I often think about wanting to be inside someone else's mind, so i can then compare it to me own. However in the film this only leaves people realising what they are missing, for example Lotte becomes hooked on the experience because she finally feels comfortable in her skin but only in her skin in Malkovich's skin. But is the more a self -realisation that really what she was missing her whole life was a mans body, or is ignorance actually bliss? Then Maxine having experienced the desire of two people from one body, or the womans gaze coming from a mans body, does not desire them separately. Once you have experienced something greater you cannot go back to the way things were before. Or when Maxine is pregnant, whose baby is it, it is said to be Lotte's but it is Malkovich's DNA, does Lotte being in his head at point of conception mean that it is her child. Or most spooky at the end, Craig in the mind of the daughter of Lotte and Maxine, yearning for Maxine still.
A really fascinating point was when Malkovich entered his own portal, what would happen?, i actually paused the film at the point trying to think of possibilities, would he just get trapped in a loop of endless Malkovich going in circles or would the two Malkovich's cancel each other out and so he would just become a vegetable in a body, or would he become double Malkovich, with two minds, would he get trapped there? Would he explode? No instead his unique experience was a world full of Malkovich where the only word was Malkovich, although this to me didnt add up to me, but perhaps its better they treated it that way, as if they treated it more seriously then it would move the story somewhere else.
After that something really stuck with me when Malkovich wanted the portal to be closed, was it his right just because it was his head, did Craig have any right? Even more worrying when he said he would take him to court and Craig questioned who would be thinking in court. How to you deal with the possibility of someone invading your thoughts.
Craig likes puppetry because he can get inside someone else's skin, he also says to the chimp that conciousness is a terrible thing, being able to think and feel. He feels through the puppets giving them emotions, he is putting his terrible curse of conciousness into them. The same could be said for Lotte and her obsession with animals, having trapped all these animals with her in her concious human life and reflecting human emotions onto them, for example the chimps supressed childhood trauma which she wants to treat through psychoanalysis. She is isolated from them as she is human. The film has so much concerning human isolation, isolation that everyone has trapped in their own thoughts, never really able to communicate what they want to. Even through experiencing life as another, they are still in their own thoughts and head within the head of another, so are still isolated. Craigs puppet show at the start forshadows this isolation as the two sexually frustrated puppet characters are isolated by a wall. The body of John Malcovich is a wall for many of the characters who enter it, for example Lotte and Craig can only have sex and be intimate with Maxine from behind the wall of Malkovich and vice versa for Maxine. Even the physical portal itself is within the walls of a wall. In a way the irony of it is that to be really in someone elses head you could no longer be aware of the self the were before, otherwise you would just be a spectator, to really be somone else you have to be them fully so therefore you would not be aware of the fact you were in someone elses head as it would be you.
'Storytelling is inherently dangerous. Consider a traumatic event in your life. Think about how you experienced it. Now think about how you told it to someone a year later. Now think about how you told it for the hundredth time. It's not the same thing. Most people think perspective is a good thing: you can figure out characters arcs, you can apply a moral, you can tell it with understanding and context. But this perspective is a misrepresentation: it's a reconstruction with meaning, and as such bears little resemblance to the event.
The other thing that happens is adjustment. You find out which part of the story works, which part to embellish, which to jettison. You fashion it. Your goal is to be entertaining. This is true for a story told at a dinner party, and it's true for stories told through movies. Don't let anyone tell you what a story is, what it needs to include. As an experiment, write a non-story. It will have a chance of being different.
I'll tell you this little story. There's something inherently cinematic about it. I run in my neighbourhood, and one day I ran past this guy running in the other direction: an older guy, a big hulky guy. He was struggling, huffing and puffing. I was going down a slight hill and he was coming up. So he passes me and he says: "Well, sure, it's all downhill that way." I loved that joke. We made a connection. So I had it in my head that this is a cool guy, and he's my friend now.
A few weeks later, I'm passing him again, and I'm thinking: "There's the guy that's cool." As we pass each other, he says: "Well, sure, it's all downhill that way." So I think: "Oh, OK. He's got a repertoire. I'm not that special. He's probably said it to other people, maybe he doesn't remember me ... but OK." I laughed, but this time my laugh was a little forced.
Then I pass him another time, and he says it again. And this time he's going downhill and I'm going uphill, so it doesn't even make sense. And I started to feel pain about this, because I'm embarrassed for him and I think maybe there's something wrong with him. And then it just keeps happening. I probably heard it seven or eight more times. I started to avoid him.
I like the idea that the story changes over time even though nothing has changed on the outside. What's changed is all in my head and has to do with a realisation on my character's part. And the story can only be told in a particular form. It can't be told in a painting. The point is: it's very important that what you do is specific to the medium in which you're doing it, and that you utilise what is specific about that medium to do the work. And if you can't think about why it should be done this way, then it doesn't need to be done.' KAUFMAN
changes all in the end to change the way it is going and realisation, this rings true to what i am doing, especially in the piece of myself talking into the camera and reflecting on my thoughts from seconds ago, everything changes through the thoughts, when nothing really changes at all.
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