Film Characters: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation

Film Characters: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation
[English outline of the German monograph:

Jens Eder: Die Figur im Film. Grundlagen der Figurenanalyse. Marburg: Schren
2008]

I. General information
II. Table of contents
III. Introductory chapter

I. General information
Content: 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 notably
absent. It is, therefore, the aim of this book to integrate findings from various
approaches into a general model for understanding, analysing and interpreting
characters. According to this model, characters have four interconnected aspects.
Firstly, they are fictitious beings with physical, mental, and social properties and
relations. Secondly, they are artefacts with aesthetic structures, created by devices of
certain media like film. Thirdly, they are symbols conveying higher, more abstract
layers of meanings and themes. And finally, they are symptoms indicating socio-
cultural circumstances of their production and reception. Drawing on research from
film and literary studies, narratology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology, the book
offers conceptual tools for analysing each of these four aspects in detail and for
understanding our perceptual, cognitive and affective reactions to characters. The
analytical concepts are highlighted by many examples from the mainstream as well
as 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 the
product of nine years work. Starting out from my experiences as a script editor and
academic 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, Joan
Kristin Bleicher). The following years, as an associate professor, I completely rewrote
and expanded the book which came out in 2008.

Film Characters, Jens Eder 2008
2
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 Psychoanalytical
theories - 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 they
experienced? (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 domain
character

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 artefacts and 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

3
PART III: CHARACTERS AS FICTITIOUS BEINGS
5. Understanding fictitious beings: mental models of characters and their
development (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 - 5.1.3
Processes 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 and
typification - 5.2.4 Folk-psychology and the inner life - 5.2.5 Personality - 5.2.6 Behaviour and
action - 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 and
spatial behaviour - 6.2.4 Speech and paralinguistic behaviour - 6.2.5 Situative contexts of the
environment - 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 different
cultures and periods of history - 6.4.3 Contemporary models of mind and personality - 6.4.4
The 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 of
characterisation and their analysis - 7.1.3 The interrelation of characterisation devices: two
exemplary 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 of
characterisation
7.3. Questions guiding the analysis of characterisation

4
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 - 8.1.3
Complexity, consistency, and further artefact-properties
8.2 Conceptions of character as guiding ideas for the representation of human beings
8.2.1 Mainstream realism - 8.2.2 Independent realism - 8.2.3 Postmodernism - 8.2.4
Stylisation and making strange
8.3. Sensuality, dramaturgy, and structures of characters the 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 to
reality, 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

5
PART VII: CHARACTERS AND VIEWERS. IMAGINATIVE CLOSENESS AND EMOTIONAL
ENGAGEMENT
12. The perspective of engagement: Imaginative closeness and distance (30,000
words)
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 and
relations between perspectives
12.3 Perspective on and with characters
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 film
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 beings
13.3 Perspectival appraisal and the forms of engagement
13.3.1 Appraisal of characters by intersubjective values - 13.3.2 Appraisal of characters by
subjective interests - 13.3.3 Forms of empathy and identification - 13.3.4 Situation-related
feelings: 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 14.1.4
Symbols and Symptoms 14.1.5 Imaginative and emotional engagement
14.2. A last example: DEATH AND THE MAIDEN
14.3 General questions guiding character analysis

FILMOGRAPHY / BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
6
III. Introductory chapter
In a world whose population keeps growing at a constant rate, in which we are living
ever more tightly packed and in which our contacts keep multiplying due to technical
means of communication and ever-increasing mobility in this shrinking, globalised
world there is an explosion in the numbers of invented beings that we busy ourselves
with. Parallel to real population growth, there is a growth of the fictitious population in
our media, in our thoughts, dreams and ideas. Fictitious characters, products of the
human power of imagination, are everywhere, and as long as they are not forgotten
they will never die.
Some expressions we use to talk about them relate primarily to the human capacity
to 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 that
shape (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
References
to human creativity and to the figure-ground-phenomenon are, in fact, the only
essential features which all these meanings share with each other and with the
subject of this book. The considerations that follow will concentrate on figures as
invented beings on 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 of
a human beings individual personality (cf. Gemoll 1954: 800). So, the terms figure
as well as character connect the human ability to shape forms with the
representation of inner life or personality traits, and that is even more the case with
expressions like personnage in French or personaggio in Italian. This
connection between the representation of minds and the creation of perceptible
forms will be one central focus of this book: It will examine fictitious characters as
products of fictional communication.
The cultural significance of characters can hardly be overestimated. They serve
individual and collective self-understanding, the mediation of images of humanity, of
concepts of identity and social role; they serve imaginary exploratory action, the
actualisation of alternative modes of being, the development of empathic capabilities,
entertainment purposes and emotional stimulation. Humans are probably the only
animals capable of inventing artificial worlds, from the childrens role-playing to the
production of complex media texts like plays, novels and feature films.
2
As humans
do not only possess imaginative faculties but also exist as social beings, they tend to
direct their attention primarily towards those represented entities to which they are
able to ascribe processes of consciousness and the ability to act: characters. The

