxine pregnant w/ "Lotte’s" girl-child actually containing Craig (still frustrated – coin o/t Surrealist realm – à la earlier Abélard + Heloïse puppet-play) his heartbreaking "Look away! Look away!" from love object opposite opening regarding of God: still trying to deny Erotic prime mover); latter’s closing-credit swim rebirth for fetishistic, ambitious man, eventually 2B displaced 2nd time by "Malkatraz" + unlikely best friend Charlie ("Ma")Sheen: union of effeminate soul + hypermasc body (opposite primal chimp divorce), they regarding new shrine to young girl – man’s hope for future.