Being John Malkovich & The Contemporary Theorist Zygmunt Bauman

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Written by: B. Carroll 3rd May 2009 Written by: B. Carroll

Love Death and Power: Representations of Love.

Cinematic

Being John Malkovich and the contemporary theorist Zygmunt Bauman ‘The proposition ‘life is a work of art’ is not a postulate or an admonition…, but a statement of fact. Life can’t not be a work of art if it a human life — the life of a being endowed with will and freedom of choice.’ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Compared to the assigning of identity upon individuals in the historical modern age, identity has become increasingly difficult to secure as a solid construction in the continuous reorganization that is present in the post modern consumer capitalism of western society. But what does this mean? In a positive social framework, now, more than any other time past, individuals can create an artistic life, (more freely) of one’s own individual choices and desires, filled with love. This short research report will examine the cinematic production Being John Malkovich by way of utilizing the contemporary social theory and perspectives of Zygmunt Bauman. At the outset, for this report it was an enjoyable task to firstly choose a film and then social theorist whose concepts and perspective expressively fitted to form a considered critique of the cinematic story. However a question arises; is this depiction of living a free and fluid artistic life a positive endeavour?

Written by: B. Carroll 3rd May 2009

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The Theorist - Zygmunt Bauman

Bauman is a sociologist who does not write to merely document and critique society, he’s a writer who express’s ways in which to change the world of individuals and thus the wider community. Blackshaw starts his analysis of Bauman’s stating ‘To say that Bauman stands out among his contempories is not the same as saying that his work is altogether distinctive... he is a figure whose sociology represents a dialogue between many strands of social thought’ . Bauman’s sociological imagination has stretched across fields of importance such as globalization, terrorism, human rights and (what this paper shall draw from) identity, love, ethics and morality. A brief analysis of Bauman’s social theory is made by Stefan Morawski highlighting Bauman’s grasping of social interaction that has occurred since the 1970s, this important shift is described whereas ‘Bauman moved away from using many persuasive arguments of a systematic search of knowledge and turned his attention to social chaos, finding his former attempts, both onto-epistemological and methodological, were mistaken and harmful’ . It could be put forward that Bauman has noticeably shown his own ability to negotiate being a reflexive moral agent; living a liquid modern life, though strong critique has been directed at his recent globalised social theories1. Bauman uses a metaphorical language to conceptionalize the positioning of the previous (historical) solid/heavy modernity, to the present being a social existence of liquid/fluid modernity. Bauman delivers a sociological elucidation, that with the individual’s ideology of life pleasures in western society’s consumer capitalism, the ease of letting go and discarding the consumables is equally as valuable and possibly more important as the initial acquisition , this shall be a key theme reflected upon in this paper. The Film - Being John Malkovich Being John Malkovich was first publicly screen at the New York Film Festival ten years ago , though distributed by a mass media corporation this is not a mass market film. It is 1

According to Larry Ray the use of generalised metaphors in a globalised social theory such as Bauman’s liquid modernity, is though useful for ‘[s]timulating imaginative enquiry they are not a substitute for rigorous conceptualisation and research into the social’ .

Written by: B. Carroll 3rd May 2009

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of the black comedy genre and was given an “R” rating in the U.S and a MA 15+ in Australia. The film Being John Malkovich is an original screenplay written by Charlie Kaufman and was Spike Jonze’s first feature film he directed. There is four main leading characters they are Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), his wife Lotte Schwartz (Cameron Diaz), the love interest Maxine (Catherine Kenner) and John Horatio Malkovich (John Malkovich). An apt thematic synopsis of the film is ‘A metaphysical love story about the desire to be someone else and the urge to control another person’s thought and actions... [touching] on questions of love, identity, sex, gender...’ . The Dance of Despair and Disillusionment; Loving the Person Within

‘People's lives today more than any other time in the past are governed by the contingency of events’(Blackshaw, 2005, p. x). Set in a real place, New York, the four lead actors in Being John Malkovich are strained to explore and live a series of events in a world that has become less solid, less sensible, and where the insecurity of identity are shown as a institutionalised social norm. Craig Schwartz is pointedly depressed with ‘today’s wintery economic climate’ where puppetry, (his self chosen vocation) is not an appreciated art form unless it is large scale and given with flashy deliverance for the public audience. Craig Schwartz increasingly experiences a depression of discontents, with being at a loss with his artistic identity. Craig is able to be a fluid agent in finding an economic means to live while ‘waiting for the puppetry thing to take-off’. At his new workplace on the 7 ½ floor of the Mertin Flemmer Building Craig meets Maxine, (she is a powerful, graceful and seemingly willing participant in the liquid life) and where Craig is instantly roaring into the liquid modern with the love possibilities of being with Maxine. It is also here on the 7 ½ floor that Craig finds the tiny Alice in Wonderland like door that propels the entering ‘being’ into the mind of John Horatio Malkovich.2 Bauman express that with living in the liquid modern ‘one cannot perhaps take the time-lid off mortal life; but one can remove all limits from the volume of satisfactions to be experienced before reaching that other, irremovable limit. Craig and Lotte Schwartz are provided with a means to become mobile, to stop being what they are and become ‘what 2

The characters don’t significantly question at any point the validity of Craig Schwartz finding this portal, the portal is and it is real.

