My post about the omnipresence of the Hero's Journey in contemporary American screenwriting set me to thinking about the concept of the hero.
Most people today think a hero is someone who wins, takes on any and all opposition without fear, and triumphs thanks to superior might, smarts or charm. The hero comes out of the conflict as the clear winner and gets what he wants.
But that's not what a hero is.
A hero is, quite simply, someone who is willing to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others.
A single mother working three jobs in order to feed her four kids and provide them with a good education? A hero(ine).
A firefighter braving a blazing building to rescue trapped inhabitants? A hero.
A suave superspy, risking life and limb to save the world from the machinations of insane master villains with a penchant for conquest? A hero.
A loveable guy, breaking up a happy marriage because he falls in love with one member of the couple? Not a hero. No matter how engaging the character might be developed or interpreted.
The most perfect example in cinematic history: Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Giving up his romantic desire and his one true love for the good of the Allies and free people everywhere.
And this also gives us the perfect definition of the anti-hero: an anti-hero is a protagonist who won't sacrifice him- or herself for others. This doesn't make them evil or inferior - to many, it makes them more relatable. But one thing they do not do is inspire.
That's one reason why we're so fascinated by stories about heroism - whether of the 'super' or the everyday sort: they show us what humanity is capable of at its best.
On the other hand, modern western society has evolved to a point where (self)sacrifice is far less common and admired than before. Not-so-enlightened self-interest is the order of the day.
So that explains a) why traditional models of heroic behaviour are less popular or at least less convincing to modern audiences and b) why we've evolved to a model of storytelling where somebody wants something and gets it (to quote Earl Pomerantz again) is the most repeated storyform. The modern audience member is constantly reassured that IF they are willing to sacrifice something, manna from heaven will be their immediate reward. It's all about immediate gratification, whereas the message of Christianity was that suffering in this life would be rewarded by eternal bliss in the afterlife...
This is a specifically western (and largely American) message though. In many Chinese popular stories, the hero dies, sometimes even in vain. But there the act of the heroic sacrifice itself is what's considered meaningful and inspirational, not the reward the hero gets at the end of his labours.
And of course heroism isn't always rewarded - as in Sergio Corbucci's shocking spaghetti western The Big Silence. At the end, heroic gunman Jean-Louis Trintignant, his hands broken, rides out to face villain Klaus Kinski in order to save a group of farmers Kinski holds hostage. Trintignant is shot in cold blood, and the farmers are massacred. It's a truly stunning moment, as it runs counter to both genre expectations and our feelings of justice. And it's undeniably true to life.
Which doesn't really bring me to my point, but anyhow...
Let's have more heroes.
Let's inspire people again.
And let's, slowly but surely, try to get the point across that the hero is willing to sacrifice all without being rewarded for it.
It may not do much for making the world a better place. It may not do anything at all.
But I'm sure we'll get some great stories out of it.
Showing posts with label Hero's Journey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hero's Journey. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
One story to bind them all... But that's not necessarily a good thing
Last year, Cosby and Major Dad writer/creator Earl Pomerantz bemoaned the general state of American movies on his excellent blog, and more especially because they always tell the same story. It's either 'somebody wants something and gets it' or 'somebody wants something and goes mad'.
Of course, mr. Pomerantz nuances this blanket statement (there are movies in which the protagonist doesn't get his wish, and these are his favourites), but there's more than a little truth in his statement. The underlying story structure of most American films has become extremely uniform over the past two or three decades.
And that underlying story structure is the Hero's Journey.
For those screenwriting enthusiasts who lived on Mars for the last thirty years or who never opened a book beyond Field or McKee: The Hero's Journey is the screenwriting structure developed by Christopher Vogler, who based it on Joseph Campbell's classic The Hero With The Thousand Faces.
Basically, it's about the process of becoming an adult: the hero leaves his home, ventures into the unknown world, is challenged and returns to his home transformed, an adult who adds something to society.
It's a fictionalized representation of the ritual of adulthood, which in primitive societies generally takes place when puberty occurs.
Now, I'm not criticizing the Hero's Journey: it's a story archetype which works, and which appeals to psychological mechanisms and processes in everybody's mental make-up.
Yet there is far more to life than moving from childhood to adulthood.
There are countless stories to tell about the challenges of adulthood, about the slow decline when middle-age sets in, and about old age and facing one's mortality. In James Bonnett's Stealing Fire From The Gods, all of these story types are placed on a story wheel, divided into quadrants. It shows very clearly how much more story material is available to screenwriters.
And these stories were more prevalent in the past (and are also found more often in the films of other countries). For some reason, though, the Hero's Journey model has pushed all others aside.
One of the reasons for this may be that it's the only story structure of its type that is commonly known and described so exhaustively. Bonnet's book is very inspiring and, in its second edition, also attempts to provide practical models of the kind, but the fact remains that Vogler's rightly famous manual is extremely effective in fixing the Hero's Journey model in the reader's mind - and in making it immediately applicable.
