Characters Theory

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Film Characters: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation

[English outline of the German monograph:

Jens Eder: Die Figur im Film. Grundlagen der Figurenanalyse. Marburg: Schren2008]

I. General information

II. Table of contents

III. Introductory chapter

I. General informationContent:Film characters are of crucial importance to the production, the experience,and the effects of films. Their cultural significance can hardly be overestimated.Despite this, a comprehensive theoretical perspective on characters is still notablyabsent. It is, therefore, the aim of this book to integrate findings from variousapproaches into a general model for understanding, analysing and interpretingcharacters. According to this model, characters have four interconnected aspects.Firstly, they are fictitious beings with physical, mental, and social properties andrelations. Secondly, they are artefacts with aesthetic structures, created by devices ofcertain media like film. Thirdly, they are symbols conveying higher, more abstractlayers of meanings and themes. And finally, they are symptoms indicating socio-cultural circumstances of their production and reception. Drawing on research fromfilm and literary studies, narratology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology, the bookoffers conceptual tools for analysing each of these four aspects in detail and forunderstanding our perceptual, cognitive and affective reactions to characters. Theanalytical concepts are highlighted by many examples from the mainstream as wellas other forms of film production, including elaborate examinations of Rick Blaine(CASABLANCA) and Paulina Escobar (DEATH AND THE MAIDEN).

The book is the most comprehensive study on characters ever published. It is theproduct of nine years work. Starting out from my experiences as a script editor andacademic lecturer in 1999, I first wrote a doctoral thesis on this topic, which was

accepted by the University of Hamburg in 2001 (advisors: Knut Hickethier, JoanKristin Bleicher). The following years, as an associate professor, I completely rewroteand expanded the book which came out in 2008.


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Film Characters, Jens Eder 2008

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II. Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction (10,000 words)

1.1 The relationship between character and action

1.2 Why character-analysis?

1.3 Searching for a theoretical foundation

1.4 The structure of the book

PART I: THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS

2. The investigation of characters (8,000 words)

2.1 From Aristotle to the nineteenth century

2.2 Differentiation in the twentieth century

2.2.1 Singular approaches - 2.2.2 Structuralist-semiotic theories - 2.2.3 Psychoanalyticaltheories - 2.2.4 Cognitive theories

2.3 The present state of research: Coexistence and opportunities for integration

3. Point of departure: What are characters, how do they originate, and how are theyexperienced? (24,000 words)

3.1 Definition and ontology: What are characters?

3.2 Communication and meaning: How do characters originate?

3.3 Reception: How are characters understood and experienced?

3.3.1 Cognitive theories of reception - 3.3.2 Levels of the reception of characters

3.4. Consequences for the analysis of characters

3.4.1 General principles of character analysis - 3.4.2 Facets of the subject domaincharacter

PART II: HOW TO ANALYSE CHARACTERS?

4. A basic model: the clock of character (10,000 Words)

4.1 Characters as fictitious beings, symbols, symptoms, and artefactsand their reception

4.2 General types of characters

4.3 Expanding the model: contexts and emotions

4.4 Differentiating the model: specific categories and the mediality of characters

4.5 The structural domains in connection and Fassbinders THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN


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PART III: CHARACTERS AS FICTITIOUS BEINGS

5. Understanding fictitious beings: mental models of characters and theirdevelopment (25,000 words)

5.1 Character models and their structure

5.1.1 The properties of fictitious beings - 5.1.2 The example of CASABLANCA - 5.1.3Processes of character synthesis

5.2. Factors of character reception (I): social perception

5.2.1 The reception of characters as social cognition: how do we understand other persons?- 5.2.2 Person schemata and images of human nature - 5.2.3 Social categorisation andtypification - 5.2.4 Folk-psychology and the inner life - 5.2.5 Personality - 5.2.6 Behaviour andaction - 5.2.7 Uses and problems of social-psychological concepts in character analysis

5.3 Factors of character reception (II): the mediality of characters

5.4 Two ways of constructing character models: typification and individualisation

6. The analysis of fictitious beings: an anthropological heuristics (30,000 words)

6.1 Review: understanding fictitious beings

6.2. Bodily features and behavioral aspects

6.2.1 General appearance - 6.2.2 Facial expression and gaze - 6.2.3 Bodily movements andspatial behaviour - 6.2.4 Speech and paralinguistic behaviour - 6.2.5 Situative contexts of theenvironment - 6.2.6 An example: Rick Blaines body and external behaviour

6.3. Sociality

6.4. Mind: inner life and personality

6.4.1 Folk-psychological notions of the mind - 6.4.2 Specific ideas of the mental in differentcultures and periods of history - 6.4.3 Contemporary models of mind and personality - 6.4.4The analysis of characters minds: a heuristics

6.5 Review: Interdependencies and relevance of the properties of characters

6.6 Change, transformation, and deconstruction of fictitious beings

6.7. Questions guiding the analysis of characters as fictitious beings

PART IV: CHARACTERS AS ARTEFACTS

7. The representation of characters in film: sensuality and dramaturgy (16,000 words)

7.1. Means of representation and the aesthetics of characters

7.1.1 Character-related information and levels of representation in film - 7.1.2 Devices ofcharacterisation and their analysis - 7.1.3 The interrelation of characterisation devices: twoexemplary scenes - 7.1.4 The aesthetics of the character: image, sound, movement, rhythm

7.2. The dramaturgy of the character: structures of information transmission

7.2.1 Function and relevance of character-information - 7.2.2 Modes of character-information- 7.2.3 Distribution of character-information in the course of a film - 7.2.4 Phases ofcharacterisation

7.3. Questions guiding the analysis of characterisation


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8. Artefact-properties and general conceptions of characters (18,500 words)

8.1. Structures of characters as artefacts

8.1.1 Typification and individualisation - 8.1.2 Realism and deviations from it - 8.1.3Complexity, consistency, and further artefact-properties

8.2 Conceptions of character as guiding ideas for the representation of human beings8.2.1 Mainstream realism - 8.2.2 Independent realism - 8.2.3 Postmodernism - 8.2.4Stylisation and making strange

8.3. Sensuality, dramaturgy, and structures of charactersthe example of CASABLANCA

8.4 Questions guiding the analysis of artefact-properties and conceptions of characters

PART V: CHARACTERS IN CONTEXT: ACTION AND CONSTELLATION

9. Motivation and action (13.000 words)

9.1 Kinds of motivation

9.2 Motivational conflicts: external goals, inner needs and key flaws

9.3 The architecture of motives and the identity of characters

9.4 Questions guiding the analysis of motivation

10. The constellation of characters (20,000 words)

10.1 Hierarchies of attention: major and minor characters

10.2 The constellation of characters as a system of similarities and contrasts

10.3 Dramaturgical functions of characters

10.4 Kinds of conflicts: protagonists and antagonists

10.5 The constellation of characters as social system and value structure

10.6 Summary and example

10.7 Questions guiding the analysis of constellations of characters

10.7.1 Questions guiding the analysis of stereotypes

PART VI: CHARACTERS AS SYMBOLS AND SYMPTOMS

11. Symbolisms and symptomatics of characters: indirect meanings, relations toreality, and interpretation (13,500 words)

11.1 Characters as symbols: indirect meanings

11.2 Characters as symptoms: causes and effects

11.3 Symbolisms, symptomatics, and CASABLANCA

11.4 Questions guiding the analysis of characters as symbols and symptoms


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PART VII: CHARACTERS AND VIEWERS. IMAGINATIVE CLOSENESS AND EMOTIONALENGAGEMENT

12. The perspective of engagement: Imaginative closeness and distance (30,000words)

12.1 Theories of engagement with characters

12.2 Perspective, identification, empathy: conceptual foundations

12.1.1 The perspective of minds and of representations - 12.1.2 Perspective structures andrelations between perspectives

12.3 Perspective onand withcharacters

12.4 Identification and empathy

12.5 Strategies of focalisation in film

12.5.1 Visual perspective - 12.5.2 Forms of visual subjectivity in f ilm

12.6 The polyphony of perspectives: narrators and filmmakers

12.7 Typical perspective structures

12.8 Imaginative closeness and distance to characters: a model

12.8.1 Understanding and perspectival relationships - 12.8.2 Spatio-temporal closeness -12.8.3. Parasocial interaction and perceived social relations - 12.8.4. Summary and example

12.9 Questions guiding the analysis of perspective and imaginative closeness

13. Emotional engagement (20,500 words)

13.1 What is emotional engagement with characters?

13.2 Conditions and releasers of engagement with fictitious beings13.3 Perspectival appraisal and the forms of engagement

