Throughout his varied career, Spike Jonze quickly established himself as a director whose remarkable vision and prolific output led to creating some of the most memorable films and music videos of his day. Jonze started off as a music video director credited with popular takes on the Beastie Boys Sabotage (1994) and Weezers Buddy Holly (1994), which deftly incorporated a Happy Days theme and actual show footage. While keeping his feet firmly planted in the music video world, he ventured into feature films; first as an actor in The Game (1997) and Three Kings (1999), then as a director with the strikingly original Being John Malkovich (1999), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Taking a turn toward the outrageous, he helped create the cult favorite, Jackass (MTV, 2000-01), which earned public condemnation for its depiction of dangerous, but hilarious stunts. Returning to narrative filmmaking, Jonze helmed the inspired Adaptation (2002), a wildly original, offbeat and entertaining dramedy that confirmed Jonze as a truly visionary filmmaker worthy of the highest accolades.
Born on Oct. 22, 1969 in Rockville, MD, Jonze was raised in Bethesda by his father, Arthur Spiegel III, founder of the international health care consulting firm, APM Management Consultants, and his mother, Sandy Granzow, a communications consultant in developing countries and author of Our Dream: A World Free of Poverty. While attending Walt Whitman High School, Jonze met Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman, the publishers of the popular BMX magazine, Freestylin. An avid motocross enthusiast, he moved to Los Angeles to take up an editorial assistant job at Freestylin', where he also honed his skills as a photographer and became known for his breakthrough action photography of skateboarders. In 1991, following stints shooting photos for BMX Action and the short-lived Homeboy, Jonze launched Dirt with Jenkins and Lewman, a semi-subversive lifestyle magazine aimed at teenage boys. Though the magazine failed to last long, the young entrepreneur continued undaunted, joining forces with professional skateboarders Rick Howard and Mike Carroll for the Girl Skateboard Company, which primarily endorsed skateboard decks, but also sold all manner of boarding merchandise.
In 1992, Jonze entered the music video world as the co-director of Sonic Youth's "100%," on which he shot raw skateboard footage that was intercut into the video by co-director Tamra Davis. He went on to work with Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon as co-directors of the music video for The Breeders hit, "Cannonball," which featured a rolling cannonball that seemed to follow the camera. Through Davis the wife of Beastie Boys' Mike D Jonze met up with the hip hop band to direct their seminal video, Sabotage (1994), which proved to be a breakthrough for the director. Mimicking the open credit sequences from 1970s cop shows, Jonze dressed the Beasties in campy polyester suits, aviator shades and fake wigs while utilizing whip pans, rack focusing and freeze frames to show them running down various bad guys throughout Los Angeles. The song was a big hit for the Beasties, thanks in large part to the music video receiving heavy play on MTV. Also that year, he worked with the Beastie Boys on their videos for Sure Shot and Rickys Theme. Jonze also collaborated with Weezer on "Undone (The Sweater Song)," a visually arresting, one-take experimental video, filmed with a specialized camera used by Alfred Hitchcock in "Rope" (1948).
Jonze reunited with Weezer to direct the acclaimed video for their single "Buddy Holly" (1994). Dressing the band as clean-cut 1950s teen idols, Jonze placed them onstage at the famed "Happy Days" hangout, Arnold's Drive-In, and cut actual footage from the series in with shots of Weezer playing onstage. The off-the-wall marriage of current music with nostalgia television made the well-executed video one of the most talked about entries in the medium, helping to make the song an instant hit. "Buddy Holly" walked away with four MTV Video Music Awards in 1995, including one for Jonze in the Best Direction category. He continued to raise the music video bar with conceptually interesting and visually appealing work, like Bj
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