1
The expression character, from MHG. fig(i)re, goes back via OF. character to Lat. figura shape,
derived meaningfully like fiction from fingere shape (cf. Platz-Waury 1997: 587). For its
multiplicity of meaning cf. Wikipedia, http: / / de.wikipedia.org / wiki / Character (Download 27.8.2006);
also Brandstetter / Peters 2002.
2
By 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
3
2001: 2325). Compared with the alternative concept of media offer,
the expanded text concept has the advantage to comprise additionally those semiotic utterances
which are not mediated by technical mass media. The connections between different kinds of semiotic
utterances (film, literature, ordinary language) are thus made more transparent.
7
stories of fictional narratives have always been stories of somebody, their actions
presuppose agents.
3

Thus characters of the most diverse kinds are at the centre of feature films Rick
Blaine or Antoine Doinel, Sissi or Tank Girl, Lassie, the Alien or HAL. They form
centres of identification or points for the crystallisation of feelings, function as
paragons or deterrent examples, mediate new perspectives or confirm old prejudices.
The characters of big blockbusters remain omnipresent for a long time and may
evolve into mythical figures; the provoking or enigmatic characters of independent
cinema may leave an indelible stamp. Characters are a central factor for the
understanding and experiencing, for the aesthetics and the rhetoric of films. They
decisively contribute to their emotionality, thematics, and ideology.
For this reason, characters are important points of reference in the criticism and the
analysis of films and also occupy a central position in the production process: film
scripts are rejected because one cannot identify oneself with the characters, or they
are 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 cast
and staged with enormous expenditure. A considerable number of characters are
detached from their singular film narratives and spread intermedially. They are
transferred to sequels or remakes and moved from one medium to another: from
comic to film (DICK TRACY), from film to the theatre (DAS URTEIL) or to computer
games (Alien vs. Predator), from literature to film (more than half of all the Oscars
ever won) and vice versa (the Indiana-Jones-novels). Film characters confront the
viewer in dreams and trailers, as cardboard figures for advertisements, as plastic
figurines in merchandising, and as camouflaged contemporaries at cult-film
showings. Characters are, therefore, of decisive importance for the experience and
the remembrance of films; for effects on the thoughts, the feelings, and the
behaviours of viewers; for film analysis and film criticism; for the practice of
production and marketing. The fact that they can travel intermedially has helped
popular characters like James Bond to achieve a cultural presence reaching far
beyond the actual films themselves and has, furthermore, enabled these characters
to develop a media-independent life of their own in the collective memory (cf. Hgel
1999).
Despite all the productive hermeneutical contributions, theory as well as analysis
have so far done less than justice to the real importance of the character. In the
analysis, characters are often examined in a purely intuitive and unmethodical way or
reduced to their function in the films plot. In addition, the theoretical treatment of
characters fractions their object like a prism into disconnected partial domains: the
discussion is concerned with roles of action, the presentation of particular social
groups (e.g. with regard to stereotyping and discrimination), the performance of
actors and stars, or with phenomena of identification and empathy. What is lacking,
however, is a comprehensive perspective, an heuristics and an argumentative
infrastructure, in brief: a general theoretical foundation. That it is impossible to work
successfully without such a foundation is made abundantly clear by the explicit
specification of the purpose and the relationship between the analysis of characters
and the theory of characters.

