The Powers of the False and Malkovich

As I was going over the section in Deleuze about the powers of the false a film came to mind and I couldn't shake the feeling that the writer/director had to have been at least vaguely familiar with this philosophy when creating it. The film is Being John Malkovich in which I would say the role of the forger is played by John Cusack. In the film he transcends time through a portal which takes him into the body of another man (John Malkovich) where he proceeds to experience this other man's life in fifteen minute intervals before again traveling back through time to the present and his own existence.  As the narrative progresses Cusack and others begin to interfere with Malkovich's actions and emotions all the while manipulating time and truths in both the present and the future. Deleuze's discussion of the power of the false seems more than relevant... "It is the power of the false which replaces and supersedes the form of the true, because it poses the simultaneity of incompossible presents, or the coexistence of not-necessarily true pasts" (131). Not only does Cusack's character infiltrate the body and the mind of another man but he embarks on a temporal and spatial journey that is established on a lie. He soon shares this forgery with coworkers and his wife and the forgery in  turn multiplies to others etc. and it soon becomes clear that, "the powers of the false cannot be separated from an irreducible multiplicity" (133). In this regard the forgery gains momentum (which reaches a melting point when John Malkovich enters the portal into himself) until there is a complete malfunction between the true present and the false past. Ultimately I think that Being John Malkovich has a lot do with what Deleuze is discussing (but maybe I'm thinking too literally). I know some people have expressed frustration with Deleuze's classical/outdated film references and associating his concepts with this recent film helped me to better understand what he meant in this chapter.