Redefining Identity: Charlie Kaufman’s Take on the Mind, Soul and Physical Self
Charlie Kaufman is more than just a writer. He explores uncharted territory for film. Kaufman creates original stories and applies them to bigger ideas. He makes us question ourselves and our lives. As one critic states, “It’s Charlie Kaufman’s world. We just live in it” (Ulin). Films written by Kaufman focus on themes of identity and the lack of a body and mind connection: however, the shared premise behind his films suggests people try to compensate for this self-emptiness by controlling others.
Being John Malkovich introduces the idea about the possibility of going into another’s body, which changes how people think of the boundaries of individual selfhoods. And, once in possession of the ability to break off from one’s physical self, many of the characters find out who they really are, unbound from the prisons of their physical bodies. Lotte, Craig’s wife, is the first character to experience Malkovich as a life-changing event, and her identity realization has to do with gender. When she is dropped from the portal onto the side of New Jersey turnpike, she has a large smile and is laughing, looking disorientated and stunned. She goes on to say how “right” it felt being a man, and that she would eventually get a sex change because she is a man born as a woman. This brings up the possibility of identity and what, exactly, constructs it. No longer does the physical self determine the gender of the person. Instead, the person decides his or her sex by mentally determining what feels right to them. However, Lotte is the only character to bring up and accept this theme, so it is a possibility that Lotte could be overreacting to her sexual feelings experienced as a man. Gender is not an integral component of identity. Perhaps gender is only physical, and everyone that passes through portals lacks sexual characteristics, feeling what Malkovich feels as a human, not a man or...