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Written by: B. Carroll

3rd May 2009

Written by: B. Carroll

Love Death and Power: Cinematic

Representations of Love.

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

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.
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Written by: B. Carroll
3rd May 2009

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