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Consciousness is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer.
~ Craig Schwartz
Truth is for suckers, Johnny Boy.
~ Craig Schwartz to John Malkovich.
Do you see what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is?
~ Craig Scwartz after discovering the portal.

Craig Schwartz is the main protagonist turned main antagonist of the 1999 American fantasy comedy film Being John Malkovich. He is an unemployed puppeteer who finds a portal inside actor John Malkovich's head and uses it for profit and to woo a coworker he is obsessed with.

He was portrayed by John Cusack, who also portrayed Roy Dillon in The Grifters, Hillary Van Wetter in The Paperboy, Robert Hansen in The Frozen Ground and Clem in Grand Piano.

Biography[]

Craig is a talented yet unsuccessful puppeteer who lives in New York with his pet-obsessed wife Lotte. While job-hunting one day, he finds an ad looking for a person with "fast fingers" to work as a file clerk in the Mertin-Flemmer building, in the floor 7th 1/2, which is a floor between the 7th and 8th where the ceiling is very low. He is hired by the boss, an eccentric, elderly man called Dr. Lester, who insists that he has a speech impediment when he clearly does not.

At his new job, Schwartz meets Maxine, a co-worker, and quickly becomes obsessed with her, even though she openly dislikes him. One day, he discovers a small secret door behind a cabinet, he enters it and after crawling through a weird tunnel, he is transported inside the head of actor John Malkovich, able to see everything Malkovich sees. After 15 minutes he is ejected from Malkovich's mind and lands on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike. Elated by his discovery, he returns to work and tells Maxine, who realizes the can sell the experience for profit.

Craig and Lotte are invited for dinner by Dr. Lester, and on their way there, Craig tells her about the portal and Maxine's plan. Lotte is curious about it and also enters the portal; she is fascinated by the experience of being in a man's body, which leads her to believe ,that she is transgender. When they are at Lester's Lotte accidentally enters a room filled with Malkovich's memorabilia. Maxine arranges a date with Malkovich while he is inhabited by Lotte, and they both become smitten with Maxine.

Craig invites Maxine over for dinner, and he and Lotte simultaneously confess their love for her. Horrified and confused, Maxine tells Craig she is not interested in him at all, and tells Lotte she loves her, too - but only when she is inside Malkovich. Craig is left disturbed by this. Maxine manipulates Malkovich into having sex with her while Lotte is inside him, when Craig finds out about this, feeling forsaken by both women, Craig, locks Lotte inside her pet chimpanzee's cage and forces her to set up another tryst with Maxine. Once inside Malkovich's head, and while having sex with Maxine, he discovers that his puppeteering skills allow him to control the actor.

The next day Malkovich tells his friend Charlie Sheen about the ordeal. Sheen tells him that Maxine may be a witch. Suspicious, a disguised Malkovich follows Maxine to the building, where he discovers a line of people waiting to enter his head, Malkovich confronts Maxine and Craig and then enters his own portal which takes him to a world where everyone looks like him and they only speak using the word "Malkovich". When ejected fifteen minutes later, Malkovich demands that Craig stop the use of the door, but Craig refuses. Malkovich then threatens to sue Craig for what they're doing to him. Lotte is freed by the chimpanzee and warns Maxine about Craig; however, Maxine is aroused by Craig's ability to control him, and tells Craig, who sees an opportunity with Maxine and starts to get a better hang of Malkovich's body to the point of occupying it indefinitely and trapping Malkovich inside his own mind.

Lotte confronts Lester about this, and Lester confesses he knew about the door, and that he actually is Captain Mertin, the building's founder in the late 1800s, and that he has obtained immortality through a portal to a "vessel body" by moving from one body to the next, which becomes "ripe" on the host's forty-forth birthday, allowing him to take possession. Should he enter the portal past midnight on that day, he would instead be trapped in the next newborn vessel, helpless inside the new host's mind. Lester and a group of friends plan to occupy Malkovich once he turns 44, and Lotte warns them that Craig has taken control.

Eight months later, Craig using John's body and fame has finally gained world-class recognition for his puppeteer abilities, Maxine has become pregnant but has lost interest in Craig, and secretly became remorseful for leaving Lotte, realizing how much she loves her. On Malkovich's 44th birthday, Lester and Lotte kidnap Maxine and takes her to Mertin's building, where they call Craig and demand him to leave Malkovich threatening to kill Maxine, however, Craig hangs up, in desperation, Lotte wants to shoot Maxine but she escapes through the portal, followed by Lotte, they end up in a chase through Malkovich's subconscious, eventually, they're ejected, Maxine then confesses that she was confused, she truly loves Lotte, and she only kept the baby because she was sure it was conceived when Lotte was inside Malkovich, the women then cement their love for each other as they kiss on the side on the road.

Meanwhile, Craig, believing Maxine is still in danger, calls Lester and agrees to leave Malkovich's body, he ejects himself from Malkovich and lands near Lotte and Maxine, as Lester and his friends take control over Malkovich's mind, Craig discovers Maxine has discarded him for Lotte, the women hitchhike a car and leave Craig alone in the rain as he yells at Maxine that he will regain control over Malkovich so she loves him again.

Seven years later, Lester and his friends as a hive mind inside Malkovich, tells Sheen about their plan to achieve immortality through the next vessel body - Maxine and Lotte's daughter. Meanwhile, Maxine and Lotte are happily married and it is revealed that since Craig entered Malkovich's body after midnight, he ended up trapped forever inside their daughter's mind, unable to control the body, forced to watch how happy Maxine and Lotte are.

Trivia[]

  • John Cusack read the script after he had asked his agent to present him with the "craziest, the most unproduceable script you can find." Impressed with it, he asked his agent to follow its progress and book him an audition, which won him the role.
  • John Cusack actually took some puppeteering lessons in order to prepare for the film.
  • Craig Schwartz's name is a combined reference to Edward Gordon Craig and Bruce Schwartz. Schwartz is an accomplished American puppeteer while Craig was a turn-of-the-century theater artist who suggested that actors should be viewed as no more important than marionettes.
  • The job ad that Craig responds to specifies a "short-statured file clerk". This is later explained by the low ceilings of the seven and a half feet-high room.
  • When Craig enters the portal for the first time, he has a wooden plank. As he points out to Maxine, it disappears inside the portal. However, when he leaves Malkovich for the last time, the plank reappears in his hand, perhaps symbolizing that he will never be able to go back.
  • John Cusack and John Malkovich previously co-starred in Con Air, in which Malkovich played the main villain and Cusack played one of the protagonists.

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