Artist Spotlight- Spike Jonze

 

When asked who I want to replicate as an artist my answers are typically Charlie Kaufman, David Foster Wallace, Paul Thomas Anderson, or Eric Andre. However, if I were to take a more objective prospective on myself, the artist I am closest to is Spike Jonze. The director of Kaufman's early films (Being John Malkovich and Adaptation) and most of the classic music videos of the 90s, Jonze displays a combination of self-irony and deep empathy in a fun yet personal way that I attempt to create in my work. While my other influences were an intentional choice to replicate their work, my connection with Jonze was almost accidental, and therefore infinitely more real. 

Early life and Skate Films 

Born Adam Spiegel in New York City, Jonze spent his childhood in Bethesda, Maryland. While in high school the owner of the local community store nicknamed him Spike Jonze in reference to the satirical band leader. The name stuck. 

After graduating Jonze worked at a BMX store which was frequented by touring professional BMX teams. He began to do photo shoots with these teams, this early work impressed the editors of Freestylin' Magazine who invited him to be their in-house photographer in LA. In LA Jonze continued to work with top skate boarders as a photographer until he got hired by World Industries, there he began doing promotional video work. The first full film Jonze made was Rubbish Heap (see above), this film made its way to Sonic Youth who asked Jonze to make a music video with them.  

Music Videos 

After working with Sonic Youth, Jonze began focusing on music videos. He made a few relatively unknown videos, including the lost gem above. Then he made "Buddy Holly" with Weezer which propelled him into fame as a music video director.  

After making this video Jonze made essentially every famous music video from the 90s. From Biggy to the Beasty Boys, Jonze directed for the entire range of music in the 90s. In these videos Jonze shows a sense of sincere interest despite the obvious postmodern tendencies on full display. Jonze's work is far to expansive for me to cover ever video in detail, so for the remainder of this section I am going to focus on what I would consider his bests in "Praise You" and "What's Up Fatlip". However, I want to show you his other work, so forgive the long series of videos that follows.  

Praise You

This film is one of the clearest examples of the Spike Jonze trick in which a piece can be considered very funny or deeply emotional depending on the prospective you come into it with. Beyond providing an example of what I would consider Jonze's defining tonal element as a filmmaker, this video shows the power of simplicity. Probably shot in less than an hour this video stands out as one of the most emotionally resident pieces of the decade. Sometimes, there is value in simplicity. 

What's Up Fatlip

Again displaying a combination of humor and sadness, this video (or This is America) is probably my favorite music video ever. Through a combination of effective acting and extremely strong directing the audience understands and empathizes with the character of Fatlip. This use of character in music video is inspiring and --in a certain sense-- is what I try to do in my videos with Ed. 

Charlie Kaufman Collaborations, Jackass, and Her

I have covered these two films extensively through my IB assessments and posts about Charlie Kaufman, so I am not going to bore you with another explanation of these two films. The success of these two pieces over Jonze and Kaufman's other films is that they display the combined emotion and humor both through the writing and directing. Kaufman's later films all are firmly within the drama genre, despite the fact there are clear moments which can be directly humorous and Jonze's later work is far less sharp in displaying the both/and through the writing.  

Even though this is not my type of thing, I can understand the value of it as an avant-garde comedy piece. Jonze worked as the writer and producer for all the Jackass movies. The most important analysis of this work, from my prospective, was its role as an influence of Eric Andre.  

Both of these films are amazing, but only scratch recapturing the glory of the Kaufman collaborations. Her, in particular, is a movie which is attempting to show a combined humor and sadness. However, in this the film creates harsh moments of both never quite combining them. 

 Later Music Videos and Adds 

After the Kaufman collaborations Jonze continued to make music videos. All of these are good, but none of them am I passionate about. 

He also started to make adds which are distinctly enticing, weaponing his stylistic ability and metamodern disposition for capital. To me, it is almost frustrating how good these adds are. 

Work Log

Monday- Editing Mark's video 

Tuesday- Editing Cali's video 

Wednesday- CGI on reality pre-visualization

Thursday- Story Boarding 

Friday- Story Boarding