We Were Once a Fairytale

United States

2009

14 Min

Color

1.78:1

English

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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CAST Kanye West, Kalen Brest, Cynthia Quiles, Ibn Jasper, Mike Carroll, Danielle Alcaraz, Jason Marks, Natalie Farrey, Jermaine Jacox, Lisa Parigi, Jessie Camacho, Farnsworth Bentley, Ricky Anderson, Daniella Alonso

ED Stephen Berger, Michael Dart Wadsworth

We Were Once a Fairytale is a 2009 short film directed by Spike Jonze. It stars hip hop musician Kanye West. This is the second collaboration between Jonze and West since they co-directed the music video for West’s single “Flashing Lights” in 2008.

In the film, Kanye West plays himself drunk at a nightclub embarrassing himself and his friends while being belligerent. West becomes excited when “See You in My Nightmares” starts playing in the club and he begins to wander around the club reminding everyone that it is his song, even though everyone already knows that. He also tries to flirt with many of the women there, who are at first starstruck, but then quickly repulsed by his drunken behavior and lewd advances. West embarrasses himself further when he tries to hit on a woman who is there with her boyfriend.

On the dance floor West tries to dance but ends up leaning on a stranger, barely conscious. He then wanders into an empty side room where he begins to feel depressed, but a beautiful woman in a leopard print dress appears. She comforts him and tells him “It’s OK” while he cries on her shoulder. They begin to have sex on a sofa but he passes out on top of her. When West wakes up a short time later, he finds himself with his pants down, laying on a sofa covered with leopard print pillows — he was hallucinating.

Startled and nauseous, he rushes to the bathroom and vomits what appear to be rose petals. West finds a bowie knife in the bathroom and cuts into his stomach, spilling a torrent of petals from his stomach. He pushes the knife in deeper and, with his hands, digs out of himself a small rodent-like creature, named in the credits as “Henry”. When Kanye realizes it is connected to him by an umbilical cord, he cuts the cord with the knife. He then places the creature on a sink counter in front of him and hands it a miniature version of the bowie knife. The creature grabs the tiny knife and eyes it apprehensively before shaking its head at West, who slowly nods his head in response. West watches as the creature commits seppuku, falls over, and slowly dies while gasping for air. The film cuts to black with West still looking at its corpse laying on the counter. –Wikipedia

Director

Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze is regarded as one of the most famous directors of commercials and music videos. He was nominated for the Academy Award in the category of producer and director in television and film. Jonze is well known for his contribution in the movies entitled “Adaptation” released in 2002 and “Being John Malkovich” a 1999 release. Jonze is also the co-producer of the popular program “Jackass” aired through the MTV television network.

Spike Jonze was born Adam Spiegel in Rockville, Maryland on the 22nd October 1969 and brought up in Bethesda, Maryland. Jonze was the eldest son of Arthur Spiegel III and Sandy Granzow. Spike Jonze has a brother named Sam. Arthur Spiegel III was a respected Management Consultant with a decent client list including many big and small corporations; Spike Jonze’s mother was a famous writer, artist and communications consultant. His brother Sam currently is a DJ and producer. Jonze started his education at the Walt Whitman School.

In the late… read more

In the late 1980’s, Spike Jonze created the BMX club named Homeboy with co-editors of popular Freestylin’ Magazine. They also published youth culture oriented magazines titled Dirt and Homeboy. Spike Jonze was a chief photographer for Transworld Skateboarding and Magazine editor for Grand Royal.

Spike Jonze was a zealous BMX freestyle rider during his teenage years. Jonze eventually associated towards Haro Bikes. He earned limited limelight as a BMX celebrity seen in several BMX publications entitled “Freestylin’”. Spike Jonze was also featured in the ‘What Now’ section in the popular Sassy Magazine.

Spike Jonze was the leader of the Torrance Community Dance Group which performed on public platforms. His dance troupe was invited to perform the song for the prestigious MTV Video Music Awards in New York City in 1999.

In 2006 the Directors Guild of America honoured Spike Jonze with a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Commercials for the year 2005. Jonze is noted for his work on “Pardon Our Dust” for The Gap, “Hello Tomorrow” for Adidas and “Penguin” for Miller Beer. Jonze was a co-creator and producer of MTV Jackass-The Movie and Jackass. He also acted in director; David O. Russell’’s 1999 movie entitled “Three Kings”.

Spike Jonze co-directed the Chocolate Skateboards video entitled Hot Chocolate and female Skateboards movie titled “Yeah Right!” He did a speaking role with Dave Eggers for a Beck song titled “The Horrible Fanfare-Landslide-Exoskeleton” in 2006.

Spike Jonze married Sofia Coppola on the 26th June, 1999. Jonze and Sofia were good friends and were known to each other for the past ten years before marriage. They lead a busy life in the film industry, each trying to set a mark in their chosen field. Later they got divorced because of hostile differences in 2003. The film entitled “Lost In Translation” directed by Sofia Coppola was allegedly based on her relations with Spike Jonze. Later Sofia Coppola strictly denounced these rumours in public.

Spike Jonze’s debut video as a director was a very short documentary on Al Gore which was filmed before the U.S election in 2000. His next video was a politically centered short film which showed soldiers on duty in Iraq stealing from the locals.

Most recently Spike Jonze has worked on The 1 Second Film as producer and Where the Wild Things Are as director. —spikejonze.net

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Douglas Reese

26Apr12

Taking a premise that could easy fall flat on its face, Spike Jonze directs Kanye West without any moral code. The messy attributes in cinematography and sound editing causes the entire product feel like it's right out of West's drunken skull. That West is up to the challenge, playing believably wasted and pitiful without any vanity, it shows a heartbreaking and disturbing look into this "cock-head celeb".

Alexis

2Jul11

I really like this film. And I love Kanye West so that helps.

kubrickhouse

22Sep10

"Oh...FUCK!" (c) Yeez. Just re-watched this and I love it even more. Also, I'm not ashamed to say that I've acted this way in the clubs on a few occasions (sorry, random people). Well, save for what happened in the washroom, that is. I'll always associate this short film and the 808s album with Kanye's 2-year drunken stumble into the pop culture doghouse. And now I'm in the mood for a nice tumbler of Henrock on ice.