In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre explains well that existence predates essence : it predates identity. Human beings are - first of all and forever - human beings. Nothing could be clearer! He defends the idea of the free will given to every human being. It is important for him that every one can choose what to be. Thus, he distinguishes three kind of existences : when a human being is conscious of his existence and his freedom so he's not like animals or objects that are just shapes, bodies with no conscious ; the third existence jeopardizes the authenticity of human beings as they start to live for others.
Then comes the "bad faith". Bad faith occurs when people feel "self-deception", when they start to as a social role and not as a human being instead. They believe their social status is the same as their human one. It is dangerous because people keep on performing the habits, the duties, the values they think are related to their human condition but is actually linked to their social role. They start to fear their true condition and seek for something else, as they consider themselves as non compliant to their role. Sartre indeed specifies "I am never one of my attitudes, any one of my actions", which means people can't be defined by their social role. In order to become authentic selves, people must seek a balance between their existence and their essence.
What is intersting in Sartre's analysis is that, living bad faith, people will see their lives and act the way the others, the external subjectivity appears to want them to live it ; then it leads us to analyze the character of Lotte Schwartz in Being John Malkovich.
Lotte Schwartz is the main character's wife. She's kind of a passive and quiet woman who seems to forgive everything her husband does, she accepts him to come home late, doesn't insist when he says he doesn't want a baby, etc. Then, her husband tells her about the tunnel that leads to John Malkovich's head and she completely changes. She tells her husband that she wants to change her sex because she fells in love with Maxine - her husband's colleague. Thus, Maxine hangs out on several dates with John, as she perfectly knows Lotte's in his head.
We could say that Lotte experiments bad faith as is ready to live her relationship with Maxine, her sexuality, in the body of someone else. As Sartre explained, she doesn't feel the will to have sex but her self is corrupted by the way Maxine looks at her. She slowly gives up on her idea of changing her sex as she believes she found her real identity in John's head and that she's not glad of her existence.
She should stop seeing herself through Maxine's in order to remain authentic.
But as Maxine has a baby from John and decides to keep it - as a symbol of her love for Lotte - this one remains definitely lost in bad faith.
Hi Tony!
ReplyDeleteVery nice view on the film! I must admit that I didn't think about it while watching the film. But now that you're writing it, I can't stop myself to keep on thinking there is bad faith for every character, and not only Lotte.
Lotte is in complete "bad faith" when she's in John Malkovich (and when she wants to be Malkovich) because she thinks she "is" the person she is playing. According to Sartre, that's the complete definition of bad faith = to think one can be defined by his function or the role one plays, just like the waiter in the café that want to define himself as a "waiter in the café". He's not just that. He's never just that. Nor is Lotte, neither herself, nor John Malkovich. The willing of changing sex is bad faith too because she thinks that this organic transformation will give her something to be someone completely. But for Sartre, that won't fix the problem because it's not just this that will change everything.
We can say that Sartre considers it impossible to define a human (even for himself) with a concept that includes finitude. Craig Schwartz wants to be someone else. This is already bad faith. But he doubles it to me by wanting to become someone, that is already trying to be the "someone" that society choose for him. Actually Malkovich in himself is someone defined as a stereotype of himself by society? That's what we catch on the "documentary" Craig/Malkovich is looking in the second part of the film. And what we are obliged to see in the scene where he falls into a world full of "him"!
Finally, Maxine isn't clear too : she goes to Malkovich's to...make their bodies meet each other, but she refuses to act before Lotte is inside Malkovich. But that's the same body after all. And the mind inside the body is not enough too.
The fact is that the entire film talks about people trying to flee from what they are because "the grass is always greener by others".
What do you think?
Sorry I didn't reply earlier... had quite a lot of things to do!
DeleteBut your point sounds really interesting. I agree with you saying that every one in the movie is trying to flee from what they are and I could've talked about Craig or Maxine. But I think Craig is more about wanting someone else to share his life with while maxine has just developed a totally freaking experience which is having a relationship with someone who shares John Malkovich's mind. But I definitely think that Lotte is stuck in the depth of bad faith and can no longer think of her being Lotte Schwartz.
Your point is actually right, but I believe this character describes best what Sartre was trying to say about the complexity of identities.