Psychology for Screenwriters

by William Indick

  Whether your hero’s challenge is to conform or to rebel, the process of identification is intrinsically linked with the hero’s identity. The best way to express the process of identification is by providing your hero with a clear mentor figure, but this does not mean that you, as a screenwriter, must conform to a rigid structural formula. The mentor figure is an inspiration, not necessarily a character. The hero’s mentor can be an idea, a philosophy, a memory, or even a dream. Be creative and original in the way you set up your hero’s identification. The basic structure of hero identification and a mentor figure should be viewed as a springboard to creativity, rather than a cookie-cutter formula for character motivation and development.

  SUBLIMATION

  Freud believed that all great individual works are products of sublimation – the process of channeling libido energy into productive and artistic activities. Sublimation in films is often portrayed through passionate labor, driven by sexually charged motivations behind the character. In Like Water for Chocolate (1992), Tita (Lumi Cavazos) sweats and moans as she rolls her tortillas, sublimating all of her sexual desire for Pedro (Marco Leonardi) into her spicy, sensuous cooking. In Lust for Life (1956), Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) sublimates his sexual frustration, violent rage, and tempestuous nature into his painting. And in Raging Bull (1980), Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) channels his primal carnality and fury into his fighting.

  Sublimation is an unconscious process that audiences easily recognize. The primal impulses of love, hate, sex, and aggression are powerful forces that can charge characters with Herculean strength and energy, making them capable of accomplishing anything. The power of love is a device often called upon in the 3rd act of a film, as a nearly supernatural force that helps the hero defeat his formidable foe and rescue the maiden. Superman (Christopher Reeve) has superpowers, but nobody would believe that he could fly around the world so fast that he could reverse the orbit of the earth and turn back time, unless he was doing it to bring his beloved Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) back to life. This would seem too colossal of a task, even for Superman, unless his desperate flying was driven by his passionate love for Lois. The power of sublimation could make unbelievable feats seem believable to the audience, though the credibility of the hero’s actions must be firmly grounded in his motivations. The audience has to believe that Superman really loves Lois, before they would believe that he could actually turn back time in order to bring her back to life.

  REGRESSION

  Childhood was a time when there were less obligations, less responsibilities, and fewer restrictions on our behavior. Regression to a childish state provides a temporary release from anxiety and the pressures of adulthood. Audiences can relate to regressive behaviors, and can enjoy them vicariously by watching movie characters regress on screen. Often times, adult characters use a substance to incite their regression. In a much copied scene from The Big Chill (1983), a group of thirty-something college buddies smoke pot and regress to behaviors more appropriate to teenagers. By regressing to adolescence, they are free to act silly, release their inhibitions, and even indulge some of their long-repressed sexual desires. In the 1980s, it was very common for movies to have a sequence in which all of the characters get high or drunk, followed by a musical montage of short scenes with the characters dancing, carousing, laughing, and otherwise acting like children. Thankfully, this device is no longer in vogue.

  Regression is most often used for comic relief or a bit of musical fun. On several occasions, [i.e., The Breakfast Club (1985) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)], John Hughes used regression scenes to create a dramatic shift in the plot. Directly after the musical sequence of childish behaviors, the characters would be sitting quietly, coming down off their high, but still intoxicated. The childish fun was a moment of bonding, and now, with their lips loosened by liquor or pot, the characters can share a moment of intimacy by disclosing their deepest secrets. A melodramatic scene of intense emotional expression packs even more of a punch when it is juxtaposed with an extremely happy sequence of childish behavior directly preceding it. Occasionally, regression will be the theme of an entire movie, rather than one sequence of comic relief. In Cocoon (1985), a group of senior citizens is made magically young again by swimming in a pool infested with mysterious alien pods. They proceed to enjoy their newfound vigor by engaging in some youthful behavior, including some much appreciated sexual release.

