John Malkovich Dualism

The Mind/Body Problem of John Malkovich

Charlie Kaufmann’s Being John Malkovich portrays a struggling puppeteer who lives his fantasies by recreating scenarios through his puppets. Obviously miserable with his life and marriage he sought an office job where he ends up discovering a portal that led to the mind of actor John Malkovich; where one can see and experience life through his eyes. Although comedic and eccentric in nature, the movie tends to raise some interesting philosophical questions in relation to the mind/body problem with one of the responses of it being substance dualism. Using arguments from Rene Descartes and J.P Moreland, I will discuss how this film supports substance dualism but also contradicts it through notions of the

I think. I feel. I suffer.” For purposes of this paper, I can say that consciousness, as depicted in the movie, is existent as the mind because when one travels through the tunnel to John Malkovich’s head their conscious mind is aware of what he is experiencing but we are unsure of where the body goes until the 15 minutes is up and the body is thrown into the ditch. This idea of the conscious mind of a person being able to inhabit John Malkovich’s mind temporarily further supports Descartes notion that we are a thinking thing and that our minds are able to live without our bodies as he says, “If I stopped thinking, I would stop exisiting.” (Descartes pg 5) In essence, I don’t need my body to keep my conscious mind thinking because once I stop thinking, I will cease to exist. The film also supports this idea because Craig tries to enter the tunnel again to John Malkovich’s mind; however, John Malkovich’s body (also referred to in the film as a ‘vessel’) is ripe at the age of 44 and entering after the 12 AM would lead Craig to a larvae vessel- Emily, the daughter of Maxine and Craig’s wife Lotte (Maxine was impregnated by John Malkovich while Lotte was in his