Character
How films build people: introduction, goal, flaw, change — and the machinery of sympathy.
- story conventions
- reference
- story-convention
The conventions by which a bundle of scenes becomes a person: the character introduction, the stated goal, the legible flaw, the arc of change, and the techniques of allegiance that decide who the audience rides with — which is really a question of Point of view.
What to look for
What does the character's first shot claim about them? What do they want out loud versus need in silence (Conflict)? Who changes, and does the film reward or punish the change?
Canonical cases
Marion Crane, built by the book so her death breaks the book — Killing the protagonist at minute 47. Norman, assembled sympathetically in Psycho — the parlour scene before the reveal re-reads every trait. Alice, introduced twice — as a dream-child in Alice — the prologue and as a 35-year-old woman one cut later — so that the character is the distance between her two introductions.
Sources
Bordwell & Thompson — Film Art; Mulvey on how allegiance is gendered.