A Case Study in Character Development
Jun. 10th, 2009 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI'm still nibbling away at my more in-depth review of Up, but in the meantime I was reminded of something I read back when I was in high school that made a lot of sense and has stayed with me ever since. Italics are the author's, bold text is mine.
I wish Mr Grant would have written succinctly enough that I could print this out onto a poster that I could pin on the outside of my cube where people might actually read it, but that's what blogs are for!
Basil's character has many strengths in itself, but it has in addition an extra one which originates in the relationship between him and his audience. This is that, adult or child, we identify with him. If we are not Basil, we would like to be, and for an hour and a quarter we believe that we are.
[...] Many [Disney features] have a central character whose personality is two-dimensional. It is this character with whom we are intended to identify, and the two-dimensionality is deliberately created so that we can graft onto the character sufficient of our own attributes for the identification to be successful. In The Rescuers, Penny is 'everygirl;' in The Sword in the Stone, Wart is 'everyboy.' In The Great Mouse Detective, however, the character who might might have been expected to take on this role, Olivia, is far from two-dimensional, and it is Basil with whom we are intended to – and do – identify.
Basil is more than just a collection of behaviour patterns. One leaves the cinema feeling that one knows him as a personality – every characteristic rings true. When, for example, Ratigan escapes the palace in his bat-powered dirigible, we may be surprised at the nature of the Heath Robinsonish vehicle which Basil devises for the purposes of giving chase, but we are not surprised that Basil would have been capable of inventing it.– John Grant, The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Characters
I wish Mr Grant would have written succinctly enough that I could print this out onto a poster that I could pin on the outside of my cube where people might actually read it, but that's what blogs are for!
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 05:52 pm (UTC)I was always taught that 3d characters are characters who undergo a change in the course of a story.
The difference between a dull flat character and a character who comes with bells and whistles is, I think, a different matter altogether. Forster has shown us (always back to the Bloomsbury group) that completely boring British-banker S'types can undergo a fundamental character change that renders them 3-dimensional.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 06:11 pm (UTC)I have Theories regarding S vs N character development but they are mostly poorly informed and non-comprehensive. Nevertheless, for your perusal: When Ss write/read a character, they want to know facts about them; when Ns write/read a character, they want to know what they are like. By this theory Robin McKinley is an S and Terry Pratchett is an N; the fact that most writers seem to be Ns would explain why the minority of books* seem to be overly reliant on backstory and biographical tidbits. (I wonder if biographers are, statistically, more likely to be S types...) Regarding Up** it makes me wonder if Bob Peterson (writer) is an S, because Pete Docter(director)'s previous film, Monsters, Inc, is much more personality-focused than biography-focused. Mr Peterson, being the most significant variable between the two movies, may be the easiest place to pin the blame...
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 06:30 pm (UTC)Re: Rotten Tomatoes
:P O you.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 06:34 pm (UTC)Yes, but, Head of Story, to my knowledge, is more like the Story Wrangler, herding the story artists and shepherding the plot. When you actually write the screenplay you have a lot more influence on the minutiae of the movie, what with originating it and all.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:22 pm (UTC)You can have a good idea of what a character is without there being much to them. I think we are confusing literary terms, is all. However, you should carry on expounding your theory. The vast majority of my utterances are poorly informed and non-comprehensive.
And you should stop reviewing Up because the activity jeopardizes my love for you. I'm afraid we've reached the kind of obsessive, mind-bending, infuriating unsolvable problem that breaks a person's spirit and, inevitably, changes them for the worst. Can't you see that your participation in this whole quixotic endeavour is turning you evil?
Come back to me. Come back to me. *beckoning hand*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-20 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-20 11:27 pm (UTC)Three-dimensional characters: They have good and bad qualities. Their goals, ambitions and values change. A round character changes as a result of what happens to him or her. A character who changes inside as a result of what happens to him is referred to in literature as a DYNAMIC character. A dynamic character grows or progresses to a higher level of understanding in the course of the story
http://www.orangeusd.k12.ca.us/yorba/literary_elements.htm