CHAPTER TWO SUMMARY POINTS
The id is the part of the psyche that is driven by the primal urges toward sex and aggression.
The superego is the part of the psyche that represents morality and social customs… the conscience.
The ego is the part of the psyche that represents a compromise between the libido (the id drives), and guilt (the restrictive power of the superego).
The id is often represented in film as the villain.
The ego is often represented in film as the hero.
The superego is often represented in film as the mentor.
Often times, the villain either starts out or ends as a. prisoner. This theme represents the function of the villain as id – which must be subdued and repressed by the ego.
The villain’s comeuppance represents the resolution of the Oedipal complex. Hence, the villain’s comeuppance should be appropriately dramatic. It also should impart a sense of justice.
Film characters frequently face a crisis of conscience, in which they must overcome selfish needs by making moral decisions. The hero’s character development through a crisis of conscience symbolizes the development of the ego and the triumph of the superego over the id.
The hero’s character development is typically guided or inspired by a strong mentor figure.
Cowardly characters tend to be comical. They represent the fear or reluctance that many people experience when facing moral challenges or major life choices.
The antihero is the most common type of hero in American movies. The antihero is a character who is initially controlled by his id. He eventually overcomes his self-centeredness and sacrifices himself for the good of others.
The fallen hero is a tragic figure who tries to overcome the baser side of his nature, but who eventually succumbs to the dark side.
Many heroes, especially superheroes, are driven by a guilt complex. They feel that they must redeem themselves for a sin or shortcoming that is haunting their consciences.
CHAPTER TWO EXERCISES
1. The best villains are driven by their own primal desires or libido. How can you spice up your villain by addressing the sex and aggression drives? Remember, the villain can never be too despicable.
2. How can you incorporate the notion of just retribution in your villain’s comeuppance?
3. Devise three forms of comeuppance that are new, exciting, or inventive.
4. Describe your hero’s primary conflict in two or three sentences. If you cannot do this, then you probably do not have a solid understanding of this character’s motivations. Though the hero’s internal neurotic conflict may address complex psychological issues, the conflict should be crystal clear to you as the writer.
5. Identify the villain character in five of your favorite films, and explain how this character epitomizes the psychological function of the id.
6. Identify the hero character in five of your favorite films, and explain how this character epitomizes the psychological function of the ego.
7. Identify the mentor figure in five of your favorite films, and explain how this character epitomizes the psychological function of the superego.
8. Guilt is a basic element of internal conflict. Think of what your hero could feel guilty about, and consider how this guilt could be incorporated as a motivating factor for character development.
9. Is your hero a classical hero, an antihero, a fallen hero…? You do not have to limit your hero to any one of these types, but envisioning him or her as one or the other may help in delineating your hero’s motivations.
10. Analyze the neurotic conflict of classic film characters such as George Bailey (James Stewart) in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift) in Red River (1948), and Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).
ADDRESSING NEUROTIC CONFLICT IN YOUR SCRIPT
1. If your script has a villain, are his motivations clear?
2. Does your villain get his comeuppance in the end? If so, is the comeuppance equal to his crimes?
3. Is your hero’s primary psychological conflict different from his external goal?
4. Does your hero have a mentor or role model? If not, consider writing one in. The role model figure can be extremely resonant, even if his or her part is nominal.
5. Is your hero motivated, at least in part, by guilt?
NEUROTIC CONFLICT AT A GLANCE
ELEMENTS
ATTRIBUTES
CHARACTERS
EXAMPLES
Id
Primal impulses and libido
energy
Villains
Monsters
Dr. No
Dracula
Ego
The self
Heroes
Shane
Superego
Moral conscience –
internal representations of
social authority
Mentors
Father Figures
Role Models
Obi Won in Star Wars
Father Murphy in
Drugstore Cowboy
Crisis of
Conscience
Internal conflict between
egoism and selflessness
Coward Heroes
Antiheroes
Fallen Heroes
Abbott and Costello
Shane
Scarface
Guilt Complex
Persistent guilt over a
perceived sin or iniquity
Superheroes
Guilty Heroes
Spider-man
Bob in Drugstore Cowboy
Chapter Three
THE PSYGHOSEXUAL STAGES
Freud’s developmental model of the ego is based on his belief in infantile sexuality. From the moment of birth, primal drives are expressed as libido energy which flows toward erogenous zones in the body that are being stimulated at each specific stage of development. The stages of development are “psychosexual” because the psychological development of the ego is related directly to the satisfaction of sexually charged impulses. If a psychosexual stage is not properly resolved (if too little or too much pleasure is experienced), then libido energy may become fixated at that stage, resulting in neurotic symptoms that become part of the individual’s personality traits and behavior patterns. A thorough knowledge of Freud’s psychosexual stages will reveal new layers of psychological complexity and sexual connotations that you can instill in your characters and plots, adding depth and emotional resonance to your script.