13.3.1 Appraisal of characters by intersubjective values - 13.3.2 Appraisal of characters bysubjective interests - 13.3.3 Forms of empathy and identification - 13.3.4 Situation-relatedfeelings: sympathy, antipathy, and emotional partiality

13.4 Review: The forms and contexts of emotional engagement

13.5 Typical developmental patterns of emotional engagement

13.6 The example of CASABLANCA

13.7 Questions guiding the analysis of emotional engagement

14. Summary: The analysis of film characters (22,500 words)

14.1. Review: The tools of character analysis

14.1.1 Fictitious beings 14.1.2 Artefacts 14.1.3 Motivation and constellation 14.1.4Symbols and Symptoms14.1.5 Imaginative and emotional engagement

14.2. A last example: DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

14.3 General questions guiding character analysis

FILMOGRAPHY / BIBLIOGRAPHYINDEX


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III. Introductory chapter

In a world whose population keeps growing at a constant rate, in which we are livingever more tightly packed and in which our contacts keep multiplying due to technicalmeans of communication and ever-increasing mobility in this shrinking, globalisedworld there is an explosion in the numbers of invented beings that we busy ourselveswith. Parallel to real population growth, there is a growth of the fictitious population inour media, in our thoughts, dreams and ideas. Fictitious characters, products of thehuman power of imagination, are everywhere, and as long as they are not forgottenthey will never die.

Some expressions we use to talk about them relate primarily to the human capacityto create and to mould a perceptible form that is standing out against a background.The English word figure and the German word Figur derive from Latin figura,form; shape. These expressions can refer to a great diversity of other things,among them the bodily shape of a human being; the plastic reproduction of thatshape (figurine); the piece in a game (chess figure); a sequence of movements, e.g.

in dance or sport; a geometrical form; a rhetorical trope or stylistic turn.1

Referencesto human creativity and to the figure-ground-phenomenon are, in fact, the onlyessential features which all these meanings share with each other and with thesubject of this book. The considerations that follow will concentrate on figures asinvented beingson characters, recognisable figures supposed to have an inner life.Character and the German Charakter go back to Ancient Greek which refers to something carved, to a seal, a stamp, a material sign, or the signs ofa human beings individual personality (cf. Gemoll 1954: 800). So, the terms figureas well as character connect the human ability to shape forms with therepresentation of inner life or personality traits, and that is even more the case withexpressions like personnage in French or personaggio in Italian. Thisconnection between the representation of minds and the creation of perceptibleforms will be one central focus of this book: It will examine fictitiouscharacters asproducts of fictional communication.

The cultural significance of characters can hardly be overestimated. They serveindividual and collective self-understanding, the mediation of images of humanity, ofconcepts of identity and social role; they serve imaginary exploratory action, theactualisation of alternative modes of being, the development of empathic capabilities,entertainment purposes and emotional stimulation. Humans are probably the onlyanimals capable of inventing artificial worlds, from the childrens role-playing to theproduction of complex media texts like plays, novels and feature films.2As humans

do not only possess imaginative faculties but also exist as social beings, they tend todirect their attention primarily towards those represented entities to which they areable to ascribe processes of consciousness and the ability to act: characters. The

1The expression character, from MHG. fig(i)re, goes back via OF. character to Lat. figurashape,derivedmeaningfully like fictionfrom fingereshape (cf. Platz-Waury 1997: 587). For itsmultiplicity of meaning cf. Wikipedia, http: / / de.wikipedia.org / wiki / Character (Download 27.8.2006);also Brandstetter / Peters 2002.2By texts I mean complex but formally bounded, coherent and (in their totality) communicative,culturally coded semiotic utterances of any kind (cf. Mosbach 1999: 73, for film as text cf. montage

/ av 8 / 1 / 1999 and Hickethier 32001: 2325). Compared with the alternative concept of media offer,the expanded text concept has the advantage to comprise additionally those semiotic utteranceswhich are not mediated by technical mass media. The connections between different kinds of semioticutterances (film, literature, ordinary language) are thus made more transparent.


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stories of fictional narratives have always been stories of somebody, their actionspresuppose agents.3

Thus characters of the most diverse kinds are at the centre of feature films RickBlaine or Antoine Doinel, Sissi or Tank Girl, Lassie, the Alien or HAL. They formcentres of identification or points for the crystallisation of feelings, function asparagons or deterrent examples, mediate new perspectives or confirm old prejudices.The characters of big blockbusters remain omnipresent for a long time and mayevolve into mythical figures; the provoking or enigmatic characters of independentcinema may leave an indelible stamp. Characters are a central factor for theunderstanding and experiencing, for the aesthetics and the rhetoric of films. Theydecisively contribute to their emotionality, thematics, and ideology.

For this reason, characters are important points of reference in the criticism and theanalysis of films and also occupy a central position in the production process: filmscripts are rejected because one cannot identify oneself with the characters, or theyare accepted because they offer good parts for stars. Script consultants try hard to

teach the creation of unforgettable characters (e.g. Seger 1990). Actors are castand staged with enormous expenditure. A considerable number of characters aredetached from their singular film narratives and spread intermedially. They aretransferred to sequels or remakes and moved from one medium to another: fromcomic to film (DICK TRACY), from film to the theatre (DAS URTEIL) or to computergames (Alien vs. Predator), from literature to film (more than half of all the Oscarsever won) and vice versa (the Indiana-Jones-novels). Film characters confront theviewer in dreams and trailers, as cardboard figures for advertisements, as plasticfigurines in merchandising, and as camouflaged contemporaries at cult-filmshowings. Characters are, therefore, of decisive importance for the experience andthe remembrance of films; for effects on the thoughts, the feelings, and the

behaviours of viewers; for film analysis and film criticism; for the practice ofproduction and marketing. The fact that they can travel intermedially has helpedpopular characters like James Bond to achieve a cultural presence reaching farbeyond the actual films themselves and has, furthermore, enabled these charactersto develop a media-independent life of their own in the collective memory (cf. Hgel1999).

Despite all the productive hermeneutical contributions, theory as well as analysishave so far done less than justice to the real importance of the character. In theanalysis, characters are often examined in a purely intuitive and unmethodical way orreduced to their function in the films plot. In addition, the theoretical treatment of

characters fractions their object like a prism into disconnected partial domains: thediscussion is concerned with roles of action, the presentation of particular socialgroups (e.g. with regard to stereotyping and discrimination), the performance ofactors and stars, or with phenomena of identification and empathy. What is lacking,however, is a comprehensive perspective, an heuristics and an argumentativeinfrastructure, in brief: a general theoretical foundation. That it is impossible to worksuccessfully without such a foundation is made abundantly clear by the explicitspecification of the purpose and the relationship between the analysis of charactersand the theory of characters.

3By narratives are here meant representations of stories in a broad sense, i.e. representations of

events and changes of states (cf. e.g. Barthes 1988: 102; Chatman 1978; Jahn 2001: N1.2; also Eder1999: 5). In fictional representations, characters are involved in a prototypical manner (cf. Wolf 2002).The implicit working definition of characters, as beings represented by a fictional text, that are ascribedsome form of consciousness, will be made more precise in the following chapter.


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It is, therefore, the aim of this book to bring together findings from different domainsin order to design a systematic underpinning for the analysis of characters. At thecentre of this design is the anthropomorphic figure of the feature film and of othernon-interactive, audiovisual moving-images media. A good deal of the reflections doindeed also apply to characters that are not humanlike, for animals, robots, creations

of fantasy; for characters in other media, e.g. literature or theatre; and for charactersin non-narrative texts, e.g. avatars in coaching CD-ROMs. Some of it may also berelevant to the presentation of real persons in documentary films and televisionprogrammes. Such an attempt to gain a kind of general survey is rather unpopular inthis day and age of specialisation and differentiation; it is even risky in view of a fieldthat is practically impossible to survey. But the idea here is not to build a GrandTheory with a claim to eternal validity but to create a provisional foundation fordiscussion that is basically open and modular in its structures. The specific sort ofmediality of the character in filmwill play an important but not the main role. There isan established tradition of both comprehensive and highly differentiated work on themedia-specifics of film, but the phenomenon of the character and the general

foundations of its analysis are largely neglected.The integrative aim of this book entails that the concepts used do not fully conformwith particular other discourses and theories. It proved practically impossible to adoptdirectly some established terminology, I was much rather forced to try to fit thelanguage games and concepts of different approaches together and to carry outcorresponding modifications. It may, therefore, be initially irritating to read, forinstance, that I am taking recourse to the cognitive sciences but continue to use thesemiotic concept text in dealing with film. It was, furthermore, impossible tocompletely avoid insufficiently explicated presuppositions as well as repetitions andconceptual ambiguities. I do hope that the result will, on closer examination,

nonetheless remain convincing. Concepts that elude immediate comprehensionshould become comprehensible with the help of the index and the appropriatechapters.

