The Adaptable Mr. Jonze

Spike Jonze

Words: Sandy Hunter
Photo: Ben Kaller

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Landay concurs. "When you are talking about dealing with actors, Spike is there to help them develop the character in the direction that fits his idea," he says. "When we go into our movies, we figure out as much of the technical ‘behind the scenes' stuff as possible before the actors get to the set, to help create a bubble or cone of silence for Spike, so by the time they come on set, it's all about getting the performances."

To help Cage adapt to the group's working style, Jonze had him observe Kaufman prior to production. "Nicolas showed up and said, ‘I want to work the way you guys work, I'm excited about trying something different,' not even in terms of performance, but in terms of process," says Jonze. "We rehearsed for two weeks but we didn't do any dialogue; we worked entirely with improvisation."

Jonze and Cage would take turns acting out scenarios, alternately playing one of the Kaufman twins while they videotaped. The tapes then served as references to develop the roles and differentiate the brothers' personality traits. "It was really important that the movie not be about one actor playing two parts," says Jonze. "We always wanted it to feel like there were two actors. It should be about two brothers in this complicated relationship. It was important that the differences between them be very subtle and that the tensions come from a real place."

Multiple takes, careful notes and a penchant for slight alterations of performance in post attune Cage's work with Jonze's vision. He used photo storyboards to plan the film's trickier sequences and a number of post techniques to augment the Kaufman family illusion.

"We were going for dead, dry realism, just a calmness so you don't question your surroundings, because the film takes twists and turns you want to be distracted from," says KK Barrett, the film's production designer. "There were no visual sight gags or trickery, so Lance's and my work tried to recede into the background. It's a movie about the thread Charlie is trying to weave together in his life and on the page, so that became the work, to make sure we didn't become too ‘designy' or glossy."

The film also features two striking, non-live action sequences. One is an abstract series of images tracing the birth of the planet four billion years ago up to and including Charlie Kaufman's birth in the 20th century, created by Digital Domain. Another depicts the perfectly designed relationship shared by flowers and insects. It photo-realistically emulates nature photography but was created by Gray Matter using next generation CG modeling.