  By far, the most common theme in the regressive hero movie is an obsession with a young lover. Woody Allen made three movies that deal directly with this issue, [Manhattan (1979), Alice (1990), Husbands and Wives (1992)] and he made other films that address the issue as subtext. In Blame it on Rio (1984), the conflict within the regressive hero theme is intensified when a middle-aged man (Michael Caine) becomes infatuated with his best friend’s teenage daughter. The older man/young girl formula is reversed in How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), in which Stella (Angela Bassett) indulges in a passionate relationship with a man half her age. Whether regression is used in one sequence or the entire film, the device should move the plot forward and provide more than just comic relief or libidinal release. Ideally, regression should lead to character development. By taking a step backwards, the characters should learn more about themselves or their situation, preparing them for a great leap forward – and bringing them that much closer to their goals.

  REACTION FORMATION

  Defense mechanisms protect the ego by shielding the mind from its own desires. The reaction formation is even more crafty than the other defenses, because it reacts against the impulse, rather than avoiding it. The character exhibiting reaction formation exposes his own deepest desire by reacting strongly against it. The complexity of the reaction formation makes it one of the less used defenses in film characters, but it is, nonetheless, a powerful force and an intriguing behavior pattern. The defense can be seen in courting behaviors, especially in female characters in old movies. Mary Kate (Maureen O’Hara) in The Quiet Man (1952) reacts with anger and distaste when Sean (John Wayne) brashly kisses her on the lips. Her extreme reaction against Sean is the “good Catholic girl” part of her personality, expressing the opposite of what Mary Kate’s libido truly desires. Mary Kate’s lips tell Sean “no!” – but her eyes say “yes! yes!”

  Extremely repressed or uptight characters often display reaction formation in their prudish behaviors and attitudes. In the ultimate reaction formation, the character is so conflicted by his inappropriate desire that he tries to destroy the thing that he loves the most. Frollo (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) is so conflicted over his inappropriate lust for the sexy gypsy girl, Esmerelda (Maureen O’Hara), that he is motivated to destroy her. And Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) in American Beauty is so conflicted over his repressed homo-erotic feelings that he is motivated to destroy the object of his desire – Lester (Kevin Spacey). It is difficult to effectively portray the contradiction of characters saying and doing one thing, when inside they desire the opposite. But if you could pull this off, you can create characters with exceptional complexity and depth.

  DISPLACEMENT

  William Foster (Michael Douglas) in Falling Down (1993) is filled with rage. Divorced from his wife, estranged from his daughter, fired from his job and stranded in an urban-sprawl wasteland, Foster cracks and goes on a violent rampage, displacing his fury on everyone he meets. Displacement is the redirection of a sexual or aggressive drive onto a substitute outlet. Rather than venting troublesome libido energy onto the source of neurotic conflict, the negative energy is displaced onto someone else. Displacement is a practical defense for the ego, because the source of the conflict (a spouse, a boss, etc.), may not appreciate being yelled at or abused. The substitute outlet on whom the negative energy is displaced upon is typically a safe target – someone who cannot strike back or cause further conflict.

  Like most of the other defenses, displacement is typically used as a character trait, a passing behavior that is part of the
hero’s personality, but not a central part of the plot. Still, displacement is often used to advance the plot by creating rifts between characters. In My Darling Clementine (1946), Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) is a brooding, tragic figure. Once a respectable doctor, he has fallen into a state of disgrace – an alcoholic degenerate gambler and killer, dying of consumption and ashamed of his life. Chihuahua (Linda Darnell), the showgirl with a heart of gold, loves Holliday and is constantly by his side, despite the fact that she is a perpetual outlet for Holliday’s abuse. Holliday displaces all of his anger and self-loathing onto Chihuahua, calling her names, ridiculing her and treating her like dirt. Finally, Holliday goes too far and Chihuahua drops him. The rift created by Holliday’s displacement creates romantic tension in the plot, and allows for some much needed character development. Like any other dramatic device, displacement should be used not just as an embellishment of a character’s behavior, but also as a means of inciting character development and advancing the plot.