The book is intended for different types of readers. Some of them will probably bemore interested in practical analysis, some possibly more in the theory. I have beentrying to meet these expectations by structuring the book accordingly and bycontinually including helpful hints the nature of which will be explained in detail at theend of this introduction. But before that certain fundamental presuppositions have tobe elucidated: What is the purpose of the analysis of characters, anyway? How cantheories help with such an analysis? What is the present state of these theories? Itmust, consequently, first be shown that the focus on characters can be productive forthe analysis of films. It is not at all self-evident that this will be so because charactershave so far often been treated only in a casual way or intuitively; the attention hasgenerally been on genres, narrative perspectives, and especially on action. Shouldcharacters, therefore, be preferably examined within the broader context of action ordo they merit an independent investigation?

1.1 The relationship between character and action/plot

Youve got to tell us more than what a man did. Youve got to tell us what he was,the newspaper editor challenges the reporter who was given the task of

reconstructing the biography and the personality of the late Charles Foster Kane(CITIZEN KANE). The very same challenge could be advanced towards the theory ofliterature, theatre and film, which for a long time had pitted character and action


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against each other, generally preferring action and neglecting character. Instructuralism and in so-called actant-models characters are reduced to their barefunctions in actions (for a critique of this see also Chatman 1978, 108ff.; Koch 1992),and even more recent dramaturgical models focus their attention more or lessexclusively on situation, conflict and interaction. If, however, such perspectives of

analysis are not supplemented by others that put characters at the centre, thenessential aspects of a narrative vanish from vision: properties of characters, whichare independent of the action, are suppressed and the understanding andexperiencing of the viewers that is usually strongly directed by characters is modelledin a distorted manner. The action is experienced by characters (Stckrath 1992) andcan be re-enacted by recipients via adopting a characters perspective by way ofsimulation and empathy (cf. Grodal 2001). Especially in the cinema, the characterhas a sort of physical autonomy that makes every action appear subordinated to itsprecedent existence (Bordwell 1992: 13). And it is not only the processes of theparticipant co-experience with characters, but also the moral and thematic discourseof the text and its rhetoric, that are all additionally specified by action-independent

properties of the characters.Nevertheless, since the time of Aristotle, it has been constantly maintained thataction is much more important in a narrative than are its characters (cf. Pfister 1988:220). The assertion in this form is, for a start, ambiguous as long as there is no clarityas to what is meant by action. From a broader to an increasingly narrowunderstanding, the concept may be understood to mean:

1. the total framework of events of a narrative including those events which are nottriggered by characters but by twists of fate, forces of nature etc., and, furthermore,the events in which characters are not involved at all as agents or as victims, e.g. theevent of a sunrise that is perceptible only to the viewers;

2. the behaviour of characters in its totality and its consequences as well as themental processes of the characters;

3. the intentional behaviour of characters, their talking and doing; and finally

4. the bodilyactions of the characters excluding their speech acts; epitomised in thestipulation put forward by many scriptwriting manuals that a story be told throughaction and not through dialogue.

Although the behaviour of characters in the senses (2) to (4) does not cover anarratives action as comprehensively as is entailed by sense (1), it will usuallyencompass its essential parts: stories are always stories about somebodyand tell us,

as a rule, about the actions of anthropomorphic figures (cf. Eder 1999: 7882).Characters, by contrast, can basically be represented completely divested of anykind of action, for instance in the form of portraits, descriptions or sculptures. Even intemporal media like film some of the minor characters are characterised without theirown proper actions, for instance by a kind of physiognomy that is selected to indicatetheir personality. Characters may, therefore, be independent of action (in any sense),at least in certain forms and phases of media, whereas the reverse does not apply.

In connection with the feature film, however, stories and their protagonists are ofcrucial interest. The concentration on this core area requires that the dispute aboutthe primacy of action or character be correlated with specific points of view (cf. Pfister

1988: 220; Rimmon-Kenan: 3436). From a structuralpoint of view the question ofprimacy does not make any sense: the two elements of the story are interdependent.Already in 1804, long before Henry James famous statement What is character but


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the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?(1948: 13), Jean Paul noted:

For character and fable presuppose each other in their mutual development sofundamentally as freedom and necessitylike heart and artery like chicken and egg and vice versa, because no self can discover itself without a history and no history can

exist without a self. (

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1974: 229)

Since some (post-)structuralists would no doubt protest against any claim that nostory can exist without a self, I shall formulate it less poetically: action at least inthe sense of characters behaviour for purely conceptual reasons alonepresupposes an agent. The concept of action implies the concept of an actingsubject. In addition, many descriptions of action can only be realised with the help ofassumptions regarding the motives of agents (somebody kills someone else was itpremeditated murder or a case of manslaughter?). Characters, on the otherhand, can essentially be represented without action; but in such cases we are notdealing with a narrative because a narrative must include changes of state that are

intentionally induced. Narratives, therefore, logically demand both character andaction (cf. Chatman 1978: 112f.).4

With regard to two aspects that are less fundamental than the structural one, aprimacy of character over action may be claimed, although this question cannot yetbe answered in a wholesale fashion. From the point of view of analysis, i.e.concerning the question which of the two is more important in the interpretation offilms and other texts, the answer depends on the particular cognitive interests of theinvestigating analysts. From the perspective of an aesthetics of production and effect i.e. in relation to questions of whether characters or actions are of primeimportance for the development of a story and which of the two has, or should have,the greater impact on viewers the answer will depend on the narrative in question,its purposes and goals. In plot-oriented stories, e.g. action films, greater attention andmore space for representation is given to events, whereas character-oriented filmslike DER TOTMACHER primarily explore the traits of their protagonists. There may becases in which neither characters nor actions occupy the foreground but rather thenature of the construction of the process of narration, on the one hand, and theprocess of reception, on the other (LANNE DERNIRE MARIENBAD).

The tradition of plot-oriented positions originally stems from the domain of dramaalthough opinions differ here too (Pfister, for example, cites Goethes Rede zumSchkespears Tag; 1988: 220). Against this background, Aristotles well-knownPoetics-passages can be read not as generally valid statements about the primacy of

character or action in narratives but rather as a genre-specific plea for plot-orientedtragedies. When Aristotle speaks of mythos he is referring to action in the mostcomprehensive sense, i.e. to the structured sequence of events in a text, whichwould be called story, plot or sujet in contemporary discourse (cf. Martinez /Scheffel 1999: 25f.; Eder 1999: 1015). With regard to the character, Aristotledistinguishes between the character as agent (pratton; i.e. a precursor of thestructuralist actant) and the characters moral personality traits (ethos). For theaction of a drama his thesis runs we do indeed need agents but no exact

4The dialectical relatedness of the categories is also made clear by Manfred Pfister, who definesaction in the sense of (2) as change of situation and understands situation as the set of relationsholding between characters, on the one hand, and between characters and a material or immaterialcontext, on the other (Pfister 1988: 220).


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portrayal of their personality for its own sake. In this sense, the plot for Aristotleassumes priority over the depiction of the characters (Aristotle 1982: 21).

A plot-oriented position in the aesthetics of production is, moreover, expressed by theprinciple of dramaturgical necessity, which is still advocated by many contemporaryscriptwriting manuals. It is prescribed there that all those elements of a narrative bescrapped which do not contribute to advancing the development of the action e.g.scenes in which characters are just characterised without driving the plot forward.Conversely, Lajos Egri is adamant that all the actions of a character must bederivable and understandable from the interplay of the characters properties andgiven situations (Egri 21960: 58f.). Like Henry James, but with different intention, theAmerican Script Consultant Robert McKee formulates: We cannot ask which ismore important, structure or character, because structure is character; character isstructure (McKee 1997: 100). The true moral personality of a character, McKeeclaims, shows itself only in the decisions which the character makes when underpressure to act (McKee 1997: 101). What must be strictly kept apart from this is the

figures characterisation in the sense of all its represented and perceivedproperties: the sum of all observable qualities of a human being, everythingknowable through careful scrutiny: age and IQ; sex and sexuality; [..] (McKee 1997:100). Consequently, the essential core of the personality of a character is determinedby its actions, it possesses, however, further properties that reach beyond theseactions.

