Middle Aged Crazy ? Dispatch from The Quest: Rob Pilkington

Source: Go Into The Story

Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the subject of character. That seemed to have put them in an especially reflective mood as most of them used their journal entries to ponder where they were in the process of learning the craft of screenwriting. We continue this week?s series of dispatches with some thoughts about character archetypes from Rob Pilkington:

Last week, in my dispatch from the Quest, I tried to point out that, in general, I thought high-concept ideas lent themselves more to a hooky premise rather than a juicy protagonist. As I should have suspected, that quickly got spun in the comment section as ?this dude doesn?t think character matters!? Then I felt like a jackass for two nights, trolling my own GITS post to somehow get a last, clarifying word. Good people of the Internet: I never meant to mildly disagree with what you thought about that theoretical thing! For the love of all cat memes, can we still be friends!?

(jk, I love discussing this stuff. I?m going to vaguely allude to believing in some controversial movie thing every week now. This week: Attack of the Clones ? the best Star Wars film? or the best film EVER?)

But the timing is good, because last week Scott had us reading and talking about archetypes, so I get to wear a big foam finger for CHARACTER this week. Still, I had some reservations about defining archetypes with everyone. Don?t get me wrong: I get them. I witness them. I use them. Even unintentionally sometimes. But doing all these things, especially within the warm and snuggly confines of your mind, is completely different than sharing, defining, and bullet-pointing them with complete strangers. Someone says ?archetype? out loud and I feel like I?m being told how to play chess again. So: gut check. With who can I verify this? Who can I trust more that Scott, the Questers, Jesus, Santa, and my local barkeep all rolled into one? It came to me quickly.

BATMAN.

Goyer and Nolan?s script for Batman Begins is, for reasons too long to get into here, a benchmark piece of screenwriting for me. I believe that it works, and works so satisfyingly so, on such an invisible level that it really takes a serious look at writing movies to appreciate. I?ll leave it at that. Also, bats fly out of the Scarecrow?s face. RAD.

So I took the archetype that most troubled me and tried to apply it to Begins: the Mentor.

?Well,? I thought, ?it?s Alfred. He?s old. He?s wise. He?s British. That?s a no-brainer. And better than that, he echoes Bruce?s father?s??

?Oh right? Bruce?s dad is in the beginning. And he says all that stuff that eventually guides Bruce as Batman, about the themes of overcoming fear and believing in Gotham, so he can defeat??

?Ra?s al Ghul. Who trains Bruce in all the skills and theories he will need to become Batman? to defeat Ra?s al Ghul??

I immediately called bullsh*t. One movie, three mentors? And Ra?s (Henri Ducard) even shifts into two other archetypes as the movie progresses (is it too late for a spoiler alert?). What the hell? I?ve never won a game of chess by putting the Monopoly dog on the board mid-game and declaring him my king. And I speak from tear-stained, board-overturning experience.

But I gave it a day (and read more) and it dawned on me: there ARE multiple mentors in Begins, but they all occupy different segments of the story. There?s Thomas Wayne when Bruce is a child, Ducard/Ra?s as Bruce trains, and Alfred after Bruce decides to be Batman. So, at all times, these characters, and others, are shifting roles, circling the pole, always pulling taunt the narrative, keeping it erect like some big, magnificent tent. And yes, it comes in black.

To speak more to the material that Scott expounds upon that was super helpful: an archetypal force doesn?t even need to be an actual character. It can be a vocation, a hobby, a goal, a completely imagined thing. In one of Scott?s examples, an archetype was listed as ?moths,? which, while true, I?m determined to use in a future script? and also shoehorn into every movie I now see. Luke, use the Moths.

So after a rocky start, and some deep bat-searching into my bat-soul, this week about character archetypes rocked. And for any of you think that Batman Begins doesn?t suit you as a viable example ? I went to another, completely different movie (and benchmark script for me) and checked In Bruges. And the archetypes were still there, alive and kicking?.

And even in?Attack of the Clones, too.

I am always interested to see how writers take to the ideas we discuss when working through the five primary character archetypes: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster. I don?t claim they work in every story, but we do see this same group over and over and over again, representing what I suspect is a near universal set of narrative functions. What is beautiful about archetypes from a story-crafting perspective is they can help us zero in on the core function of key characters, enabling us to develop them with a coherence in terms of their relationships, but also the freedom to explore an endless variety of personality types, which is the antithesis of formulaic writing.

How about you? What are your thoughts about characters archetypes? What about Rob?s analysis of Batman Begins? If you have any thoughts, please head to comments to continue the conversation.

Tomorrow: Another dispatch from The Quest.

About Rob:

Boston writer headed for LA. Lover of Kubrick, Nolan, McDonagh, and the Coens. Okay, good talk. Back to writing. Twitter: @HeroesAreBoring

Source: Go Into The Story

Source: http://middleagedcrazy.com/dispatch-from-the-quest-rob-pilkington-2/

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