http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJYnHA2OzfA
“ As we have seen, characters as presented in film narratives are a product of certain physical, psychological, or cultural elements that we as viewers must attend to and recognize as we are encouraged to regard these characters as individuals. In addition, certain character types reflect recognizable traits and actions derived from cultural, historical and cinematic conventions. Finally, film characters usually change over the course of a realist film and thus require us to evaluate and revise our understanding of them as they develop.”– Corrigan and White. (The Film Experience: An Introduction. Character Development pp. 244-245)
According to Corrigan and White, there are four ways to measure Character Development
- External Change
- Internal Change
- Progressive Development
- Regressive Development
External Change refers to the physical transformation of a character throughout time. Examples of which would be: aging, illness, adaptation of a new image, etc.
Internal Change measures the character’s alteration of inner self. It is usually associated with the chain of events that take place before the evaluation is made. An example of an internal change is one’s loss of interest in someone that was once dear to the character’s heart after a certain amount of negativity had been released into the relationship. Progressive Character Development occurs when a character goes through a significant transformation, which results into a positive improvement or an epiphany of some sort. Regressive Character Development usually means the opposite of that. It is defined by a transformation, which leads to a negative shift within the characters qualities. (Corrigan and White. The Film Experience3 An introduction. Character Development p. 245.)
Steven Spielberg’s 2005 feature War of the Worlds provides a great example of Progressive Character Development. In the film, the leading man Jack (Tom Cruz’s character) experiences out of worldly hardship, which eventually leads to drastic changes within his perceptions of his family.
When Jack is first introduced to the viewers, he is represented as an arrogant, self-centered loner with little interest in his family. He enjoys living a life of a bachelor and being responsible for no one but himself. He fails to fill the norms of a father figure and shares little to no connection with his teenage son and his preteen daughter. After the city that he lives in, along with the rest of the world is attacked by an alien race, he begins to rapidly realize his failures and tries to improve the relationships with his children, while fighting to save their lives from human genocide. It pains him to discover that his children feel though they cannon rely on him, and have very little respect for him. Being thrown in the middle of death and distraction, and fearing for his children’s lives, he becomes aware of all the things that he was not present for while his children were growing up. The change within him leads to the strengthening of his character. He feels the need to redeem himself for the mistakes of the past; he becomes driven to be the adult that he always needed to be and to lead his children to safety.
Work Cited
Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia Barry. The Film Experience: an Introduction.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Print.
"Google Images." Google. Web. 15 June 2011. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/War-of-the-Worlds-movie-Blu-ray.jpg>.
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