  RATIONALIZATION

  Many of the characters in Woody Allen’s movies epitomize the mechanism of rationalization – in which emotions are dealt with by intellectualizing the issues. When emotions are rationalized and translated into intellectual terms, they lose their emotional impact, as passionate feelings become cold, rational ideas. Rationalization is the optimal form of defense for many of Allen’s characters, who tend to be cerebral intellectuals who are much better at mastering complex ideas than intense emotions. In Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), and many of his other films, Allen’s characters discuss the riddles of love with constant references to Freudian theory, existential philosophy, and other ultra-intellectual fields, as if they were trying to solve a problem in theoretical physics rather than dealing with issues of the heart. Rationalization is an amusing character trait in Allen’s movies, because the audience intuitively knows that for all of the characters’ intellectual brilliance and high-brow ramblings, they are no closer to resolving their emotional problems than they would be if they had never heard of Freud, Heidegger, Neitzsche, or Sartre. As with all of the other defenses, the psychological power behind the device is that the audience is aware of this weakness in the character’s personality, even though the character is not. The audience is at once frustrated with, and sympathetic to, the character’s plight.

  PROJECTION

  Projection occurs when a troublesome unconscious impulse is attributed to somebody else. Since projection is a defense, the unconscious impulses projected onto others are usually negative. The mechanism defends the individual’s ego by giving him the sense that the negative desires or drives do not belong to himself, but rather, to the morally inferior people around him. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) becomes obsessed with the paranoid notion that his gold-mining partners are planning to cheat him out of his share of the gold. Of course, Dobbs is actually the one with “gold fever” – the evil impulse to keep all the gold to himself. By projecting his gold fever onto his partners, Dobbs can retain a somewhat clear conscience, believing that he is merely defending himself against his corrupt partner, even as he kills him and takes his gold.

  Projection can also make for some complicated family dynamics. It is natural for parents to project the hopes and dreams that they once had for themselves onto their children. Tension arises when the children reach an age at which they want to define their own identities, rather than living out the projected fantasies of their parents. In Of Human Hearts (1938), Reverend Wilkins (Walter Huston) projects his own religious devotion onto his son, Jason (James Stewart), whom he expects to become a minister. When Jason decides to become a man of science rather than a man of God, his father is sourly disappointed, causing a great deal of tension in their relationship that eventually escalates into an irreparable rift.

  Similar dynamics play out in Gypsy (1962). Rose (Rosalind Russell) is a failed actress who has projected all of her stage ambitions onto her talented younger daughter, June. When June marries and escapes her mother’s controlling web, Rose transfers her projected dreams onto her elder daughter, Louise (Natalie Wood). Despite the fact that Louise has no talent, Rose forces her on stage and insists that she become a success. Rose’s projection is so strong that she forces her daughter into a degrading life of stripping. But Rose is still never completely satisfied, because projection never fulfills Rose’s original desire to become a star herself. The tension that builds between Louise and her jealous stage-mother eventually destroys their relationship.

  Unlike most of the other defenses, projection is often used as the central issue in films focusing on parent/child relationships. Audiences sympathize with both figures in these movies. It is understandable for children to want to choose their own paths. But audiences can also identify with parents who only want the best for their children, even though these parents fail to realize that their dreams for their children’s futures are often their own unrealized dreams, projected outwardly onto their offspring.

  ISOLATION

  Characters in isolation are fleeing from their own repressed issues, and typically hiding from memories of a tragic past. The goal for these characters is to come out of isolation and reintegrate themselves into society. In order for this to happen, the characters must deal with their conflicts in some clear way, rather than avoiding or running away from the negative feelings. In Finding Forrester (2000), Forrester (Sean Connery) is a reclusive Pulitzer Prize winning writer who isolates himself in his apartment in a self-enforced exile from his tragic past. In order for him to emerge from isolation, he must overcome his fear of feelings and become emotionally involved with another person. By becoming a mentor to a young writer, Forrester conquers his own defenses. With the aid of his young hero, Forrester is able to face his past and liberate himself from isolation.

  The Lone Hero: John Wayne in The Searchers (1956).

