“Character Arc”
A few weeks back, we took note here of a kerfuffle involving Mystery Man On Film’s dissection of the idea of “character arc”. For the record, I contend — and I think it’s a rather non-controversial view — that transformation is at the core of most movies, primarily the Protagonist, but other characters as well: Typically a Protagonist begins the story in one state of psychological / emotional / spiritual being and goes through a series of events that changes them by the end of the story into a different state of being. Yes, sometimes the Protagonist doesn’t change, instead acting as an agent of change (e.g., Forrest Gump, Being There). Sometimes the Protagonist goes through a ‘negative’ transformation (e.g., Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver). But in a majority of movies, the Protagonist goes from what I call a state of Disunity through Deconstruction and Reconstruction, and ends up in a state of Unity.
The viewer’s experience of a character’s transformation is unique in a movie because the change happens in such a compressed period of time, generally 2 hours or less. In a TV series, characters can change more slowly over a period of episodes, even years. In fact, the very concept of transformation appears to have been a key part of the sales pitch for a drama pilot that FX ordered this week:
LIGHTS OUT, from Justin Zackham and FTVS, centering around a retired boxer who suffers from pugilistic dementia, the gradual loss of memories suffered after blunt force trauma to the head. The series would be like a “King Lear” set in the boxing world, with the planned 5-season arc delving into the heavyweight’s denial, acceptance, and eventual acquiescence to mental deterioration [emphasis added].
Here deterioration = transformation albeit a ‘negative’ one. More background on the project per the Hollywood Reporter:
“Lights,” a drama from Fox TV Studios and FX Prods., centers on an aging former heavyweight boxing champion who struggles to find his identity and support his wife and three daughters after his fighting days, leading him to accept reluctantly a job as an enforcer collecting debts. He is diagnosed with pugilistic dementia, a neurological disorder that affects boxers who receive multiple blows to the head, which gradually will lead to him losing all of his memories.
“He is a man going through late adolescence, someone who attempts to leave his family and friends in a better place and to better himself,” Zackham said.
Added FtvS executive vp programming David Madden, “He is a guy who is used to thinking only with his fists and has to learn to think and deal with his emotions.”
The idea for “Lights” was pitched to Zackham by FtvS-based manager-producer Ross Fineman, who brought his client Noyce on board. The three are exec producing the project, which was developed at FtvS for a couple of years before the studio sent Zackham’s finished script to FX in December.
“The character jumped off the page,” FX executive vp original programming Nick Grad said.
While it has a grand, male figure at the center like FX’s recently departed “The Shield,” Grad noted that “Lights” is more of a family show in the vein of “The Sopranos,” with the former boxer’s wife, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, playing a major role.
As for the attention received by another project about the redemption of a fallen sports star, the Mickey Rourke-starring feature “The Wrestler,” Zackham said, “I think it couldn’t hurt.”
While it seems pretty obvious why viewers are attracted to ‘positive’ transformation movies — psychologically it reinforces our belief that we can change — I suppose the appeal for ‘negative’ transformation stories is the shadow aspect, that we all have experienced times in our lives when we have changed for the worse; seeing those stories in movies or on TV provides a ‘safe’ context in which to live with our feelings (i.e., anxieties, fears, curiosity) about this ‘darker’ aspect of our human experience.
Zackham, who wrote The Bucket List (2007), has several feature projects in development including “Planetwalker” (The story of environmentalist John Francis, who walked from one end of the United States to the other and took a 17-year vow of silence in protest over a massive 1971 oil spill in the San Francisco bay), “One Chance” (A comedy centered on an aspiring singer who becomes a reality-show sensation), and “Monkey Fist” (A coming-of-age tale about a teenager working on a cruise ship). I met Justin several years ago and if my brain hasn’t completely atrophied, I seem to recall that this story is semi-autobiographical. He’s set to direct this movie — which provides a nice character arc for him!
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