Secondly, the whole character arc concept which is so prevalent in screenwriting theory (and which every teacher, myself included, imparts to their pupils), always implies an evolution in the main character. Something is missing in their life, and through their experiences, the flaw is healed. No matter what the genre, this is the 'genetic blueprint' for just about every film protagonist since the '80s - although Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4 and Shia Leboeuf in Transformers had no character arcs to speak of.
In both these cases, the lack of an arc is a weakness: John McClane feels stale, now, and Leboeuf's character is so bland it beggars belief. There are other characters, though, who do not need an arc. James Bond (pre-Brosnan) is the best example. Here is a man who is complete, who has flaws he will never be able to overcome (compulsive womanizer, snob, sometimes overconfident, impulsive). Yet his talents more than outweigh these weaknesses. Similarly, Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes, Dirty Harry etc. are characters who are what they are. Their flaws are part of their appeal, and they do not need to 'learn' in order to be effective and entertaining. What is important though, is that they are portrayed with enough multi-dimensionality when they first appear, so they come alive to the audience and create a very strong impression - an impression which overshadows the details of the actual narrative.
This is a huge topic and I've only touched on the surface - I may return to it later to investigate certain points more deeply. What I would like you to take away from reading this is the following: the Hero's Journey is but one story model, which is ideally suited to (many) screen stories, but not all of them. Investigate the alternatives. Learn to fit the structural model to the content of the story, as form and content are one. One size might fit many, but it does not fit all.
Of course, mr. Pomerantz nuances this blanket statement (there are movies in which the protagonist doesn't get his wish, and these are his favourites), but there's more than a little truth in his statement. The underlying story structure of most American films has become extremely uniform over the past two or three decades.
And that underlying story structure is the Hero's Journey.
For those screenwriting enthusiasts who lived on Mars for the last thirty years or who never opened a book beyond Field or McKee: The Hero's Journey is the screenwriting structure developed by Christopher Vogler, who based it on Joseph Campbell's classic The Hero With The Thousand Faces.
Basically, it's about the process of becoming an adult: the hero leaves his home, ventures into the unknown world, is challenged and returns to his home transformed, an adult who adds something to society.
It's a fictionalized representation of the ritual of adulthood, which in primitive societies generally takes place when puberty occurs.
Now, I'm not criticizing the Hero's Journey: it's a story archetype which works, and which appeals to psychological mechanisms and processes in everybody's mental make-up.
Yet there is far more to life than moving from childhood to adulthood.
There are countless stories to tell about the challenges of adulthood, about the slow decline when middle-age sets in, and about old age and facing one's mortality. In James Bonnett's Stealing Fire From The Gods, all of these story types are placed on a story wheel, divided into quadrants. It shows very clearly how much more story material is available to screenwriters.
And these stories were more prevalent in the past (and are also found more often in the films of other countries). For some reason, though, the Hero's Journey model has pushed all others aside.
One of the reasons for this may be that it's the only story structure of its type that is commonly known and described so exhaustively. Bonnet's book is very inspiring and, in its second edition, also attempts to provide practical models of the kind, but the fact remains that Vogler's rightly famous manual is extremely effective in fixing the Hero's Journey model in the reader's mind - and in making it immediately applicable.
Secondly, the whole character arc concept which is so prevalent in screenwriting theory (and which every teacher, myself included, imparts to their pupils), always implies an evolution in the main character. Something is missing in their life, and through their experiences, the flaw is healed. No matter what the genre, this is the 'genetic blueprint' for just about every film protagonist since the '80s - although Bruce Willis in Die Hard 4 and Shia Leboeuf in Transformers had no character arcs to speak of.
In both these cases, the lack of an arc is a weakness: John McClane feels stale, now, and Leboeuf's character is so bland it beggars belief. There are other characters, though, who do not need an arc. James Bond (pre-Brosnan) is the best example. Here is a man who is complete, who has flaws he will never be able to overcome (compulsive womanizer, snob, sometimes overconfident, impulsive). Yet his talents more than outweigh these weaknesses. Similarly, Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes, Dirty Harry etc. are characters who are what they are. Their flaws are part of their appeal, and they do not need to 'learn' in order to be effective and entertaining. What is important though, is that they are portrayed with enough multi-dimensionality when they first appear, so they come alive to the audience and create a very strong impression - an impression which overshadows the details of the actual narrative.
This is a huge topic and I've only touched on the surface - I may return to it later to investigate certain points more deeply. What I would like you to take away from reading this is the following: the Hero's Journey is but one story model, which is ideally suited to (many) screen stories, but not all of them. Investigate the alternatives. Learn to fit the structural model to the content of the story, as form and content are one. One size might fit many, but it does not fit all.
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