  Many of the great Western heroes were isolated men – loners who appear like apparitions from out of the wilderness, complete a heroic act, and then disappear again into a life of wandering isolation. Shane begins with the lone cowboy riding into civilization from the open range, and ends with him returning to the wild. In the famous final scene, little Joey calls out: “Come back Shane!”— but of course, the lone hero must return to his natural habitat, the isolated wilderness. A similar theme is seen in The Searchers (1956). In the opening sequence, Ethan (John Wayne) appears as a lone rider rising out of the landscape. And in the unforgettable final shot of the film, Ethan’s departing figure is framed between the doorframes of a prairie house as he returns to his solitary life on the trail. The isolated character is almost always a tragic figure, a guilt-racked man perpetually on the run from memories of a distressing past. Shane and Ethan are both outlaws trying to escape the violence behind them, yet inevitably drawn by the irony of their own existences into more violence. The isolated hero can escape his tragic fate by facing his past and rejoining society; or he can remain a lone wolf, retaining the romantic air of an isolated cowboy riding off into the sunset.

  FREUDIAN SLIPS

  Slips of the tongue are often referred to as “Freudian slips,” because Freud was the first theorist to attach great psychological significance to this phenomenon. A slip is when a repressed or hidden feeling slips out unconsciously during speech. As my Intro to Psych, professor in college said: “A Freudian slip is when you mean to say one thing hut instead say a mother.” Slips are part of common usage, and nearly every sophisticated viewer knows what a slip is and why it is psychologically significant. One overused device is having a deceitful character give away his diabolical plot through a slip of the tongue. At the end of The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Shields (Kirk Douglas) makes a costly slip in casual conversation with James Lee (Dick Powell), revealing that he was indirectly responsible for the death of James Lee’s wife. Though slips are useful devices, they’re a bit too predictable and convenient in these situations. They are better used when a character is r
epressing an intense feeling that is begging to be let out. The slip seems more realistic in these instances, as it expresses emotion rather than information, and because it provides cathartic release for both the character and the audience.

  JOKES

  Humor is an integral part of any film, no matter how serious the subject matter. Ironically, the best place for a joke is often just before or after a moment of extreme dramatic tension – when the need for comic relief is the greatest. In action movies, the hero often delivers a comic one-liner just before he kills the villain. When Arnold Schwarzenegger says “Asta La Vista, Baby,” right before he blows someone away, the dark tragedy of death and dismemberment is lightened by a little humor, reminding the audience that the ghastly violence is all in good fun.

  Freud believed that jokes serve the function of an ego defense, because laughter is a direct form of emotional release. The need for emotional release is at its greatest when there is tension and anxiety in the air, hence the ubiquitous phenomenon of nervous laughter. Comic relief relieves the anxiety at the most anxious moments in the film, allowing the audience to enjoy itself rather than getting too nervous or upset. Remember, though drama and tension are necessary parts of the film, the audience is there to be entertained, not to be put through an emotional ordeal.

  Jokes also serve as defenses because subject material that is deemed taboo in normal conversation is perfectly acceptable in the form of a joke. The majority of jokes told in the world are either dirty or darkly satirical. Late night talk show hosts typically start their monologue with jokes about the president’s stupidity, while jokes told over the water-cooler are either overtly sexual, derisive of the clergy (“a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar…”), or blatantly offensive (Polish jokes, blonde jokes, etc). All of these topics of conversation would not be socially appropriate unless they were cloaked in the form of a joke. The same liberties that people take in joke-telling are taken by moviemakers in their comedies. The gross-out humor popular in contemporary comedies are examples of how far you can stretch the bounds of good taste in the name of a big laugh. Drinking urine (American Pie), mishandling sperm (There’s Something About Mary), and public defecation (Me, Myself and Irene) are scenes that would not make the cut in most movies, yet in comedies, they are all par for the course. Other taboos frequently broken in comedies are the perpetuation of racial stereotypes (Undercover Brother), making fun of the handicapped and mentally impaired (There’s Something About Mary), objectifying women (Porky’s), and cruelty to animals (There’s Something About Mary, once again).