“While Dr. Indick focuses on facilitating the process of screenwriting, anyone who likes movies will find his analysis of the psychology behind the plot and characters to be a treat. Screenwriters, filmmakers, psychologists, and film enthusiasts alike will find his book engaging and enlightening.”
—Dr. Kendell Thornton
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Dowling College
“Psychology for Screenwriters: Building Conflict in Your Script is a must read for screenwriters, filmmakers, film analysts, and students of film and psychology. This book is destined to become an essential volume for all those who aspire to write a successful script or make a successful movie. Dr. Indick’s treatment of complex psychological concepts, character traits, and plot lines is clear and direct. His book lends itself to immediate application in character development, portrayal, and script analysis.”
—Dr. Suzanne Johnson
Professor of Psychology
Author of For Lesbian Parents (Guilford Press, 2001)
and The Gay Baby Boom (New York University Press, 2002)
“Dr. Indick’s book is a comprehensive and insightful account of how psychological knowledge can elucidate and guide any filmmaking experience. Unquestionably, it is must-read material for screenwriters and anyone who might be interested in understanding the intricacies of storytelling in the motion picture industry.”
—Dr. Maura Pilotti
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Dowling College
“You cannot find a clearer or more concise guide on the psychology of cinema than this book. A brilliant and insightful companion for the screenwriter and film aficionado alike, this lucid and lyric guide provides a ‘Let’s Go’ tour of the most powerful psycho-literary theories of our age as they apply to hundreds of great films.”
—Marcus C. Tye, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Associate Professor of Psychology
Dowling College
“Even the most experienced writer may have misplaced the knowledge needed to right the course of a script that has lost its creative rudder or stayed too close to the surface of human conflict. Indick’s book can be the trade wind that helps bring the screenwriter’s solitary voyage into harbor, on time and under budget.”
—Stuart Fischoff, Ph.D.
Screenwriter
Senior Editor, Journal of Media Psychology
Professor of Media Psychology
California State University, Los Angeles
Psychology for Screenwriters
Building Conflict in your Script
William Indick, Ph.D.
Published by Michael Wiese Productions
12400 VENTURA BLVD. #1111
Studio City, CA 91604
tel. (818) 379-8799
fax (818) 986-3408
[email protected]
www.mwp.com
Cover Design: MWP
Book Layout: Gina Mansfield
Editor: Arthur G. Insana
Printed by McNaughton & Gunn, Inc., Saline, Michigan Manufactured in the United States of America
© 2004 William Indick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Indick, William, 1971-
Psychology for screenwriters : building conflict in your script / William Indick.
p. cm.
Filmography: p.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-941188-87-6
1. Motion picture authorship. 2. Motion picture authorship--Psychological aspects. I. Title.
PN1996.I53 2004
808.2'3--dc22
2004002056
For M2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: Sigmund Freud
Chapter One: The Oedipal Complex
Chapter Two: Neurotic Conflict
Chapter Three: The Psychosexual Stages
Chapter Four: The Ego Defense Mechanisms
Chapter Five: Dreamwork
PART TWO: Erik Erikson
Chapter Six: Normative Conflict
Chapter Seven: Identity Crisis and Beyond
PART THREE: Carl Jung
Chapter Eight: Archetypes of Character
Chapter Nine: Archetypes of Plot
PART FOUR: Joseph Campbell
Chapter Ten: The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Chapter Eleven: The Heroine’s Journey
PART FIVE: Alfred Adler
Chapter Twelve: The Inferiority Complex
Chapter Thirteen: Sibling Rivalry
Chapter Fourteen: Life Styles
PART SIX: Rollo May
Chapter Fifteen: Existential Conflict
Chapter Sixteen: Archetypes for the Age of Narcissism
Conclusion
About the Author
Illustrations (Courtesy of…)
Filmography
Bibliography
Subject Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author must give much thanks to Mustafa Lokmaci, a graduate assistant in the Psychology Department at Dowling College, for compiling the filmography and subject index. Much of the information in the filmography was retrieved from the Internet Movie Database, IMDB.com. Thanks to Victoria Cook for her excellent legal advice. Much appreciation goes to Jim Garbarino at Cornell University, Suzanne Johnson at Dowling College and Frank Madden at SUNY Westchester Community College for their mentorship, guidance, and advice. A debt of gratitude is owed to the faculty and administration of Dowling College in Oakdale, New York, for their support of the author’s research and writing projects. And many thanks to Michael Wiese and Ken Lee at Michael Wiese Productions for making this book possible.
INTRODUCTION
“Drama is life, with the dull bits cut out.”
