Produced in 2009, there’s an intersection here between Jonze and West in We Were Once A Fairytale, of an eagerness to explore the demon inside and stop it from running your life. Both Jonze and West confront the demon, be it the strain of creativity or the effects of public breakups, and in the ensuing period, produce arguably some of their greatest creative work. But the piece stands as a barometer for the perception of West in the ensuing period as well. These questions haven’t left West or Jonze afraid of working together - Jonze’s most recent music video is a simple short of West and his daughter North for the song ‘Only One’, in a slow stroll using the slow motion techniques and blending tracking music with live audio. It’s a gorgeous moment between a father and daughter, and it’s more poignant being captured by a friend and respected artist.



I feel like a completionist in Spike Jonze's work, having spent the time with his shorts, seeing his complete filmography, and having grown up with and seeking out all his music videos. If I had to pick one piece of work that I feel best exemplifies Jonze, I would pick his music video for Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’. Rather than focusing on the music, he has the video take the role of a short film, featuring an anthropomorphic dog who travels his neighborhood in New York City, enjoying his music on a boombox and running into a childhood friend at a bodega. It inverts the two ideas I find at the heart of Jonze work - it’s fantastically detached from reality, but grounded in the real world that the antagonist doesn’t want to escape, he desperately wants to be a part of it. It doesn’t go to the technical lengths of his other work, but in his feature work, I find Jonze to be best when the effects are minimal (or we don’t recognize them as being effects). Jonze’s desire for connection cuddles up against the need to belong instead of bristling against it. He goes against everything that defines him, and makes a memorable oddity combining his most beloved methods of art.