Spike Jonze: Fool or Foole?

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How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 5 October 2003 06:58 (twenty years ago) link

I admire Spike Jonze for two reasons:

1) His music videos are more creative and better-made than the majority of the stuff you see out there, which consist of nothing more than half-naked girls and fancy pyrotechnics.

2) His film work is very subtle. Both movies, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, clearly belonged to the screenwriter. Jonze was smart enough to realize this and stayed in the background. He served his story without drawing attention to himself. For an up-and-coming director to NOT draw attention to himself, well, in this day and age, I find that pretty admirable.

― Anthony (Anthony F), Sunday, 5 October 2003 14:57 (twenty years ago) link

His film work is very subtle.

Oh, I don't know. I actually would say that I think Jonze's forte is exaggerated, no make that bombastic subtlety. Which is not to say that I don't like it, but there's a difference between subtle (Clint Eastwood, most of the time) and sUBtLe. (Whatever that meant.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 5 October 2003 16:53 (twenty years ago) link

I mean... as far as the screenwriter thing goes, just look at how Gondry and Clooney direct off of Kaufman screenplays. Totally different from Jonze. If anything, I'd hazard a guess that Jonze simply seems invisible in the creative process because his sensibilities seem more closely aligned with Kaufman's.

(... and most of Being John Malkovich looks like the first shot of his Björk video for "It's Oh So Quiet.")

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 5 October 2003 16:56 (twenty years ago) link

1)Fat suits just aren't funny.

2)Jackass.

― adaml (adaml), Sunday, 5 October 2003 23:41 (twenty years ago) link

Jonze would make better movies, I think, if he treated Kaufman's scripts less reverently--I mean I understand the urge to tone it down in contrast to CK's wackiness but it's led to a couple of really stylistically dull movies. also, when you rely that much on the script, and the script falls on its ass in the third act (as CK's inevitably do), it's trouble

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 6 October 2003 01:17 (twenty years ago) link

I very much agree with s1utsky here. All things told, it'll be a lot easier to judge Jonze's particular directorial talents if and when he does something from a script not written by CK.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 October 2003 01:23 (twenty years ago) link

And if Jackass is to be considered a Spike Jonze film, then I wouldn't hesitate to call it his most interesting to date.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 October 2003 01:24 (twenty years ago) link

I'm sorry, I just think he plain out and out panders to his audience. Not in quite a cock-rock manner, as Michael Bay, for example, but I think of Jonze as a jester. Entertaining? Yes. Inspiring? Never.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 6 October 2003 01:34 (twenty years ago) link

I think everyone's brought up some good points, but I think Eric hits the nail on the head when he says: "it'll be a lot easier to judge Jonze's particular directorial talents if and when he does something from a script not written by CK"

At this point in time, I think it's just too early to tell about Jonze. I don't think anyone can doubt that he shows potential, but since he sticks so closely to Kaufman's style and has yet to really make his own mark as an artist, we have yet to see.

Remember, he's only directed two feature films. If we were to judge every director based on their first two films, then what would we all think of Woody Allen, Francis Coppola or Stanley Kubrick?

― Anthony (Anthony F), Monday, 6 October 2003 02:08 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, and fat suits aren't funny? Haven't you seen Stop Making Sense?

― Anthony (Anthony F), Monday, 6 October 2003 02:11 (twenty years ago) link

Yes Anthony. I'm surprised that even in this post-auteurism world, it seems a large portion of directors (American, at least) getting major respect are still only on their third or fourth or fifth films (Jonze, either Anderson, and the Lady Coppola).

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 October 2003 05:35 (twenty years ago) link

(Tarantino)

(IE post-auteur my ass)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 6 October 2003 15:08 (twenty years ago) link

I wish this world was post-auteurism!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 6 October 2003 16:43 (twenty years ago) link

I don't mean post-auteur as in we've moved past auteurism, but rather that we're living after it took over the cinephile world.

(That said, of all the traditional critical models, only genre-based criticism seems more to my liking than auteurism.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 October 2003 16:48 (twenty years ago) link

i can't think of too many directors who willingly take a backseat to their writers publicity-wise (nevermind creatively) - i think it's interesting

(also his performances in his Praise You video + Three Kings are great)

― jones (actual), Monday, 6 October 2003 17:00 (twenty years ago) link

jones you just proved spike jonze is post-auteur!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 6 October 2003 17:47 (twenty years ago) link

heh "now he just needs to flex his directorial skills more, so we can tell whether he's a post-auteur artistic filmmaking genius or not"!!

― jones (actual), Monday, 6 October 2003 18:09 (twenty years ago) link

no, he needs to flex them less!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 6 October 2003 19:26 (twenty years ago) link

Um... I guess then that the ultimate post-auteur move would be to basically conceive, write, produce, compose/select music for, and act in a film but let someone else direct it, right? (Again: Jackass.)

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Monday, 6 October 2003 21:53 (twenty years ago) link

(oh look: the Cahiers crowd's coffins just started spinning the other way around, how odd)

― jones (actual), Monday, 6 October 2003 23:08 (twenty years ago) link

c'mon, they would've loved Jackass.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 October 2003 01:29 (twenty years ago) link

*soup comes up nose*

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 8 October 2003 02:25 (twenty years ago) link

Rohmer: I think everyone will agree with me if I start by saying that Jackass is a film about which you can say everything.
Godard: So let's start by saying it's literature.
Rohmer: And a kind of literature that is a little dubious, in so far as it imitates the American school that was so fashionable in Paris after 1945.
Kast: The relationship between literature and cinema is neither good nor clear. I think all that one can say is that literary people have a kind of confused contempt for the cinema, and film people suffer from a confused feeling of inferiority. The uniqueness of Jackass is that the Spike Jonze-Johnny Knoxville collaboration is an exception to the rule I hae just stated.
Godard: Then we can say that the very first thing that strikes you about this film is that it is totally devoid of any cinematic references. You can describe Jackass as Faulkner plus Stravinsky, but you can't identify it as such and such a film-maker plus such and such another.
Rivette: Maybe Jonze's film doesn't have any cinematic references, but I think you can find references that are oblique and more profound, because it's a film that recalls Eisenstein, in the sense that you can see some of Eisenstein's ideas put into practice, and, moreover, in a very new way.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Wednesday, 8 October 2003 02:33 (twenty years ago) link

*steak comes up nose*

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 8 October 2003 05:08 (twenty years ago) link

five years pass...

^^wow this might be my 2nd favourite ILX post ever!

― i am an evil halfperson (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 21 February 2009 01:24 (fifteen years ago) link

one year passes...

new short film has manic pixie robot girl ugh thanks dude put more girls on your soundtrack yeah: I'm Here

― heterosexist matrix of desire (Gukbe), Tuesday, 10 August 2010 16:12 (thirteen years ago) link

five years pass...

creative director of Viceland cable channel

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/vice-channel-replace-historys-h2-836322

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 November 2015 20:00 (eight years ago) link

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