Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Jonze and Gondry

Spike Jonze was just in Indiana, last night even. Weird that we would talk about him today. He's a remarkable artist. The man directed Her, Being John Malkovich, Where the Wild Things Are. He's definitely a force to be reckoned.

Michel Gondry wasn't just in Indiana sadly, but he's as much of a force. He directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind, and Mood Indigo. The French director draws on French New Wave and the avant garde movement quite a bit.

Their link is screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman is arguably the most postmodern screenwriter of late. His films explore the self in a way few films have. Personal memories, how we lie to ourselves, the duplicity of oneself, and hiding in one's own work to the point where we disappear. He's not the most mainstream screenwriter.


He's known for creating surprisingly original worlds for his characters to live in. His first film, Being John Malkovich, explores the way society makes a puppet of the celebrity and vice versa. In my opinion, his most interesting film is Adaptation. Adaptation, directed by Jonze, started as a simple adaptation of the book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean but turned into a journey into his own character (the lead, Nicolas Cage, plays Kaufman and a fictional twin), and a study on the business of screenwriting.

The reason for the connection of these directors is because of their deft handling of the postmodern themes, another reason that their work on modern music videos is so relevant. If music simply slips to a point where we take no meaning for the words or the reason it was written, why write the music?

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