Character.pptVIP

Character The relationship between plot and character is a vital and necessary one. Without character, there would be no plot and, hence, no story. For most readers of film the primary attraction lies in the characters, in the endlessly fascinating collection of men and women whose experiences and adventures form the basis of the plots of the stories and the novels in which they appear. Part of the fascination with the characters of film is that we often come to know them so well. In real life we come to know people for the most part only on the basis of externals—on the basis of what they say and what they do; the complexity of their inner lives can be inferred only after years of close acquaintance, if at all. Film, on the other hand, often provides us with immediate access, however brief and fleeting, to that inner life—to the intellectual, emotional, moral complexities of human personality. And even when the director withholds that access, he or she usually provides sufficient information to allow us to make judgments about the internal makeup of the men and women to whom we are introduced. In either case, however, the ability to make such judgments—the ability to interpret correctly the evidence the author provides—is always crucial to our understanding. When we examine character in literary analyses, we are concerned essentially with three separate, but closely connected, activities. We are concerned, first of all, with being able to establish the personalities of the characters themselves and to identify their intellectual, emotional, and moral qualities. Second, we are concerned with the techniques a director uses to create and develop characters. Third, we are concerned with whether the characters are credible and convincing. In evaluating the success of characterization, the third issue is a particularly crucial one, for although plot can carry a work to a point; it is a rare work whose final value is not intimately connected with the convincing portra