Universal conflict

With all the infinite problems and predicaments that face humankind, you would think that the expressions of conflict in story would be equally infinite. But again, I find that there are recurring motifs of conflict expressed in story. In fact, these motifs occur with such frequency that instead of recognizing these as forms of conflict, I’ll categorize them into types of familiar stories:

• Brains vs. Brawn. These conflicts pit intelligence against brute strength.
• Rags to Riches. These are stories about personal struggle for achievement.
• Good vs. Evil. Sets equal forces against each other.
• Role Reversals. Allows us to see through the eyes of the “other” and experience how others live.
• Courage and Survival. The conflict that is usually environmental. There is a disaster or disease that must be overcome.
• Peacemakers. These are underdog stories where the “good” are those who protect the weak or stand up for what is right.
• Tempting Fate. The conflict arises when the hero goes against the established order of thins (the law, God, nature), sometimes for the greater good, but more often for personal gain.
• Fish out of Water. A character or characters are transported to a different time or place where they must learn how to survive.
• Ship of Fools. Several fully defined but distinctly different characters must navigate an adventure together.
• Buddy Stories. These stories focus on the strengths and contrasts of the characters to overcome adversity and become friends.
• Love stories. The Study of romantic relationships that focuses on the trials that bring two people together or tear them apart.
• Quests and journeys. In these stories, heroes traverse space and/or time to retrieve an object or person only to find themselves changed through the experience.
  

Often, in feature films, there will be one conflict motif that is the main conflict or problem. Then there may be secondary motifs that emerge in the subplots.

Here a small analysis to illustrate the above.

My research topics

My research topics within storytelling are:

• Structure
• Theme
• Character
• Conflict
  

Character Archtypes in Feature Films

Working on it.

The Universal Story; Disney, Pixar & Miyazaki

Disney movies have long been constructed for a collective audience, sitting in a darkened theater that share the experience of the hero. Disney films have driven home the opportunity of the individual to succeed and that, above all, it is personal success that we celebrate. In Disney films there is a clear hero who fights a clear villain. Nearly all of the classic Disney movies are excellent case studies of the Hero’s Journey.

On the other hand, Pixar films follow every aspect of the structure except that of the Hero. If we define a hero simply as the eyes through which the story is told, then Pixar, too, more or less fits the formula. If we define the hero as the one who succeeds and whose success we celebrate, then this changes the dynamics when we look at a Pixar film.

In Pixar films the role of the hero is more often played as if it were a baton in a relay race, passing from character to character. For example, in Finding Nemo, it is Marlin’s quest to find Nemo. But Marlin fails. He begins to return home without his son. It is Nemo who brings himself home and it is Dory’s role to reunite Nemo with his dad. At different times Gill is the hero, and the Dory is the hero-each character has a unique purpose that, in the true Andy Warhol 15-minutes-of-fame theory, allows him or her to be the hero of his or her own part of the story. This, coupled with original story, is what makes a Pixar film seem concurrently familiar, yet unique and fresh. Even in The Incredibles there are times when the role of hero passes from character to character, even to the shape-shifting character named appropriately, Mirage.

Miyazaki also orders the events in a classic structure. However, in most of his stories the identification of good and evil is not clear. For Miyazaki, evil, if it can be called that, is “ that which dwells within us”. His stories have conflict that is often more internalized. Success comes through personal resurrection. Through the character’s personal transformation, most of the time in relation with a physical transformation, the peace in the world is restored.

More to come…

Feature Film Plots Against the Hero’s Journey Analysis

So far..

Character Archetypes

In movies there are definite character roles that appear over and over in almost every story.

These roles come from character Archetypes. An Archetype is defined as a pervasive idea or image that serves as an original model from which copies are made. For storytelling purposes, this means that there is a baseline character model that any surface or costuming can be placed upon. The hero is a baseline that can be a superhero, Mr. Incredible; an ogre, Shrek; a girl, Mulan; a wooly mammoth, Manfred, and so on.

The term first comes from Carl Jung, a 20^th century psychoanalyst who studied dreams and the unconscious. Jung found that there were reoccurring images and themes running through the dreams of his patients that were so similar that they could not come from individual conflicts. He believed that these images originated in the collective unconsciousness of all people, and he called these images Archetypes.

Jung’s Archetypes divided the individual into four parts or psyches: the self, the shadow, the male, and the female. These were not defined as individual characters, but as attributes common in every individual. In Jung’s world, these base archetypes would manifest themselves in other forms: the female part of the psyche might be the great mother; the male part of the psyche might be the eternal child; the self might be a hero, wise old man, a trickster, and so forth. They were the different ways in which individuals would see themselves. And these formed the basis for the stories that his patients would tell.

In the stories of feature films we find the same thing. There are Archetypes that form the basis of nearly all the characters in the movies we watch. Chris Vogler, in his book, A Writer’s Journey, indentifies seven archetypal characters found in most feature film:

• The Hero – the character through which the story is told.
• The Mentor – the ally that helps the hero.
• The Herald – this character announces the “Call to Adventure” and delivers other important information throughout the story. This role sometimes shifts from character to character.
• The Shadow – this is the villain or major protagonist. Sometimes, as in Miyazaki’s films, the shadow resides in the character himself
• The Threshold Guardian – this is a character, passageway, or guardian that the hero must get past in order to proceed on the quest, or to retrieve the object of the quest.
• The Trickster – this character is usually the comic relief in the story. He sometimes leads the hero of or away from the goal.
• The Shapeshifter – this character is not who she appears or who she presents herself to be.

So far…

Why do we tell stories?

• To entertain
• To teach
• To compare our existence to others
• To communicate with others
• To see the world through the eyes of others
• To learn how to be human

Many stories seem to be the same as other stories because:

• There is an archetypal story structure
• There are a limited number of archetypal characters
• There are a limited number of conflicts
• There are a limited number of themes

Original stories are created through the audience’s engagement in unique characters and the way that they react to and solve the conflicts they encounter.

As filmmakers, we deliver emotion. It is through emotional engagement that we move an audience.

(more to come)

Working on it.