Written by: B. Carroll 3rd May 2009

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one is not’, to explore love, sexuality and identity through the tiny out of this world door that propels the occupier into the mind of John Horatio Malkovich. The being of ‘Malkovich’ for precisely fifteen minutes is a certain play on the adage of the consuming individuals desiring their fifteen minutes of fame and the connected adoration that embodies being famous, one who is on the top tier. This portal goes that step towards that consumption of fame-buying, allowing the traveller into the vessel being, to actually be someone else, seeing what they see, and feeling what they feel. Maxine with Craig’s help use this consuming desire in others by selling tickets to experience “Malkovich”. The experience brings to light the paradox of one loving one’s-self more by being someone else. An interesting insight into the film is made by Dan Hobart On that ‘being’that celebrity is an extension of seeing that celebrity on the cinema screen, where it is that you allow yourself to fall into empathy with the actors portrayed character. That at the same time Malkovich as an actor is also a puppeteer, by his manipulating of the audience. It is the initial story telling of the disengagement Craig experiences from his artistic and institutional identity (marriage) that seems to be why Craig Schwartz can so easily take over an other’s being and identity to fulfil his own individualised life and love interests. As Bauman illustrates it is the culture powered consumerism in western society as an embodied structure that serves and directs the liquid modern individual. In support of this perception Blackshaw states ‘What Bauman is bringing to our attention about contemporary social relations, is that individualization is becoming the social structure of liquid modernity itself’. It is the culture power in fluid modernity that supports the proposition of nothing is uncommodifable to the individual, anything imaginable in the heightened consumerism of western society can be for their consumption . At the same time Bauman states the individual agents in liquid modernity must also have regard to the ease that consumerables may be discarded, that this is with as little effort as the initial acquisition, that the individual in fluid modernity ‘must modernise or perish’. One isin ‘existential insecurity through the burdening choices of liberated reflexivity, at every turn faced with the need to make decisions’ (Blackshaw, 2005, pp. 83-84). Quite quickly Lotte becomes a liability to Craig and his exploiting self actualisation, reflected as love aspirations of playing at the top with Maxine. In Being John Malkovich the characters

Written by: B. Carroll 3rd May 2009

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use fluid modernity to aid in an existence of creating a life that is speedily interchangeable, able to bein a variety of settings, this fluidity of identity aids the supposition of human necessity for connectedness with the other. But if this individualization identity pursuit is travelled without heed to morality of humanity it is a life of self-centred life politics, incomplete of the value that is found in the community structure of society and certainly incomplete and barren of love from others.

CONCLUDING Though individuals are certainly very different from past generations of traditional socialised communities, there is a question that arises about the positiveness of the existence of individualism, as a social structurethat is separate from groups. The vessel body phenomena portrayed in Being John Malkovich composes an idea of pursuing unique individualism as an obsolete concept and a fantastical positive picture of keeping the traditional group network continuing to flourish and expand inside one individual being (vessel) across time eternal. Drawing on Blackman he transcribes a quote made by Bauman which states “As Ulrich Beck memorably put it, each of us is now expected to seek individual biographical solutions to socially produced troubles” . So here in the vessel body the pursuit of happiness (‘the ostensible purpose and paramount motive of individual life’ ) there gathers a small community lovingly bonded to solve these social problems together. Blackshaw suggests ‘that the strengths of Bauman’s analysis is not so much in the way he see’s consumer culture as an all-encompassing reality, but the way in which Bauman suggests to us that if we are prepared to admit that consumption has become the way of life we are in a better position to learn a great deal about the “means and the mechanisms” of liquid modern society, which means of course that we will also be better equipped to do something about changing the world for the better, for humanity’ . A final critical impression of the story Being John Malkovich is ‘Life may be at all times a living-towards-death, but in a liquid modern society living-towards-the-refuse dump

Written by: B. Carroll 3rd May 2009

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may be a more immediate and more energy-and-labour consuming prospect and concern for the living’ . Craig Schwartz in his risk-pleasure disillusion of consuming an identity that in turn would deliver him love and adoration, despairingly loses his being by being absorbed into an ‘unripe vessel’. The liquid modern ethos which he pursued was done with zeal of attaining top self-actualisation (loving thyself before all others) with little responsibility to his moral self. Craig becomes a completely disconnected being living an imprisoned existence in the vessels mind. With the power designs of consumer capitalism culture Craig essentially and albeit unsympathetically becomes a silenced puppet; an unknown and unloved other for eternity.

REFERENCE LIST

Written by: B. Carroll 3rd May 2009

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