THE ORAL STAGE
Freud’s first psychosexual stage occurs in infancy, when babies receive most of their stimulation orally. Babies satisfy their hunger by sucking on their bottle or on mother’s breast, and they also express their emotions orally by crying, screaming, laughing, cooing, babbling, and smiling. Freud believed that nursing, the experience of being held up to a woman’s naked breast and sucking on her nipple, is a primal sexual experience and the hallmark of infantile sexuality. This infantile experience of love, pleasure, and primal satisfaction is recapitulated later in life during the sexual act, when the breast and nipple once again become focal points for oral stimulation. During infancy, the primal desire for oral stimulation becomes intrinsically linked to basic needs on physical, emotional, and sexual levels. Oral personality traits can be seen in the behaviors of characters whose oral fixations represent psychological and emotional needs that are not being met.
SMOKING
Cigarette smoking is perhaps the most obvious oral fixation. Sucking smoke provides physical, emotional, and psychological comfort. It is a neurotic behavior – a nervous habit that is unhealthy and physically addictive. Nevertheless, the act of smoking is ubiquitous in movies, especially in older movies that were made before the fear of cancer and cigarette-related health problems made tobacco less popular. In the classic Westerns and Film Noir movies, characters were always lighting, smoking, or putting out a cigarette. Reasons behind the prevalence o
f smoking in films are manifold. First, smoke simply looks cool on screen – especially in black-and-white. The famous scene in Citizen Kane (1941), in which the shadows of gesticulating newsreel editors are seen through a gray haze of cigarette smoke, has a strong emotional impact, not just because of the natural obscurity provided by the smoke, but also from a sense of gritty realism – the feeling of being in a tiny theater with a gang of chain-smoking, fast-talking newsmen.
A second reason for the great prevalence of smoking film characters is that the act of smoking itself looks cool on the screen. At many points in your dialogue, you may want to insert a dramatic pause. A few moments of silence allows for the preceding line to resonate in the ears of your audience. The dramatic pause also gives the other character time to react to the line and consider an appropriately dramatic response. Since film is a visual medium, it is hard to write dramatic pauses that are meaningful to actors. Simply adding parentheticals such as “(beat)” or “(pause)” may not be enough. One line of direction, in which a character takes out a pack of cigarettes, lights up and smokes, gives an actor more material to work with (although this device should not be overused). When Kane’s butler is asked about “Rosebud,” he takes a few moments to light a cigarette. The dramatic pause allows for the very important word, “Rosebud,” to sink in, and it also allows Kane’s butler to conjure some ominously shady expressions as he lights up.
Finally, smoking can make a character look cool. Smoking gives characters something to do with their hands and mouth, and it provides a natural fog that obscures the light around them, giving them an ethereal appearance as they are momentarily veiled behind a cloud of blue smoke. But most importantly, smoking imparts a sense of internal conflict, a feeling that this character is soothing some kind of inner turmoil. Whenever Rick (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca (1940) is faced with a heartbreaking memory or realization, he invariably lights up a cigarette, looking stoically heroic as he stares off into the distance through a shroud of smoke. The use of smoking as a symbol of internal conflict has not gone away. In fact, the effect may even be greater, since audiences are now aware that smoking is unhealthy. Only a severely conflicted character would light up a cancer-stick and suck on it rapaciously, killing a little bit of himself with each drag.
Dramatic Pause: The butler (Paul Stewart) in Citizen Kane lights a cigarette before answering the question about “Rosebud.”
ORAL TYPES
Smoking, drinking, and overeating are the more obvious symptoms of oral fixation. However, drug use, womanizing, promiscuity, gambling, and all other addictive behaviors could also be related to the oral stage, as they reflect a behavior pattern in which internal needs are satisfied by seeking and indulging in external stimulation. For some characters, oral behavior is their primary conflict. The Lost Weekend (1945), for example, is a classic movie about a man trying to overcome alcoholism. The struggle against addiction has been depicted in many fine movies; yet more often, the addictive problems of the oral type are not the primary issue in the film. Rather, they are represented as subtle qualities or mannerisms within a character. Paulie (Paul Sorvino), the Mafia boss in Goodfellas (1990), is extremely obese, as were Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi (1983), and the title character (Charles Laugton) in Captain Kidd (1945) For these characters, obesity symbolized their overwhelming avariciousness – their emotional need to have everything for themselves. When writing your script, you may want to add oral behaviors to your characters, as they provide visceral and visual elements to your characters’ personalities.
ORAL SADISM
The quality of the nursing relationship between baby and mother begins to change later on in the oral stage of development, when baby starts to teeth. Nursing can become a painful experience, as baby realizes that it has the power to physically hurt its mother. The psychosexual experience of nursing is now infused with baby’s newfound power to inflict pain. In psychoanalytic literature, “oral sadism” refers to a quality of character stemming from unresolved issues at the oral stage, expressed through a perverse desire to cause others pain. The oral sadist is seen most directly in monster villains such as vampires and werewolves, who kill and torture their female victims by tearing into them with their teeth. In Nosferatu (1922), the link between the vampire (Max Shrek) and his victim (Greta Schröder) is through the breast, recapitulating the infant/mother link in the oral stage. The vampire must suck the maiden’s blood in order to live, just as baby must suck the milk from its mother’s breast. As the human version of the monster villain, serial killers produce similar fear reactions in audiences. Viewers dread the perverse nature of villains who kill and torture in order to satisfy their own libidos.