3
By 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 Eder
1999: 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 ascribed
some form of consciousness, will be made more precise in the following chapter.
8
It is, therefore, the aim of this book to bring together findings from different domains
in order to design a systematic underpinning for the analysis of characters. At the
centre of this design is the anthropomorphic figure of the feature film and of other
non-interactive, audiovisual moving-images media. A good deal of the reflections do
indeed 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 characters
in non-narrative texts, e.g. avatars in coaching CD-ROMs. Some of it may also be
relevant to the presentation of real persons in documentary films and television
programmes. Such an attempt to gain a kind of general survey is rather unpopular in
this day and age of specialisation and differentiation; it is even risky in view of a field
that is practically impossible to survey. But the idea here is not to build a Grand
Theory with a claim to eternal validity but to create a provisional foundation for
discussion that is basically open and modular in its structures. The specific sort of
mediality of the character in film will play an important but not the main role. There is
an established tradition of both comprehensive and highly differentiated work on the
media-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 conform
with particular other discourses and theories. It proved practically impossible to adopt
directly some established terminology, I was much rather forced to try to fit the
language games and concepts of different approaches together and to carry out
corresponding modifications. It may, therefore, be initially irritating to read, for
instance, that I am taking recourse to the cognitive sciences but continue to use the
semiotic concept text in dealing with film. It was, furthermore, impossible to
completely avoid insufficiently explicated presuppositions as well as repetitions and
conceptual ambiguities. I do hope that the result will, on closer examination,
nonetheless remain convincing. Concepts that elude immediate comprehension
should become comprehensible with the help of the index and the appropriate
chapters.
The book is intended for different types of readers. Some of them will probably be
more interested in practical analysis, some possibly more in the theory. I have been
trying to meet these expectations by structuring the book accordingly and by
continually including helpful hints the nature of which will be explained in detail at the
end of this introduction. But before that certain fundamental presuppositions have to
be elucidated: What is the purpose of the analysis of characters, anyway? How can
theories help with such an analysis? What is the present state of these theories? It
must, consequently, first be shown that the focus on characters can be productive for
the analysis of films. It is not at all self-evident that this will be so because characters
have so far often been treated only in a casual way or intuitively; the attention has
generally been on genres, narrative perspectives, and especially on action. Should
characters, therefore, be preferably examined within the broader context of action or
do 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 of
literature, theatre and film, which for a long time had pitted character and action
9
against each other, generally preferring action and neglecting character. In
structuralism and in so-called actant-models characters are reduced to their bare
functions 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 less
exclusively on situation, conflict and interaction. If, however, such perspectives of
analysis are not supplemented by others that put characters at the centre, then
essential aspects of a narrative vanish from vision: properties of characters, which
are independent of the action, are suppressed and the understanding and
experiencing of the viewers that is usually strongly directed by characters is modelled
in a distorted manner. The action is experienced by characters (Stckrath 1992) and
can be re-enacted by recipients via adopting a characters perspective by way of
simulation and empathy (cf. Grodal 2001). Especially in the cinema, the character
has a sort of physical autonomy that makes every action appear subordinated to its
precedent existence (Bordwell 1992: 13). And it is not only the processes of the
participant co-experience with characters, but also the moral and thematic discourse
of 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 that
action 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 clarity
as to what is meant by action. From a broader to an increasingly narrow
understanding, the concept may be understood to mean:
1. the total framework of events of a narrative including those events which are not
triggered 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. the
event of a sunrise that is perceptible only to the viewers;
2. the behaviour of characters in its totality and its consequences as well as the
mental processes of the characters;
3. the intentional behaviour of characters, their talking and doing; and finally
4. the bodily actions of the characters excluding their speech acts; epitomised in the
stipulation put forward by many scriptwriting manuals that a story be told through
action and not through dialogue.
Although the behaviour of characters in the senses (2) to (4) does not cover a
narratives action as comprehensively as is entailed by sense (1), it will usually
encompass its essential parts: stories are always stories about somebody and 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 any
kind of action, for instance in the form of portraits, descriptions or sculptures. Even in
temporal media like film some of the minor characters are characterised without their
own proper actions, for instance by a kind of physiognomy that is selected to indicate
their 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 of
crucial interest. The concentration on this core area requires that the dispute about
the primacy of action or character be correlated with specific points of view (cf. Pfister
1988: 220; Rimmon-Kenan: 3436). From a structural point of view the question of
primacy 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
10
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 so
fundamentally as freedom and necessity like 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. (
2
1974: 229)

