Characters tragic

This myth is a tragic one, but it doesn t at all follow that the script should be unrelentingly grim. On the contrary, if viewers are to identify with a doomed character such as Icarus, it s essential that they empathize with the passion that drives him to destruction, that they be able to feel compassion for his belief in the possibility of achieving his heart s desire. In our project,... 

We turn now to the two extreme forms of complex characters the comic character and the tragic character. 

The comic character and the tragic character are essentially mirror versions of one another. The comic character is, however, more flexible, in that the writer can employ irony through the character. The comic character will also allow you a range of feeling much broader than the tragic character will allow. For example, you can present the comic character as a clown who reflects on his or her behavior, or as a fool who can reflect on the behavior of those around him or her as well. Although you may present both the fool and the clown as victims, they are far less victims than is the tragic character. There are even narrative circumstances under which the writer can present the fool as a hero, at least in relative terms. 

The tragic character tends to be presented as a victim of the narrative. In fables, morality tales, and satire, as well as other types of stories, it is useful to have a tragic main character. 

Finally, the tragic character needn t be sacrificed in vain. To redeem" that sacrifice, you need a witness, a secondary character in the narrative, someone who will proceed with life differently after having observed the main character s struggle—a person, in other words, who absorbs the lesson of the narrative. When the main character is a victim, we subtly shift our allegiance to the witness, thus surviving for another day. 

Theme is the most basic lifeblood of a film," says filmmaker Ric Burns (see also Chapter 17). "Theme tells you the tenor of your story. This is what this thing is about." As mentioned. Burns chose to tell the story of the ill-fated Donner Party and their attempt to take a shortcut to California in 1846 not because the cannibalism they resorted to would appeal to prurient viewers but because their story illuminated themes and vulnerabilities in the American character. These themes are foreshadowed in the film s opening quote from Alexis de Tocqueville, a French author who toured the United States in 1831. He wrote of the "feverish ardor" with which Americans pursue prosperity, the "shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it," and the way in which they "cleave to the things of this world," even though death steps in, in the end. These words presage the fate of the Donner Party, whose ambitious pursuit of a new life in California will have tragic consequences. 

On a short-lived honeymoon, parked on a hilltop, Bond purrs but darling, we have all the time in the world, but immediately afterward, his new bride is tragically killed. As he desperately kisses her corpse in order to hide his face from pursuers, the theme enters delicately, with deep emotion—as Bond sheds a private tear. This is a poignant musical underscoring of the romantic depth of Bond s character. 

The essential dramatic conflict is the same for most Bond filrrrs (lethal danger, evil antagonist, tragic female. Bond as savior). Bond has personal reasons for revenge, and his character expands and from these, and other emotional conflicts, including the sinister undertones in himself. It is essential for the music to provide these depths, lest Bond appear heartlessly one-dimensional. 

Lear s death is neither poetic nor tragic in the conventional senses of those terms. From Bond s view, Lear s death is a rational consequence in which the character accepts responsibility for his life and action. 

Figure 1 Mandy Finney in the role of Woman in At the Inland Sea, which was the first commissioned play from Bond by Big Bmm in 1995, directed by Geoff Gillham. The photograph powerfully conveys the tragic vulnerability embodied by this character, who with her baby is an internee of a Nazi concentration camp. Like Joe in The Children, a character known only as Boy is experiencing conflict at home with his mother and anxious about his imminent school examinations. It is out of these tensions that the Woman appears in the Boy s bedroom with her baby, distraught and frightened but determined to survive. Her life-and-death command to the Boy is a challenging moral imperative Tell me a story. Then my baby will live AIS, p. 11)...

---