—Alfred Hitchcock
In Stardust Memories (1980), Woody Allen’s protagonist has a death fantasy in which his psychiatrist eulogizes him, saying: “he had a faulty denial mechanism… he was unable to block out the harmful truths of life… or, as a famous movie producer put it: ‘People don’t want to see too much reality’…” People go to the movies to experience fantasy. While they watch the film-fantasy projected in front of them, they project their own fantasies onto the characters on the screen. The theater experience itself – a dark, quiet, cavernous room – is evocative of the unconscious mind. As a projection of the human imagination, film is the greatest medium of fantasy ever created.
Very early on in its existence, the “Hollywood Dream Factory” realized that fantasy sells. At the movies, the depths of unconscious fantasy and desire – love and sex, death and destruction, fear and anger, revenge and hatred – can all be indulged in safely, without risk of embarrassment and with a virtual guarantee of a happy ending. A thorough understanding of the unconscious mind – the birthplace of fantasy, dreams, and imagination – is a fundamental point of departure for creating psychologically resonant scripts and films.
A PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
Film’s visceral appeal as a larger than life medium on both visual and auditory levels makes it an extremely powerful psychological force. Viewers are literally absorbed in a movie, becoming so emotionally connected with the characters and plot that the illusion on the screen becomes intertwined with their own psychological lives. Through the unconscious process of “identification,” the people in the audience actually become the characters that they identify with in the film, and they experience, vi
cariously, the same psychological development and catharsis that the characters on the screen experience.
Movies reach deep down inside the audience’s unconscious minds, affecting the way they think and feel about themselves and the world around them. A psychoanalytic approach to understanding and creating film images, characters, and stories is an invaluable resource for filmmakers and screenwriters. Audiences are not consciously aware of the subtle manipulation achieved through a film’s activation of their primal fears, childhood anxieties, unconscious issues, and repressed desires. Yet, they experience heightened states of arousal when viewing the film, because they are emotionally and psychologically integrated with the characters and images on the screen. By learning about the inner workings of the human mind, filmmakers and screenwriters bring more skill and depth to their craft, and create more powerful and resonant films.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
The key to success in any field of endeavor – whether it be teaching, writing, filmmaking, acting, etc. – is to know your audience. The brilliant theories of Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Maureen Murdock, Alfred Adler, and Rollo May are all designed to increase our knowledge of the human mind. Psychoanalytic theory is the study of the “primary subject,” aimed at what Socrates believed was the ultimate intellectual goal: “To know thyself.”
Any task that deals mainly in creative interpretation and extrapolation is inherently subjective, and therefore not an objective science. True psychoanalysis is not a science… it is an art. In this sense, psychoanalysis and screenwriting are two sides of the same coin. They are both creative arts aimed at the investigation and understanding of the human character, mind, and soul. They are both intrinsically engaged in the personality and personal development of their subjects. They are both immersed in the world of archetypal symbols and mythological figures. And they both are rooted firmly in the unconscious realm of human experience.
MAJOR THEORIES OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
Christopher Vogler, author of The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers (1998), once said that “screenwriting isn’t brain surgery… but then again, maybe it is?” Both brain surgery and screenwriting are intricate, painstaking processes that involve the dissection, examination, and reconfiguring of basic structural elements in the human mind. As such, it is no coincidence that the father of psychoanalysis – Sigmund Freud – was a research neurologist before he became a clinical psychiatrist. Freud’s groundbreaking and seminal theories of psychoanalysis changed the way that people think of the human mind and behavior. His thoughts influenced and inspired generations of theorists, and his ideas still are a groundswell in every area of scholarship. Though Freudian psychology has lost favor among most of the new generation of psychologists – the “scientist-practitioners” – who believe that psychology as a field must adhere to the rigid constraints of objective, empirical science, Freudian thought has been embraced by the non-scientists… the artists, actors, creative writers, and filmmakers.
FREUDIAN ANALYSIS
The first part of this book will explain the basic principles of Freudian theory, and show you how to apply it to the characters and plot in your script. The essence of Freudian theory is the notion that the majority of emotions, anxieties, behaviors, and issues that rule our lives are essentially enigmas to us, because we are unconscious of them. The point of Freudian analysis is to reveal these latent motivations to the conscious mind. The first chapter focuses on the Oedipal Complex, the intellectual nucleus of Freudian analysis and the forerunner of Freud’s highly controversial theories of infantile sexuality, repressed taboo desires, and castration anxiety. The Oedipal Complex provides the very basis of drama and conflict, as it explores the issues of love and sex, hatred and aggression, creation and destruction, and life and death.
