Spike Jonze's Descriptive Techniques In Films

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Director, writer, producer, and actor Spike Jonze has formed himself a specific and recognizable style of filmmaking through definitive techniques and thematic motifs, such as: intimate lingering close ups and altogether loneliness expressed throughout the four of his feature length films I will be discussing: Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), and Her (2013) and one short film I will briefly touch on, I'm Here (2010). We see his style of formalism and bits of realism displayed through artistic characters, all similarly going through self-mockery and loneliness living in a faulty existence. For example, if we look at the each of the introductions of the four movies I chose, in each film we are…show more content…
This sets the scene for the audiences to observe Max in his “normal” state. But once he makes it over to the monster’s realm, we see a much more real and human side of Max and the other characters. As he arrives, he witnesses a monster breaking stuff and asking others to help join him in his quest of destruction. We as the audience get a feeling that this poor monster has maybe gone through a recent breakup, giving this setting a sort of magical realism. A beautiful and fantastical place, but one with the same heart aches as the real world. It is an interesting thought that a lot of the influence for Spike Jonze’s lonesome films might have came from his break up with Sofia Coppola in 2003. Adaptation and Being John Malkovich were made before the breakup, although were much different in style than his work in later films. It is rumored that Sofia Coppola made the film Lost In Translation about the relationship between the two ex-lovers, and the movie, Her, is Spike Jonze’s response. But we definitely do see a bit of the stinger left over in one of the characters brought to life in Where the Wild Things Are, such as Carol. Carol is one of the most human monster’s on the island, just a hurt soul, looking for something to make him feel

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