Spike Jonze Explains His Kanye West Mini-Movie, ‘We Were Once a Fairytale’

At the start of the year, Spike Jonze recalled in a telephone interview Thursday evening, he and the rapper Kanye West had a conversation about collaborating on a music video that would challenge them creatively and let them take a break from larger projects on their plates. By the end of that conversation they had planned something more ambitious: a short low-budget film that could be sold and distributed on the Web.

A few months and one Internet leak later, that film, called “We Were Once a Fairytale,” has evolved into something even more than that. It offers a fictional depiction of an unlikable, antisocial Mr. West that eerily anticipates his real-life actions at an MTV awards show in September. And it has provided Mr. Jonze with a lesson in how digital distribution works (or doesn’t work), demonstrating that not even he is immune from online piracy.

“This is the first time it’s happened to me,” Mr. Jonze said, “and it is a weird feeling, like, ‘Wait a second — I wasn’t ready to put that out! That’s mine. Uh, no, I guess it’s not mine anymore.'”

Mr. Jonze, whose films include “Where the Wild Things Are,” based on the Maurice Sendak children’s book, had worked with Mr. West on the 2007 video for the rapper’s song “Flashing Lights.” In February, Mr. Jonze said, they spoke about reteaming on a video for “See You in My Nightmares,” from Mr. West’s album “808s & Heartbreak.”

At the time, Mr. Jonze was deep into post-production on his “Wild Things” movie and Mr. West was touring steadily, but they agreed that the new video should be expanded into an experimental film. Mr. Jonze and a small crew then spent two days filming with Mr. West at Foxtail, a nightclub in West Hollywood, Calif.

In the film, which was planned to be sold on iTunes, Mr. West is seen behaving drunkenly at the club and acting belligerently to other patrons. He enters a side room where he starts to have sex with a woman, passes out in flagrante, wakes up and runs to a bathroom where he begins vomiting rose petals. There, he cuts open his stomach with a knife, setting loose a small, rodent-like demon who takes another, smaller knife from Mr. West and stabs itself in the chest.

Mr. Jonze said the 14-minute phantasmagoria was meant to illustrate the themes of loss and isolation on “808s & Heartbreak,” which Mr. West composed after his mother, Donda, died and he broke off his engagement to his then-fiancée, Alexis Phifer.

“We rehearsed the night before we shot, and talked about trying to get to that raw place, that sad, pathetic, drunken, lost place,” Mr. Jonze said. “I told him, the more shameless it is, the more pathetic it is, the better. He just went for it.”

Before the film could be released, Mr. West made an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards, where he stormed the stage and took the microphone away from the country musician Taylor Swift, protesting her award for best female video. Mr. West was widely criticized after the event and has rarely performed in public since.

Then, around Oct. 18, “We Were Once a Fairytale” was leaked to the Internet and posted on Mr. West’s official Web site, kanyeuniversecity.com. Within a couple of days it was taken down from that site without explanation.

Mr. Jonze said the film was accidentally leaked from the post-production facility of a friend, and that Mr. West did not realize it was not meant to be circulated yet. “I think he was like, ‘Oh, it’s out. I’ll link to it,'” Mr. Jonze said. (A representative for Mr. West did not immediately reply to a request for comment.)

Mr. Jonze said that Mr. West’s outburst at the MTV awards show did not change how he perceived Mr. West, or cause him to regret how the rapper was depicted in the film.

“To me, I like him,” Mr. Jonze said. He paused, then added: “I like Kanye and I care about him. This video is a side of him. Who knows? I don’t know what the reception is going to be, but I love making stuff with him. I love the guy.”

Instead, Mr. Jonze said he was more concerned about how the leak of the film might affect its sales when it at last is officially released Tuesday on iTunes. Though the movie was made on the cheap (Mr. Jonze declined to say for how much exactly) it still required a team of cameramen, editors, designers, grips and gaffers to produce — not to mention animators and puppeteers to create the rodent-demon creature, who is called Henry in the credits.

“I like the idea of trying to put it out on iTunes as an experiment in, can you make a short film yourself, put it out for sale? It’s an experiment to see if that is feasible.” But now, he said, “I don’t actually know if that makes any business sense at all, because once it’s out there, it’s out there.”

Having just completed a lengthy round of promotion for “Where the Wild Things Are,” Mr. Jonze said he was unsure of what he might do after “We Were Once a Fairytale” receives its proper release.

“I’m taking a break for a second,” he said. The catch is, he added: “I don’t know how long a second is.”