Spike Jonze

I don't know about you, but I'm very excited about Where the Wild Things are--not only because of the nostalgia attached to the book but because Spike Jonze is directing it. What a wonderful, wonderful thing.



Now I am a huge Spike Jonze fan-- if you're not farmiliar with his work, I highly reccomend checking out films such as Adaptation and Being John Malkovich and his music videos (which he is known better for) for artists including Beck, Weezer, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bjork, Kanye West, The Beastie Boys and many more. He's also come out with various ads for Ikea, the Gap, and adidas to name a few. He was nominated for outstanding achievement in commercials by the Director's Guild of America in 2005. Below, you'll find his gap commercial "pardon our dust."




He's a breath of fresh air-- giving a new perspective and artistic eye to concepts and artistic ideas not usually seen in mainstream cinema. Being John Malkovich, a cult classic, is a movie unlike anything I've seen before-- Charlie Kaufman succeeds in writing a completely out there movie about the discovery of a portal to John Malkovich's mind. Seeing it as a business venture, one of the main characters, Craig, wants to exploit it and charge people to experience "being John Malkovich." A series of strange situations present themselves, a character becomes obsessed with the experience of Being John Malkovich, the audience must wonder what does it mean for John when someone else is occupying his mind? Who do his actions truely belong to?

He went on again to collaborate with Charlie Kaufman on Adaptation. The two movies being somewhat of philosophical anomalies-- distantly referencing themselves and on screen material so as to be kind of post modern in a way. It's definitely a challenge to be able to successfully direct movies of this subject material-- depicting the constant questioning and conflict in an understandable way is hard enough but Jonze does it in a unique and original way.

Though Jonze has put out some pretty awesome movies-- hopefully including Where the Wild Things are (which some people are skeptical about), he is really more well known for his wide success with music videos. If you haven't seen the video for Fat Boy Slim's Weapon of Choice, you are seriously missing out. Christopher Walken has to be on my list of like.. the top ten most awesome people, if i ever had one... so why not just take him and put him in a hotel alone to display his sick dance moves? I see no reason not to.

Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice
Uploaded by 103clips.

I could probably fill this whole page with Spike Jonze videos, but do your self a favor and go to youtube and watch all the spike jonze you can get-- among my other favorites are: da funk- daft punk, praise you- fat boy slim, y-control- the yeah yeah yeahs, big brat- phantom planet, and flashing lights - kanye west.

Jonze's work becomes more and more recognizable as you become farmiliar with it and on this topic I'd like to present a question. You know how once you've become farmiliar with an artist, you may expect certain themes, moods, appearances or just commonalities between his or her works? Is this what it means to be an author and more specifically a director?-- since film is so collaborative, it's hard to give one person credit for it all-- however, as a director, the "author" of the film (not the writer)-- is it your style that marks you as author or is it something else? Is it what we come to expect or is that too restrictive? I'm very interested to hear what any one has to say about the issue of authorship in this respect.

Jonze will be showcasing an exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art on October 15th-- an "Evening of Skate Videos"-- so if you're in the area, CHECK IT OUT!

p.s. Jonze was married to Sofia Coppola for a while-- though they are now divorced, I give him additional points for dating another awesome director-- who you should also check out if ya know whats good for you.