The principle of dramaturgical necessity, however, has no general validity. It is validonly for certain modes of narration; and even there its validity is limited. In reality itmerely represents a sort of rule of thumb that indicates tendencies of the process ofproduction: in the creative process, characters frequently appear to expand, toencroach upon an ever wider space disproportionate to their function in the action,

and this expansive tendencywhich, in fact, endorses the imaginative importance ofcharacters!must then be counteracted in order to safeguard the composition andthe specific purposes of the text (e.g. entertainment). Thus, from the point of view ofan aesthetics of production and effect, the primacy of action or character can only beformulated normatively against the background of culturally and historicallycontingent, partly also media-specific, projected effects (e.g. serving objectives ofentertainment vs. the better understanding of human nature and behaviour). Formany novelists, like Jean Paul, characters enjoy priority over the plot:

An occurrence gains substance only through a self, i.e. through this selfs character; in adeserted world deprived of minds there can be no destiny and no history. Only withhumans can freedom and world unfold with their twofold attraction. This self lends somuch more to occurrences than vice versa, that it can elevate the smallest among them,as is proved by the stories of villages and scholars. (Jean Paul 21974: 230)

If, however, the primacy of action or characters does indeed depend on contingentintended effects, the most promising point of departure would generally seem to bethat there are definitely plot-oriented media offers, on the one hand, but that there arealso definitely character-oriented ones, on the other.

Moreover, the relationship between character and action can be described in stillgreater detail with reference to the typical features of different media and narrativeprocesses. Actions in film and drama are, for instance, usually performed by visible

agents, quite unlike literature. In literature one may just state bluntly He did suchand such, whereas this he in a film is, as a rule, represented by a photographic(or animated) body image that is naturally more specific than any linguisticdescription. On the level of the representational structure of linguistic narratives it is


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even possible to circumvent all direct reference to characters, for instance by usingnominalizations and passive constructions instead of proper names, pronouns anddescriptions. The action of Les liaisons dangereuses might thus be rendered as Aseries of unscrupulous seductionsleads to an unhappy love affair, a fatal dueland adisastrous revelation. Quite apart from the fact that agents are logically implied here

too, and that such a kind of storytelling would remain quite unsatisfactory in the longrun, a feature film has really hardly any options to exclude the acting characters in acomparable manner. It is essentially possible in dialogues, in the voice-over and inbridging title links, but not really on the visual plane. Obviously, a film about crimemay be started off by showing an act of murder without identifiable perpetrator andvictim: all that can be seen is a thrusting hand, a shadow crashing down, a lighterand some object enveloped by flames. But to call a film like the Japaneseexperimental film LOVE, which shows only parts of human bodies (belonging to aloving couple) and never something like a recognisable character, a narrative or afeature film, seems to me unacceptable.

If film characters are represented by images and sound, they not only serve someaction but independently exhibit a powerfully expressive bodyhood and performativepresence. Images, furthermore, reveal numerous action-independent properties thatdistinguish characters from each other with regard to many relevant aspects, eventhough the characters roles in actions may remain the same: they may appear old oryoung, ugly or beautiful, or may execute their parts skilfully or awkwardly. Suchchanges in characters can change the action itself. It will certainly make a differenceto the degree of involvement of the viewers and the plausibility of the story that a partis filled by John Goodman or Leonardo DiCaprio. Naturally, the quality of the detailedpresentation of an action is of significance but even a minimal externalcharacterisation will make viewers infer additional properties of the performing

characters from their actions, which may not be directly connected with these actionsthemselves. In character studies, in comparative assessments of motivation, or inbody-centred genres (like pornographic films) the viewers interests are oftenspecifically concentrated on such features of characters.

In brief: The assertion of the systematic primacy of the action over the character isunwarranted, in any case. The representation of characters is not fundamentallydependent on their representation in actions, whereas in narratives the two areinterdependent. However, many properties of characters extend beyond their actions,and the question of whether characters or actions are of greater significance from theperspective of an aesthetics of production or reception, cannot be answered in awholesale fashion. There are still further arguments to support the necessity andindependence of character-analysis. Characters can, for instance, be rememberedindependently, and are often remembered better than their actions. Popularcharacters like James Bond are transferable intertextually and intermedially anddetachable from particular plots, and the star images and role biographies of actors,for example of Marilyn Monroe or John Wayne, are closely connected with specificcharacters (cf. Dyer 21999; Lowry / Korte 2000). Finally, characters remain temporallypresent far longer than their diverse actions: they occupy positions in character-constellations that continue to exist beyond particular situations, they possessabilities and traits that are independent of any particular action, and they triggerpermanent attitudes in viewers (e.g. sympathy).

These are all good reasons for devoting more attention to characters in the analysisand to establish a proper research field of character-theory and character-analysis.Characters are independent objects of attention, and they are, in fact, often treated


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as such intuitively in the practice of analysis. As will become clear, this analysiscannot be restricted to the different kinds of characters themselves but will naturallyinclude all the relevant character-related aspects of both fictional texts and processesof reception and communication. But what purposes is character-analysis actuallysupposed to serve?

1.2 Why character-analysis?

Characters may turn into enigmas for viewers in manifold ways. Enigmatic enoughalready are questions like: Why are we able to treat a series of textual signs like aliving person (Jannidis 2000: 5)? And: What is it that makes certain charactersappear so unproblematically comprehensible?

Not all characters, however, are easy to understand: Why does Ben in LEAVING LASVEGAS drink himself to death, why does Alain Leroy shoot himself dead in LE FEUFOLLET,why does Travis Bickle inTAXI DRIVER kill others in a murderous rage? The

lack of explicit explanations in films is a challenge to seek out the motives and thepersonalities of such characters, to explore their innermost lives. Surrealistic filmslike LGE DOR or narrative experiments like LANNE DERNIRE MARIENBAD go evenfurther than this and not only refuse any kind of psychological explanation but,moreover, fundamentally doubt the identity of their characters, irritate narrativeconventions and images of humanity . It is one of the essential functions amongmany others of fictional media offers and their characters that they propose strange,alternative modes of being and novel perspectives on human beings and othercreatures; and these modes of being and perspectives often do not becomeintelligible at the first glance.

As characters are thus of such central importance to the reception and interpretationof entire texts, they may not only offer enigmas but also trigger controversies. Canand should one feel compassion for the gutter philosopher and rapist Johnny inNAKEDor for the boxer Jake La Motta in RAGING BULL? Does one like the heroines inRosamunde-Pilcher films or does one hate them? Questions of this sort are tricky,and they arouse disputes among viewers and film makers: authors may think theircharacters are sympathetic and realisticbut the producers insist on revisions.

The most impassioned character-related conflicts are commonly stirred up byquestions of whether certain characters convey distorted images of humanity,whether characters are exploited as ideological Instruments, or whether theydisparage social groups. Ethnicity, religion, gender or class are among the most

conflict-laden and most widely discussed aspects of characters. The Nazi film-director Veit Harlan was taken to court after the War for the anti-Semitic portrayals inhis propagandistic historical film JUD SSS. The indictment against him ran: crimesagainst humanity and psychological assistance to the Holocaust. A somewhat lessdrastic example: Nowadays the extraterrestrials in STAR WARS THE PHANTOMMENACEstrike some critics as disguised racist stereotypes.5 In order to settle suchconflicts and unravel the enigma of a character, precise and reproducible analyses ofeach character are indispensable. Such analyses are carried out under the mostdiverse circumstances:

1. During the production of a film, for instance when developing scripts or directing

actors, questions of dramaturgical analysis arise, i.e. questions of how a particular5Cf. the docu-drama JUD SSSEIN FILM AS VERBRECHEN? By Horst Knigstein and Joachim Lange,NDR 2001. For STAR WARSTHE PHANTOM MENACE see e.g. Hubbard 2003.