Since some (post-)structuralists would no doubt protest against any claim that no
story can exist without a self, I shall formulate it less poetically: action at least in
the sense of characters behaviour for purely conceptual reasons alone
presupposes an agent. The concept of action implies the concept of an acting
subject. In addition, many descriptions of action can only be realised with the help of
assumptions regarding the motives of agents (somebody kills someone else was it
premeditated murder or a case of manslaughter?). Characters, on the other
hand, can essentially be represented without action; but in such cases we are not
dealing with a narrative because a narrative must include changes of state that are
intentionally induced. Narratives, therefore, logically demand both character and
action (cf. Chatman 1978: 112f.).
4

With regard to two aspects that are less fundamental than the structural one, a
primacy of character over action may be claimed, although this question cannot yet
be 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 of
films and other texts, the answer depends on the particular cognitive interests of the
investigating analysts. From the perspective of an aesthetics of production and effect
i.e. in relation to questions of whether characters or actions are of prime
importance 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 and
more space for representation is given to events, whereas character-oriented films
like DER TOTMACHER primarily explore the traits of their protagonists. There may be
cases in which neither characters nor actions occupy the foreground but rather the
nature of the construction of the process of narration, on the one hand, and the
process of reception, on the other (LANNE DERNIRE MARIENBAD).
The tradition of plot-oriented positions originally stems from the domain of drama
although opinions differ here too (Pfister, for example, cites Goethes Rede zum
Schkespears Tag; 1988: 220). Against this background, Aristotles well-known
Poetics-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-oriented
tragedies. When Aristotle speaks of mythos he is referring to action in the most
comprehensive sense, i.e. to the structured sequence of events in a text, which
would be called story, plot or sujet in contemporary discourse (cf. Martinez /
Scheffel 1999: 25f.; Eder 1999: 1015). With regard to the character, Aristotle
distinguishes between the character as agent (pratton; i.e. a precursor of the
structuralist actant) and the characters moral personality traits (ethos). For the
action of a drama his thesis runs we do indeed need agents but no exact

4
The dialectical relatedness of the categories is also made clear by Manfred Pfister, who defines
action in the sense of (2) as change of situation and understands situation as the set of relations
holding between characters, on the one hand, and between characters and a material or immaterial
context, on the other (Pfister 1988: 220).
11
portrayal of their personality for its own sake. In this sense, the plot for Aristotle
assumes priority over the depiction of the characters (Aristotle 1982: 21).
A plot-oriented position in the aesthetics of production is, moreover, expressed by the
principle of dramaturgical necessity, which is still advocated by many contemporary
scriptwriting manuals. It is prescribed there that all those elements of a narrative be
scrapped 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 be
derivable and understandable from the interplay of the characters properties and
given situations (Egri
2
1960: 58f.). Like Henry James, but with different intention, the
American Script Consultant Robert McKee formulates: We cannot ask which is
more important, structure or character, because structure is character; character is
structure (McKee 1997: 100). The true moral personality of a character, McKee
claims, shows itself only in the decisions which the character makes when under
pressure 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 perceived
properties: the sum of all observable qualities of a human being, everything
knowable through careful scrutiny: age and IQ; sex and sexuality; [..] (McKee 1997:
100). Consequently, the essential core of the personality of a character is determined
by its actions, it possesses, however, further properties that reach beyond these
actions.
The principle of dramaturgical necessity, however, has no general validity. It is valid
only for certain modes of narration; and even there its validity is limited. In reality it
merely represents a sort of rule of thumb that indicates tendencies of the process of
production: in the creative process, characters frequently appear to expand, to
encroach upon an ever wider space disproportionate to their function in the action,
and this expansive tendency which, in fact, endorses the imaginative importance of
characters! must then be counteracted in order to safeguard the composition and
the specific purposes of the text (e.g. entertainment). Thus, from the point of view of
an aesthetics of production and effect, the primacy of action or character can only be
formulated normatively against the background of culturally and historically
contingent, partly also media-specific, projected effects (e.g. serving objectives of
entertainment vs. the better understanding of human nature and behaviour). For
many 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 a
deserted world deprived of minds there can be no destiny and no history. Only with
humans can freedom and world unfold with their twofold attraction. This self lends so
much 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
2
1974: 230)