ORAL FIXATIONS
Oral fixations exemplify the basic problem of all villains – their inability to care for others – as demonstrated through their selfishness, greed, and cruelty. Villains such as Jabba the Hutt and Captain Kidd have obvious oral fixations, but the device can be effectively employed in other ways. Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet (1986) is at his scariest and most evil when he is sucking voraciously on his nitrous-oxide mask. Frank’s nitrous use is disturbing to look at, cueing the viewer in to the perverse and disturbing nature of his character. The oral fixations you write into your villain characters will typically demonstrate the wicked, sadistic, or perverse quality of their personalities. The oral fixations of your hero figures, however, usually represent the inner demons or character flaws that the hero must overcome.
ORAL OBSTACLES
In Westerns such as Rio Bravo (1959) and El Dorado (1967), one supporting character is often a drunk who must overcome his alcoholism in order to help the hero in his shootout against the bad guys. Heroic characters must always face obstacles in order to accomplish their goals. Overcoming an addiction is an often-used, yet still powerful, inner obstacle for movie heroes. The device remains resonant because everyone can identify with the theme of overcoming oral desires – whether it is a crippling addiction to alcohol, or just a low-calorie diet. Obstacles are a central part of the hero formula, a character element that will be addressed throughout this book. Giving your hero an oral fixation is one way to humanize your hero by infusing him with a basic human foible that everyone in the audience can relate to.
THE ANAL STAGE
Freud’s second stage of psychosexual development revolves around the toddler’s struggle to master toilet training. For the first time in its life, the toddler must learn to control its basic impulse to expel feces and urine whenever it feels the urge. As such, toilet training represents the developing ego’s very first neurotic conflict. The toddler must repress its id desires for immediate release, in deference to the wishes of the parental figures, who insist that the toddler hold it in and wait to release its feces in the potty. Since the power struggle between parent and toddler over toilet training is a primary conflict, the resolution of this stage has tremendous implications on both the child’s relationship with its parents, and the way in which the developing ego will learn to deal with neurotic conflict in the future. The two anal personality types, Anal Retentive and Anal Expulsive, are the enduring legacies of anal fixations at the second psychosexual stage.
SCHLEMIEL, SCHLIMAZEL
The fundamental setup in comedy is the comic dyad, a pairing of two opposite character types. The straight man is an anal retentive type. He desires control and restraint, just as the anal-retentive child deals with the conflict of potty training by retaining his feces, even to the point of frustration. The straight man can be controlling, like Abbot from Abbot & Costello, or he can be compulsively neat and neurotic, like Felix (Jack Lemmon) from The Odd Couple (1968), or he can be perpetually frustrated and irate, like Oliver Hardy from Laurel & Hardy. The humor of the comic dyad stems from the constant conflict between the anal retentive straight man and his zany foil, the anal expulsive goofball. Just as the anal expulsive toddler deals with the potty conflict by releasing feces and causing a mess (incontinence), the anal expulsive
goofball instigates conflict by screwing things up and making a comical mess (incompetence).
Gilligan (Bob Denver) from the television show Gilligan’s Island was the ultimate anal expulsive goofball. In every episode, Gilligan’s incompetence always screwed up the castaways’ chances of getting rescued. His antics were a constant antecedent for humorously frustrated reactions from his tightly wound straight man, the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.). Felix’s compulsive neatness and Oscar’s (Walter Matthau) repulsive messiness in The Odd Couple provide a particularly accurate portrayal of the comical retentive-expulsive dyad. Whether the characters in the comic dyad are the central heroes in your script, or merely comic relief, the basis of this comedic device remains the same. The two character types frustrate each other because of the opposite ways in which they channel their id energy. The conflict between retention and release is amusing to audiences, because it plays upon the universal anxiety of neurotic conflict, which was first experienced in early childhood during toilet training.
INTERNAL CONFLICT
Unless your script has a character that transforms physically into a beast (i.e., a vampire, werewolf or Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde character), the theme of the individual struggling with his inner beast or libido must be depicted in subtler forms. In most movies, there is a point where the hero’s personality changes in a noticeable way – either for good or for bad. The change might be related to an external obstacle that the hero must overcome. Other times, the change could be an epiphany, in which a retentive or restrained character suddenly becomes expulsive, releasing his pent-up libido drives and acting wildly. The internal conflict between restraint and release is extremely effective in building tension and suspense, as the audience senses the pressure of id energy building higher and higher in the hero’s psyche, and waits excitedly for the dam of restraint to burst.
Psychology for Screenwriters Page 5