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effect on the viewers might be achieved by a character. Films are, in this connection,regarded as products whose artistic and economic success depends also on theircharacters.6

2. When, by contrast, viewers, critics and film scholars seek to comprehend films,questions of an interpretative analysis pose themselves: How can the symbolism, theenigmatic behaviour of such and such a character be explained? What are themeans and the strategies with the help of which the character in question isfashioned, and what does it contribute to the meaning of the film? In this context, it isgenerally the multi-layered characters and films that stand out as works of art.7

3. Socio-cultural analyses concern themselves with the representation of humankindin general or of particular social groups as they are determined by sex, age,ethnicity, economy, occupation etc.and examine the communicative power and theimpact of the representation: In what ways are women and men, blacks andwhites, labourers and doctors represented in the film? What is the significance ofthe appearance of clones in contemporary cinema? In most cases, the analyses

focus on certain types of characters, but individual characters (e.g. Lara Croft) orspecial aspects of characters (the personality, the body; the Evil, the Beautiful) mayalso be the object of culture-theoretical considerations. Here it is usually popular andhighly influential films and characters that are dealt with.8

These three focal points of character-analysis practical dramaturgy, filminterpretation, and socio-cultural analysis are often connected with valuejudgments: characters are evaluated according to their dramaturgical suitability, theirartistic perfection, or their societal impact. Frequently, a historical perspectiveenlarges the analysis with a diachronic and intertextual dimension: How can I as ascriptwriter do better this time than I did with the earlier characters? What characters

from older films are taken up in PULP FICTION? How has the image of womendeveloped in the cinema of Hollywood?

In the analysis of characters, the concentration is thus on particular figures inconcrete films, or on specific types and aspects of characters. The process ofanalysis, as a rule, follows certain steps: one watches the film or reads the scriptseveral times, concentrates on the aspects relating to characters and supplementsthe resulting impressions with additional information, e.g. about viewers or historicalcontexts. On this basis, one formulates statements about the characters and thoseaspects of the film which are relevant to them (perhaps adding a demonstration of

6Such dramaturgical analyses, which have their ancestry in Aristotles Poetics, are documented, onthe one hand, by numerous interviews with, and monographs on, (script-) writers, producers, directors,and actors; (to mention merely the classic: Truffauts book of interviews with Hitchcock; 1966), and onthe other hand in the corresponding advisory literature (e.g. Seger 1990, Kress 1998).7In such cases, the analysis of particular characters is usually part of the interpretation of films, whichmay be encountered in viewers conversations, newspaper reviews, auteur-monographs, genre-surveys, or other related publications.8The bandwidth of approaches extends from the empirical procedures within communication studies(e.g. Nitsche 2000, further information in Bonfadelli 2003: 87f.) to hermeneutical-interpretativemethodologies (e.g. Hinauer / Klein 2002 on the representation of masculinity). A survey of modes ofrepresenting social groups in the cinema of Hollywood is provided by Benshoff / Griffin 2004. The

international literature on the depiction of gender and ethnic groups is so extensive that I shall notquote a detailed selection but only the reference to the bibliography created by the library of theuniversity at Berkeley, which contains several hundred items (University of California Berkeley Library2003).


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selected scenes or images).9When questioned, these statements should be capableof rational justification because such an analysis can serve the exchange ofcontroversial views, eliminate misunderstandings, and render different reactions ofviewers comprehensible.

The process of analysis, therefore, includes typical tasks and problems. The questionarises how to select relevant observations and relevant information (heuristics), howto express these observations in a linguistically adequate way (categorisation,conversion into language, reduction of complexity), and what kind of justificationwould be accepted as valid for character-analytical assertions. The analysis requiresthe simplification of what is too complex and the linguistic representation of what isnon-linguistic; both operations presuppose categories for the description of at leastthree domains: the text, the represented (human) beings, and the reception byviewers. A special requirement with regard to film is the identification of propertieswhich are not given linguistically but are transported audiovisually or in implicit ways.As most of the characters, moreover, exhibit an immeasurable range of properties,

one must limit their description and analysis to those which are of the greatestrelevance, because what we call descriptions, are instruments for particularapplications (Wittgenstein 1989: 372f.). For these reasons we produce differentdescriptions of characters for different purposes. Film titles often announce theprotagonists of films in the form of brief characterisations (e.g. DER WINDHUND UNDDIE LADY); and film criticism, reviews, serial bibles, contain plenty of descriptions ofcharacters. Seth Godins Encyclopedia of Fictional People (1996) is made upexclusively of brief characterisations, for instance:

Lund, Ilsa: An almost ethereal presence whose courage, beauty, and romantic allurecapture the hearts of many men. Loyal wife to freedom fighter Victor Laszlo, though shewas once involved with Rick Blaine [..]. (Godin 1996: 176)

The reconstruction of star images in film studies derives generalisations from thecharacters embodied by the stars, e.g. in the case of Hanna Schygulla, the image ofthe Marilyn of Suburbia:

For one, the part shows a character dependent on the male, preoccupied with externalappearance, and presenting herself as a sexual object, but then it also shows another,deeper side: the innocent-nave girl that insists on, and keeps hoping for, the fulfilment ofhappiness, and that embodies the principle of longing desire [..]. (Lowry / Korte 2000:225)

Characterisations of this sort are the result of processes conditioned by a doubleinterpretation: on the one hand, the idea of a character is formed, a system of

properties is inferred from the images and the sounds of the film; on the other hand,this volatile mental construct is converted into a few lines of language, suchconversion being necessarily dependent upon categorisation, weighting, selection,semantic reduction, metaphor and imaginative compression. The accuratedescription of a character requires an artists skill. The essential point is to find thekey to the character, to establish properties which are particularly important andimply further properties. The system of properties making up the character is nearlyalways of greater complexity. The brief instances quoted above strikinglydemonstrate that only a small number of property domains is actually taken intoconsideration. For llsa Lund from CASABLANCA, for instance, the domains of external

9Frequently, different statements are combined here (e.g. statements about represented properties,modes of representation, and emotional effects of a character: Rick Blaine is agreeable because heis played by Bogart and unites integrity with elegance).


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appearance, of moral character, of basic emotional attitudes, and finally of importantsocial relations are touched upon, whereas other property domains are notmentioned at all (e.g. age, intelligence, abilities).

What those properties are that possess enough relevance to be included in thedescription of a character, seems to depend on numerous different factors. One ofthe most important criteria will certainly be the intensity of the performance ofcharacters in the text, e.g. whether characters act in ways that suggest particularproperties, whether characters are introduced with these features, whether thesequences in question have been styled in a particularly impressive way and aremade to stand out by means of contrasts and analogies, whether the features keepchanging etc. Further criteria consist in the place characters hold in the largerconstellation of characters, in the theme of the film, and in the deviations of the filmfrom standards relating to reality or the medium itself.

Now, the analysis of characters does not only aim at relevant descriptions ofcharacters, it also represents, as a rule, a thickdescription in the sense of Gilbert

Ryle or Clifford Geertz (5

1997: v.a. S. 715). A thin description limits itself to theexternally visible, bodily aspects of a culturally identifiable phenomenon such as theexternal appearance or behaviour of human beings. A thick description, however,offers an interpretation of this identifiable phenomenon that takes into account itsmental and social aspects, for instance its singular intentions or cultural contexts. In athin description one might, for example, state no more that that some persons rapidlymove their eyelids whereas in a thick description one would have to state explicitlywhether those movements consisted in involuntary twitching or in purposive blinkingwith a special meaning. Thick descriptions are often shorter than thin ones: Howwould one describe the uniform of a four-star general in all its external details?And often thick descriptions are controversial, as is demonstrated by related legal

disputes: was the fatal shot at someone else a mistake, an act of manslaughter, anact of murder, a killing of honour?

In such presupposition-rich operations as the description and analysis of characters,reasons of complexity alone make it inevitable to take recourse to intuition andordinary language. Proceeding, however, intuitively and by way of ordinary languageimplies proceeding from ones very own mental presuppositions, and this may beunsuitable for reaching particular goals. For the purpose of penetrating theexperience of other people, of making new observations or rigorously justifying somethesis, a systematic, model-based approach and the application of a specialistterminology may be essential prerequisites. We thus face a number of fundamental

questions with regard to the analysis of characters, questions which extend beyondthe single analysis and are, at the same time, presupposed by them: What belongs tothe object domain of this analysis? What are characters? How do they come intoexistence? How can one justify assertions about them? How can they be thoroughlyand systematically examined? What categories, structural models and procedurescan one resort to? What are the presuppositions one can rely on? How does theinvolvement of viewers come about?