In Freudian theory, neurotic conflict is an internal psychological conflict between what we desire and the rigid constraints of civilized society. Chapters Two and Three focus on neurotic conflict, following the primary conflicts faced by children as they progress through the psychosexual stages of ego development. These chapters will show you ways of expressing internal conflict as psychologically resonant external conflicts between characters that can be visualized on the movie screen. Chapter Four explores the ego defense mechanisms, elements of Freudian theory that were codified by his daughter, Anna Freud. The defenses are common ways that people deal with their neurotic conflicts. As such, they are essential aspects of neurotic behavior that can add depth to the characters in your script. Chapter Five focuses on “Dreamwork,” the Freudian method of dream analysis. This chapter draws out the parallels between the film and dream experiences, and shows you how to employ dream symbolism and imagery in your script.
ERIKSONIAN ANALYSIS
Though the field of psychoanalysis started with Freud, by no means does it end with him. Erik Erikson’s theory of identity development is the subject of Part Two of this book. While Freud focused on repressed sexuality and internal conflict, Erikson focused on “normative conflict” – the conflict between the individual’s “will to be oneself,” and the obstructive pressures of the environment that surround him. Chapters Six and Seven explore Erikson’s eight stages of ego identity development (the “Identity Crises”), showing you how to apply his model of identity development to your own structure of character development in your script. To my knowledge, this book offers the first model of character development for screenwriting based on Eriksonian theory.
JUNGIAN ANALYSIS
Carl Jung’s theories of archetypes and the collective unconscious have arguably become even more influential among creative artists than Freud’s theories. Jung believed that there is an essential element within the unconscious that integrates and expresses universal or collective psychological images and themes, which he called “archetypes.” Throughout history, archetypal figures and stories have depicted universal human needs, such as the need for mother and father, the need for love and personal achievement, the need for spiritual healing and connection with others, and the need for existential rebirth.
Whereas the archetypes have been depicted for thousands of years through mythology, religion, legends, stories, and art – the primary instrument for the expression of contemporary archetypes is the modern mass medium of movies. In the third part of this book, the archetypes are presented as points of character and plot in films that are psychologically resonant for all people. Chapters Eight and Nine show you how to integrate Jungian archetypes into your script, so you can link your personal story with the collective figures and plots that communicate to everyone on a primary unconscious level.
THE HERO’S JOURNEY
In his book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1948), Joseph Campbell provided a psychological analysis of the structure within the mythological hero’s saga. Drawing freely from his study of psychoanalytic theory, and applying this insight to his vast knowledge of ancient, classical, and world mythology, Campbell configured a discrete set of “stages” to the mythological hero’s journey. Due in no small part to the tremendous success of George Lucas’ Star Wars films, which were inspired by Campbell’s theories, the “journey model” of script and hero structure has become a template for screenwriters and filmmakers around the world. Books such as Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey and Stuart Voytilla’s Myth and the Movies (1999) have applied Campbell’s theories to film and screenwriting, increasing the popularity of the journey model and spreading the word to a new generation of writers and filmmakers. In Part Four of this book, the journey model is explored in the light of its psychoanalytic roots. Each stage is addressed in terms of its psychological function, as well as the archetypes that the hero must encounter and integrate in order to develop toward the resolution of his story.
Other books on Campbell and film/screenwriting tend to simplify Campbell’s stages, because his theory requires a certain amount of psychological knowledge and background in order for it to be understood. Since this b
ook provides the necessary background of Freudian, Eriksonian, and Jungian theory in the first three parts, the Campbell part of the book is not simplified or rearranged. Campbell’s model of the Hero’s Journey is presented using Campbell’s original configuration from The Hero With a Thousand Faces. In Chapter 10, the stages of the journey are explored using two running examples, Braveheart (1995) and Gladiator (2000), modern film versions of the mythological hero’s journey. Though Campbell’s stages are interpreted for application to the screen, the interpretations stay true to Campbell’s original model, and Campbell’s original terminology is left intact.
THE HEROINE’S JOURNEY
A basic truth of the hero’s journey model is that it is based primarily on classical mythology and the traditional legends and stories of Western cultures. As such, the structure is descended from male-dominated societies, and the hero archetype itself represents an inherently male version of an inherently male character’s story. In Chapter 11, Maureen Murdock’s model – drawn from her book, The Heroine’s Journey (1990) – is explored, using the film Erin Brockovich (2000) as a running example.
The heroine’s journey model reconfigures Campbell’s stages for the modern age of female heroes – women who are struggling with issues of independence, autonomy, equality, and self-determination. While the hero’s journey deals mainly with victory and transformation in the realm of conquest, the heroine’s journey deals with the modern woman’s quest for balance. The heroine is seeking to balance the traditional feminine goals of child-bearing, nurturing, and love, with the modern goals of success in the traditionally male realm of personal ambition and competition. To my knowledge, this book offers the first application of the heroine’s journey model to screenwriting or filmmaking.
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