100 Greatest Movie Characters: 54

"It's my head, Schwartz! It's my head!"

54. John Horatio Malkovich
Being John Malkovich

Failed puppeteer Craig Schwartz finally finds gainful employment as a filer at OrsonCorp, operated out of the very low-ceilinged 7 1/2 floor in the Martin Flemmer building. While filing, Schwartz finds a small portal that, when he enters it, transports whoever's inside into the mind of actor John Horatio Malkovich. They're able to observe and sense whatever Malkovich does for 15 minutes. Then they're inexplicably (well, more inexplicably than being John Malkovich for 15 minutes) dropped into a ditch right off the New Jersey Turnpike.

Yes, it seems like a cop out. John Malkovich is more or less just playing a slightly fictionalized version of himself in "Being John Malkovich," but he's more than a character. His entire character is the point of the film. A commentary on the philosophy of the mind. Both Schwartz and Malkovich's senses of self become skewed, as Schwartz proclaims "Am I me? Is Malkovich Malkovich?" It becomes a sense of confusion. The characters' mind-body dichotomy soon deteriorates as they all begin to combine into Malkovich's own psyche.

John Malkovich takes the strange self-character role and turns it on it's ear into a philosophical nightmare world. But a really really good one.

Defining moment: Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich? Malkovich. Malkovich, Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich!



Malkovich.