Supplying answers to such questions is, at the same time, an essential task of thetheory of characters. As the saying goes, nothing is as practical as a good theory: itprovides the foundation for a systematic and transparent analysis. It helps its

heuristics by offering general descriptions of the structure of the object underinvestigation and by thus singling out those aspects of a character which can andshould be investigated, in the first place. In this way, it defines central points ofrelevance, draws attention to neglected aspects, and calls certain other areas into


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question (should one analyse the mind of characters rather than the ways and meansby which it is represented?). The theory of characters clarifies methodologicalquestions and makes suggestions as to the means, categories and models (forinstance, semiotic or psychological ones) with which characters ought to beanalysed. The result of the clarification of the basic terms and forms of argumentation

is, finally, the argumentation-theoretical foundation of the analysis that makes clearunder what circumstances statements about characters will be accepted as correctand with what kind of justification. The theory of characters thus places the analysisof concrete characters on a precise conceptual and methodological footing, developscategories and heuristics for the guidance of analysis, improves the methods of anysingle analysis, links the results, and thus broadens its detail-oriented perspective. Itoffers a logically consistent set of concepts, definitions and models [..], that can beoperationalised empirically and that can be applied in the analysis.10

Such a theory is supra-historical and trans-generic; it limits itself to the study ofgeneral structures which are universally valid for films of all epochs and genres, and

aims to develop a set of instruments for analysis that is applicable to all characters,and that is, therefore, the prerequisite for making the whole historical and culturalvariety of film creations at all amenable to description. The comprehension and theinterpretation of particular characters depend, to a high degree, on culturally,historically and individually variable contexts, on images of humanity, conceptions ofpersonality, and conventions of representation. In a comprehensive theory ofcharacters, concrete characters are therefore similar to variables that are positionedwithin the context of constant functions.11 The general structures, conditionalframeworks and contexts of effects of the theory must be specified anew in everysingle application to different films, kinds of films, epochs, genres and oeuvres. Butonly a consistent theoretical basis can guarantee that the characteristic peculiarities

of each individual character are reliably apprehended, precisely described andcompared with other characters. It is, therefore, a fundamental requirement for allforms of character-analysis: if they seek to go beyond mere intuition, if they seek tobe methodically reflected, argumentatively transparent, systematic and differentiated,then they will have to be firmly anchored in a theoretical foundation.

Clearly, the significance of a theory of characters is not exhausted by its contributionto analysis; it is furthermore borne out by more abstract forms of knowledge. It is setto deal with the probably most profound enigma offered by the character: the fact thathuman beings treat fictitious characters like real beings in many respects, that theytry to understand their personalities and their actions, that they react to them

10I have here transferred Stefan Webers concept of a basis theory to the domainof the theory ofcharacters (cf. Weber 2003: 19). David Bordwell would probably speak of a poetics of the character(cf. Bordwell 1989: 273): of a conceptual frame and an analytical set of instruments for dealing withquestions concerning the composition and the effects of media offers and their elementshere: thecharacter. Such a poetics or basis theory of the character is not only the foundation of all analysisbut also of any more specialised theory regarding particular aspects of characters.An alternative approach to this comprehensive system of categories and heuristics for the guidance ofthe analysis of characters would be a sort of piecemeal theorising, i.e. the selection and assembly oftheoretical building blocks that would appear especially appropriate to the particular research task athand. Consequently, there would be no attempt to create a larger systematic framework. Even suchpiecemeal theorising requires, however, minimal general control of the theoretical elements and theirinterrelations that are available at all; there is, furthermore, the risk of argumentative gaps and

inconsistencies.11Harvey speaks of constitutive categories in this context (Harvey 31970: 23). Herbert Grabes(1978) and Fotis Jannidis (2004) have argued convincingly that theories of characters must doadequate justice to the historicity of characters.


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emotionally and behaviourally to the point of sending messages to fictitioustelevision characters.

The prime ambition pursued by the present book is, however, to improve the analysisof characters. The reason is that, so far, methodical procedures have barely beendeveloped here. Anybody who intends to investigate characters find themselvesforced to fall back on their intuitions. Most of the textbooks for film analysis stillconsider characters as a rather marginal aspect and limit themselves to fragmentaryobservations. None is able to offer a set of instruments that would even comeanywhere near the differentiated categories worked out for dealing with the structuresof action.12 One reason is certainly the state of research: a systematic, analysis-oriented theory of characters has barely developed beyond its initial stages, as willnow be shown by the following inventory.

1.3 Searching for a theoretical foundation

The theory of characters can look back on a history of more than two thousandyears, which encompasses an impressive spectrum of themes. In many respects,however, the theory still remains stuck in its initial stages.13 The short historicalsummary given in the next chapter will make this clear.14 In order to ascertain thegreatest gaps and problems of the theory of characters, it will be helpful to comparethe present state-of-affairs with an ideal state. What are the questions that a theory ofcharacters should deal with, and what standards of quality should it meet? Sevensuccessive steps in the construction of an appropriate theory may be distinguishedas follows (cf. also Margolin 1990a: 843f.):

1. In a first step, the subject matter character and its most important aspects willbe explicitly definedand delimited as precisely as possible. The prime aim here is,amongst others, to specify what characters essentially are and what ontologicalstatus they can claim. The answer to these questions is of the most profoundconsequence: If I understand characters as mimetic analogues of human beings,then I shall primarily investigate their psychological properties; if I take them to beelements of the text, then I shall concentrate on textual structures. In the theoreticalwork on characters up to the present time, these positions have generally beenirreconcilably opposed to each other.

12To quote some examples of current publications: In David Bordwells and Kristin Thompsons FilmArt. An Introduction(62001), characters are mentioned only by the way as causal factors of the story

and as instances creating particular perspectives. In the Einfhrung in die Film- andFernsehwissenschaftby Borstnar, Pabst and Wulff (2002), characters are likewise only touched uponin connection with narrative structures and constructions of perspective. Faulstichs GrundkursFilmanalyse (2002) does indeed devote a whole chapter to characters but his presentation ofanalytical categories barely comprises six pages and excludes numerous important aspects, amongthem identification and involvement. Lothar Mikoss Film- und Fernsehanalyse (2003), by contrast,concentrates almost exclusively on this aspect. Knut Hickethiers Film- und Fernsehanalyse (32001)offers more detail and focuses on character constellations as well as the performance of actors.13Theory is here understood in a broad sense: as the methodical, argumentatively structuredreflection of a topic, which intends to clarify conceptual relations and work out general law-likeregularities. It has repeatedly been noted that the character has definitely been neglected by theory,e.g. in Chatman 1978: 107; Rimmon-Kenan 61996: 29; Michaels 1998: xiii; Trhler et al. 1997: 9; Frow1986: 227; Schlobin 1999.14A brief rundown of character-related research within film studies can also be found in Trhler 2007,relevant research within literary studies is surveyed in Koch 1991 and Jannidis 2004. I have beenunable to find research surveys in the fields of theatre studies or in the history and theory of the finearts.


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2. Once the subject matter character has been specified, one can ask what isrequired for its proper constitution and characterisation. How do characters arise?Through what media-transcending and media-specific means are they created? Howare the identity and the continuity of a character guaranteed or denied? With regardto this complex of questions, many investigations have already been carried out but,

as I shall show later on, the role of the recipients has not, as a rule, been sufficientlyconsidered.

3. A core area of the theory of characters is the detection of the fundamental featuredimensions and structures of characters. What kinds of properties must bedistinguished with regard to characters (e.g. body, personality, social role; centraland peripheral features etc.)? How are its fields of properties interconnected? In whatways can characters change during the course of a film? It is particularly withreference to these questions which are of central importance to any analysis thatprevious theory-formation work has proved itself especially underdeveloped. It hasessentially remained limited to actant-models which reduce characters to their

functions in action. There are no structural models on a middle plane of theoryformation (cf. Stckrath 1992: 107) between single, concrete characters and abstractaction-functions. The question, therefore, of how one can adequately describecharacters as fictitious personages and artificial constructs remains largelyunanswered.

4. On the basis of the preceding steps, hypotheses about the relationship betweencharacters and other formal and material aspects of media offersmay be formulated.In the research so far, the relationship between character and action has been keptin the foreground; and the relationship between characters and narrator instanceswas examined from a narratological perspective. Other important questions,however, were dealt with rather rarely, for instance, the constellations of characters

or the relationship between particular characters and the themes and statements oftheir original texts.

5. Woven into the stages of theory-development as outlined so far, but stillindependent, is the question of the reception of characters, their perception andprocessing: How do viewers perceive characters and how do they become involvedwith them? How does it come about that characters can be treated like real persons?Why do certain characters cause such enormous fascination? In what ways docharacters elicit feelings? In the attempts at answering these questions thecompeting theories are mainly psychoanalytical and cognitive ones.

