The Puppeteer

Craig Schwartz to Monkey: You don't know how lucky you are being a monkey. Because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer. And all I ask in return is the opportunity to do my work. And they won't allow it... because I raise issues.

Summary: Puppeteer Craig Schwartz and pet store clerk Lotte Schwartz are just going through the motions of their marriage. Despite not being able to earn a living solely through puppeteering, Craig loves his profession as it allows him to inhabit the skin of others. He begins to take the ability to inhabit the skin of others to the next level when he is forced to take a job as a file clerk for the off-kilter LesterCorp. Behind one of the filing cabinets in his work area, Craig finds a hidden door which he learns is a portal into the mind of John Malkovich, the visit through the portal which lasts fifteen minutes after which the person is spit into a ditch next to the New Jersey Turnpike. Craig is fascinated by the meaning of life associated with this finding. Lotte's trips through the portal make her evaluate her own self. And the confident Maxine Lund, one of Craig's co-workers who he tells about the portal if only because he is attracted to her, thinks that it is a money making opportunity in selling trips into Malkovich's mind after office hours for $200 a visit. Craig, Lotte and Maxine begin to understand that anyone entering the portal has the ability to control Malkovich's mind, which also alters his entire being. This experience makes Maxine fall in love with a composite. This ability to control Malkovich's mind begs the question of the ultimate psychedelic trip for Malkovich himself, who begins to feel that something is not right in the world as he knows it.

 At the beginning of the movie, Craig tells the monkey about having a consciousness; he sees it as a curse as it allows him to feel, think, and suffer. Suffer because of his free will, his will to make choices and have to live up to the consequences. We see Craig's free will all through out the movie. However, the free will of a person is portrayed very distinctly in the movie. While in Leaving Las Vegas, the free will is seen in the actions that both Ben and Sera make; in Being John Malkovich the free will of a person is shown as having control over their own mind.

Lotte, Craig's wife, goes into the tunnel and is inside of John's mind, however, so far both Lotte and Craig have no control over John's mind. When Lotte emerges from John's mind, she tells Craig that she is transgender, she feels like she is a man. In an attempt for figure out her emotions, Lotte goes back in and while in John's mind she receives a call from Maxine and she invites John out to dinner. When Lotte returns to John's mind to met up for dinner, she falls in love with Maxine. Both Lotte and Craig are in love with Maxine, but Maxine only has feelings for Lotte when she's in John's body and has no feeling for Craig. In an attempt to receive Maxine's love, Craig goes inside John's mind and has intercourse with Maxine and finds out the he can control John. The remaining of the movie turns into a battle of John's free will, Craig has taken over John, but Maxine has taken Craig's free will as he will do anything to please her and receive her love. John loses his free will to Craig and he can't do anything about it. While Craig is in full control of his mind, he ends up living through John's life and is no one without John. The puppeteer has control of the puppet, but is nothing without the puppet.