6. Problems arising from expanding the field of observation are concerned with theconnections between character, culture, and history: How does the socio-culturalenvironment influence the emergence of characters? How do characters affectculture and society? What images of humanity are revealed in them or conveyed bythem? With regard to these questions many theses, often extremely far-reachingones, have been advanced; they range from the mirroring of given real conditions tothe determination of actual behaviour by characters. Only rarely, however, suchtheses are based upon a careful examination of the questions formulated earlier;they usually start out from intuitive presuppositions or from theories that weredeveloped for other domains and were then, only slightly modified, applied tocharacters.


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7. Typologiesmay make it easier to gain a more comprehensive view of each of thelevels introduced so far15: What types of characters dominate particular historicalphases? What characters are typical of genres or stylistic groups like the cowboy forthe Western or the femme fatalefor the film noir? What do the characters within theoeuvre of some filmmaker have in common? Is it possible to recognise all-

encompassing conceptions of characters, for instance in the fragile characters ofmodern films (cf. Michaels 1998)? Constructing typologies has been one of thecentral activities of the investigation of characters so far; as already pointed out in thepreceding considerations of the different levels and problem complexes, theseactivities are also all too often deficient with regard to their required appropriateunderpinnings.

These seven complexes of questions encompass the essential steps in theconstruction of a theory of the character.16A theory of characters, which tackles allthe seven themes in adequate detail, still does not exist. There certainly is a largenumber of treatments of selected aspects, but comprehensive theoretical designs

remain extremely rare. Although all the different themes of the spectrum unfoldedabove are intimately connected with each other with regard to content, there has sofar been no attempt to deal with them all in their systematic interconnections. Thiswould, however, be the prerequisite for developing a consistent basis for the analysisof characters.

Moreover, not even in a single one of the different thematic domains does someconsensus seem to be forthcoming; if discussions take place at all, they are highlycontroversial. The reason is that very heterogeneous positions have evolved withinthe theory of characters. By way of ideal-typical simplification, four approaches ortheory-groups with different thematic focal areas and methodological foundations canbe singled out, which are presented in greater detail in the first part of this book:

The oldest approaches stem from the school of hermeneutics. They understandcharacters primarily as images of human beings, investigate their connections withhistorical and cultural contexts, and develop typologies. They emphasise thenecessity of taking into account the historical background of characters and theircreators. The fundamental questions of the ontology, constitution, and reception ofcharacters are, as a rule, ignored by hermeneutical analyses; they operateprevalently under the guidance of intuition and only minimally under the direction of atheory.

Psychoanalytical positions generally presuppose a far-reaching analogy betweencharacters and human beings. They complement an essentially hermeneuticalapproach with psychoanalytical models of personality (especially those proposed bySigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan) in order to explain the internal life of characters,on the one hand, the reactions of the viewers or readers, on the other. So theircentral area of interest is the psyche of the characters and the recipients. Certainpositions, e.g. the one held by Carl Gustav Jung, take characters to be the symbolicexpression of internal processes. Once again, the fundamental questions of the

15In the clear majority of cases these are social typologies dealing with the representation of gender,ethnic groups etc.; above and beyond, there are predominantly genre-typologies, e.g. relating tocharacters in the horror film (Rasmussen 1998).16Empirical research on the characterin Margolins model the fifth and last step can, in my view,be carried out adequately only after the theory has provided appropriate conceptual pre-structuringand selected hypotheses to guide investigations. Cf. however the work by Johan van Hoorn and EllyKonijn, e.g. 2003.


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ontology and the textual constitution of characters are paid only scant attention byapproaches deriving from psychoanalysis.

Structuralist and semiotic approaches have been developed since the 1960es asmovements to counteract hermeneutics and psychoanalysis, and they haveremained dominant for several decades. They insist emphatically on the differencebetween characters and human beings and concentrate on questions of the definitionand constitution of characters, thereby making the role of the text their central objectof attention. They describe the emergence of characters with the help of semioticmodels that marginalise the aspect of reception; frequently the charactersthemselves are considered to be nothing but complexes of signs and textualstructures. The consequence is, however, that central properties of characters (e.g.their personality) as well as the reactions of the recipients are removed from the fieldof vision, and that the connections of characters with themes and cultures can onlybe sketched out in a very abstract and reductive way.

Since the 1980es, cognitive theoriesof the character have evolved, which seek to

anchor themselves in the cognitive sciences, in particular in psychology andanalytical philosophy. The designation cognitive theories is to be understood in abroad sense here; it is to refer to all those approaches which focus centrally on themost exact modelling of cognitive and affective processes within the overallprocessing of information.17 Characters are here conceived of as text-basedconstructs of the human mind, whose description requires models of thecomprehension of texts and also models of the human psyche. The cognitive modelsof texts differ here from the semiotic approaches in that they pay more attention tothe level of reception. The cognitive models of the human psyche differ frompsychoanalysis especially by their more detailed representation of mental processesand a stronger association with empirical psychology. However, the cognitive

theories have so far concentrated their work on the interrelation between characterand reception, and have failed to extend it to the level of culture.

An exchange between these positions has hardly taken place so far; it is certainly anurgent necessity. Frequently, the diverse theory-groups apply themselves to differentfocal areas using a variety of methods. Each one of the groups has come up withinteresting results with regard to their particular focal areas but has, at the same time,revealed extensive blind spots.18Only very recently have the attempts to explore thesubject domain systematically and to forge connections between differentapproaches, become more numerous.

The state of research may, therefore, be summarised as follows: the subject domaincharacter can be broken up into at least seven complexes of questions, i.e. the

17Among the cognitive theories I also count the investigation of characters as constituents of fictitiousworlds (e.g. Ryan 1992; for a survey see Surkamp 2002) and approaches within the neurosciencesand empirical communication studies (e.g. Bryant / Zillmann 1991).18The hermeneutical approaches have devoted themselves to the relations between characters andculture without, however, really clarifying the proper basis required for this undertaking. Thestructuralist positions provide a set of instruments for the textual construction of characters but neglectthe aspect of reception and, furthermore, tend to reduce characters to only a few domains of ratherabstract properties. Psychoanalytical and cognitive approaches both foreground reception andcharacters-psyche in their different ways, but they often still remain too inexact with regard to theirinstruments for the analysis of structures. Besides, they exhibit a complementary blind spot in their

way of modelling reception. The cognitive theories have not yet developed a differentiated set ofinstruments that would be suitable to capture the sphere of social structures of affect, of desire, and ofdaydreams. The psychoanalysts, by contrast, confine the broad field of the processes ofunderstanding and experiencing too rigorously to this area only.


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definition, constitution, structure, interrelations, reception, cultural contexts, andtypologies of characters. These questions have so far neither been dealt with incombination nor in any systematic way. A number of different approaches thatdiverge considerably as to their basic theoretical assumptions and theirmethodologies, select different focal areas; noteworthy among these approaches are,

in particular, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and cognitive theories. Theconsequence: especially within the field of media studies, the theory of charactershas been split up into a disordered assortment of isolated pieces of knowledge,particularistic perspectives, and rival positions. In the German-speaking world thereexists to date not one single monograph whose topic would extend beyond the studyof some specific aspect. Hardly any of the current specialist dictionaries has aseparate entry for the keyword character.19In other linguistic areas and in literarystudies all-embracing investigations are certainly equally rare and divergent, butpioneering contributions to the theory of characters have been made in this fieldduring the last few years.20For this reason alone, it is highly advisable to deal withthe theory of characters from an international and interdisciplinary perspective right

from the start.The extant problematical situation of research is essentially the effect of four differentcauses: the apparent self-evidence of the character; the factual complexity of thesubject matter, i.e. character; the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach; and theambivalence of the very concept of character. To many it has seemed unnecessaryto occupy themselves with characters by way of theory because of the pervasivefeeling that characters are, as it were, self-explanatory and that any kind of theorycould, therefore, produce nothing but trivia. In what follows, however, I shall be ableto show with greater precision than before that ordinary intuition is insufficient totackle the forms and effects of characters and to achieve mutual understanding with

regard to differing conceptions of characters. The fact is, much to the contrary, thatthe subject to be investigated, namely character, is of extraordinary multifacetedcomplexity, and that most of its aspects demand an interdisciplinary approach.Questions, for instance, of the definition, textual construction, and reception ofcharacters can only be answered properly by taking recourse to philosophy,semiotics, and psychology. If one intends to focus on the connections betweencharacter and culture or on structural models of personality and bodyhood, then theresulting problems are even more disturbing: as characters cover the domain of therepresentation of human beings, all the scholarly fields that study human beings mayclaim to be relevant fields of competence.21The essential questions faced by humanbeings revolve around human beings, and characters as images and effigies of

human beings inherit a good deal of these questions. But the spectrum of charactersincludes not only humanlike characters but also zoomorphic and artificial characters:

19Thus there is no entry on character in many otherwise useful lexicons like Rainer RothersSachlexikon Film(1997), Reclams Sachlexikon des Films(2002) edited by Thomas Koeber, or MetzlerLexikon Medienwissenschaft(Schanze 2002). In the (Internet-) Lexikon der Filmbegriffeedited byHans J. Wulff and Theo Bender, there are several entries that are products of the present work (Wulff /Bender 2003). Even in the most widespread English-language specialist lexicons (e.g. Hayward 1996)there are no entries for character.20Among the comprehensive conceptions of the study of film, Smith 1995 and Tomasi 1988 must beconsidered outstanding; for French work cf. the survey given by Blher 1999. For the study ofliterature, Koch 1991, Nieragden 1995, Schneider 2000, and Jannidis 2004 may be mentioned.

Lexicon entries treating the literary notion of character may be found, for instance, in the MetzlerLexikon Literatur- and Kulturtheorie (Jannidis 1998) and in the Reallexikon zur deutschenLiteraturwissenschaft(Platz-Waury 1997).21On these problems cf. further Frow 1986.


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animals, cyborgs, monsters, creatures inhabiting the border areas of what isconsidered possible and areas beyond these borders. Besides, characters do notonly serve to represent human realities as they are at some given time, they alsoserve to project alternatives and to explore the spheres of the potentially conceivable.For a theory of characters, therefore, the unavoidable question poses itself: To what

extent and purpose can and should one, when attempting to describe characters, fallback on other fields of study like psychology or sociology? How can one present allthe detailed aspects of the character in their systematic interrelations and stillsensibly handle the inevitably emerging thematic and disciplinary complexity?

These central problems of the subject domain are intimately associated with equallyfundamental problems of methodology. On the one hand, it is only too well knownthat an interdisciplinary approach courts the dangers of theoretical inconsistency,superficiality, and tedious clumsiness. On the other hand, the notion of charactercharacteristically involves ontological and methodological ambivalence:22charactersstand in a close mimetic relation to human beings but also in a close genetic relation

to texts. Fictitious characters are in many respects perceived in analogy to realpersons; the pre-theoretical treatment of characters follows human-relatedassociations, standards of judgment, folk-psychological explanations etc., oftenwithout adequately taking into account the differences between fictitious charactersand real persons. In extreme cases this may lead to aberrations of para-socialinteraction: Fans write letters to the residents of Coronation Street. In contrast to realbeings, however, characters come up as the products of dealing with artefacts, asproducts of watching films, reading, going to the theatre. They are created by humancommunication, constituted through signs and texts, and they are subject to aneigenlogic which can deviate from the laws of reality in many ways.

What, then, are characters fictitious human beings or nodal points in texts? This

ontological question is of fundamental consequence for the methodological problemof character-analysis: How are we to deal with characters are we to analyse thempsychologically like human beings and to judge them morally likewise, or are we todissect them like texts by their formal structures, by their make-up? Is Hamletmerely a proper name to which properties are added through textual utterances, orcan one meaningfully query whether he really loved Ophelia?

For a long time, rival character-theories have uncompromisingly opposed each otherwith regard to this question.23In the meantime, however, the insight has been gainingground that the consequences of a methodological polarisation are bound to be fatalin any event. If one considers characters as mere textual functions and therefore

concentrates on the means of their construction, then questions of content, for

22The formulation is borrowed from Frow 1986: 227.23Cf. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan: Whereas in mimetic theories (i.e. theories which consider literatureas, in some sense, an imitation of reality) characters are equated with people, in semiotic theories theydissolve into textuality (Rimmon-Kenan 61996: 33). The debate between these theories is much olderand still continues undiminished today. In 1965 already, W.J. Harvey distinguished the autonomy-theory which considers works of art as self-sufficient artefacts and insists on a primarily formalanalysis (Susan Sontags Essay Against Interpretation may serve as an example here), and themimesis-theory which considers the relation between the work of art and the world to be central(Harvey 31970: 11ff.). The mimesis-theory has been dmod for a long time. Structuralist conceptionswhich might be taken to be variants of the autonomy-theory have dominated the discussion. As they

defined the character as a mere referential network of textual signs, blocked out its reference to theworld, and put an ever increasing distance between themselves and the experience of the normalreader and the normal viewer, they ultimately brought all character-research to a standstill(Jannidis 2000: 4; cf. further Michaels 1998: xiii f.).


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instance of the image of humanity, of the transfer of values, and of the emotionalinvolvement, are lost sight of. Conversely, the aesthetic strategies in the formation ofcharacters as well as the deep-seated differences between characters and personsare ignored if characters are seen merely as the mimetic analogues of real personsand if they are treated like genuine human beings in the analysis. The question is,

therefore, how one can connect the different theoretical positions in such a way as todo adequate justice to the diverse aspects of characters.

1.4 The structure of the book

Theories are complex answers to complicated questions. In the given case, theguiding question runs: How can the analysis of characters in films be improved? Thebook is, therefore, decidedly geared towards the practice of analysis. It is designed tohelp with the more accurate perception of characters, the recognition of character-related textual strategies, and the understanding of the involvement of viewers. Inaddition, the assessment of the socio-cultural effects of films might in this way bemade more successful and aesthetic practice might derive profitable stimulation.These goals could be best achieved by means of an integrative project. As theopinions concerning characters are, however, so immensely divided, all too often theunavoidable labour of reasoned justification will be enormous. What seems to beself-evident for one side, is considered totally wrong for another. The very claim thatthe book is designed to be practice-oriented makes it inevitable to work through arelatively large body of theoretical reflections. The book will, therefore, not be easyreading but I sincerely hope that it will prove worthwhile in the end.

The structure of the book will try to account for the different interests of readers in thefollowing way. Most chapters target the development of concrete categories of

character-analysis, which will be collected together at the end in the form ofquestions to guide the analysis, and which can in this way be directly applied. Otherchapters will concentrate on the theoretical groundwork. They have been markedwith a (T) to enable less theory-bent readers to bypass them. Their most importantresults will be condensed in the form of diagrams in order to facilitate finding themagain, and they will also be repeated in reduced form at the beginning of the chaptersdealing with practical analysis. Readers may also, if they so wish, start with thesummary contained in the last chapter and then read those sections which are of thegreatest interest. The index will then certainly be helpful.

The 14 chapters of the book have been assembled in seven parts. The first part lays

the theoretical foundation. Since the time of Aristotle, an intensive debate on thephenomenon character has been going on, which has produced extremelydiffering positions (chapter 2). In order to integrate the dispersed and controversialresearch results into a consistent overall scheme, the disputed issue must first beclarified, i.e. what characters actually are, how they originate and how they areexperienced (chapter 3). There is much to be said for the idea that characters arebest conceived of as recognisable fictitious beings, which are construed throughcommunication and are, consequently, given intersubjectively. How we perceive andexperience characters may be described in accordance with cognitive psychology bymeans of a four-level model of character reception, which entails far-reachingconsequences for the analysis.

Building on this foundation, a general heuristics of analysis, the clock of character,is proposed in the short but central part II of the book (chapter 4). This basic schemadistinguishes four aspects that may be considered in the analysis: characters are,


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firstly, inhabitants of a fictitious world; secondly, artefacts of a particular mould;thirdly, symbols conveying meanings and themes; and fourthly, symptoms permittinginferences about their production and reception, causes and effects. In each one ofthese cases, characters are embedded into specific contexts and trigger particularkinds of feelings. And each one of these four aspects can most strongly attract the

attention of viewers to itself and thus become especially relevant to the analysis.The general basic model of the clock serves as the switching point; thesubsequent parts differentiate its four areas into more detailed categories. In part IIIthe character is, first of all, treated as a fictitious being: How are fictitious beingsperceived and understood, and how can one analyse them? My view here is that weexperience characters in many ways like real persons in that we create theirimagined personalities during the process of viewing the film (chapter 5). Thedevelopment of such mental models of characters is based on mental dispositions in addition to the information supplied by the film , which are in part derived fromthe world of everyday life (folk-psychology, for instance), but which are in part also

specific to the media (a knowledge of genres, for instance). The influence o

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Characters Theory

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