If, however, the primacy of action or characters does indeed depend on contingent
intended effects, the most promising point of departure would generally seem to be
that there are definitely plot-oriented media offers, on the one hand, but that there are
also definitely character-oriented ones, on the other.
Moreover, the relationship between character and action can be described in still
greater detail with reference to the typical features of different media and narrative
processes. 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 such
and 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 linguistic
description. On the level of the representational structure of linguistic narratives it is
12
even possible to circumvent all direct reference to characters, for instance by using
nominalizations and passive constructions instead of proper names, pronouns and
descriptions. The action of Les liaisons dangereuses might thus be rendered as A
series of unscrupulous seductions leads to an unhappy love affair, a fatal duel and a
disastrous 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 long
run, a feature film has really hardly any options to exclude the acting characters in a
comparable manner. It is essentially possible in dialogues, in the voice-over and in
bridging title links, but not really on the visual plane. Obviously, a film about crime
may be started off by showing an act of murder without identifiable perpetrator and
victim: all that can be seen is a thrusting hand, a shadow crashing down, a lighter
and some object enveloped by flames. But to call a film like the Japanese
experimental film LOVE, which shows only parts of human bodies (belonging to a
loving couple) and never something like a recognisable character, a narrative or a
feature film, seems to me unacceptable.
If film characters are represented by images and sound, they not only serve some
action but independently exhibit a powerfully expressive bodyhood and performative
presence. Images, furthermore, reveal numerous action-independent properties that
distinguish characters from each other with regard to many relevant aspects, even
though the characters roles in actions may remain the same: they may appear old or
young, ugly or beautiful, or may execute their parts skilfully or awkwardly. Such
changes in characters can change the action itself. It will certainly make a difference
to the degree of involvement of the viewers and the plausibility of the story that a part
is filled by John Goodman or Leonardo DiCaprio. Naturally, the quality of the detailed
presentation of an action is of significance but even a minimal external
characterisation will make viewers infer additional properties of the performing
characters from their actions, which may not be directly connected with these actions
themselves. In character studies, in comparative assessments of motivation, or in
body-centred genres (like pornographic films) the viewers interests are often
specifically concentrated on such features of characters.
In brief: The assertion of the systematic primacy of the action over the character is
unwarranted, in any case. The representation of characters is not fundamentally
dependent on their representation in actions, whereas in narratives the two are
interdependent. However, many properties of characters extend beyond their actions,
and the question of whether characters or actions are of greater significance from the
perspective of an aesthetics of production or reception, cannot be answered in a
wholesale fashion. There are still further arguments to support the necessity and
independence of character-analysis. Characters can, for instance, be remembered
independently, and are often remembered better than their actions. Popular
characters like James Bond are transferable intertextually and intermedially and
detachable from particular plots, and the star images and role biographies of actors,
for example of Marilyn Monroe or John Wayne, are closely connected with specific
characters (cf. Dyer
2
1999; Lowry / Korte 2000). Finally, characters remain temporally
present far longer than their diverse actions: they occupy positions in character-
constellations that continue to exist beyond particular situations, they possess
abilities and traits that are independent of any particular action, and they trigger
permanent attitudes in viewers (e.g. sympathy).
These are all good reasons for devoting more attention to characters in the analysis
and 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
13
as such intuitively in the practice of analysis. As will become clear, this analysis
cannot be restricted to the different kinds of characters themselves but will naturally
include all the relevant character-related aspects of both fictional texts and processes
of reception and communication. But what purposes is character-analysis actually
supposed to serve?

1.2 Why character-analysis?
Characters may turn into enigmas for viewers in manifold ways. Enigmatic enough
already are questions like: Why are we able to treat a series of textual signs like a
living person (Jannidis 2000: 5)? And: What is it that makes certain characters
appear so unproblematically comprehensible?
Not all characters, however, are easy to understand: Why does Ben in LEAVING LAS
VEGAS drink himself to death, why does Alain Leroy shoot himself dead in LE FEU
FOLLET, why does Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER kill others in a murderous rage? The
lack of explicit explanations in films is a challenge to seek out the motives and the
personalities of such characters, to explore their innermost lives. Surrealistic films
like LGE DOR or narrative experiments like LANNE DERNIRE MARIENBAD go even
further than this and not only refuse any kind of psychological explanation but,
moreover, fundamentally doubt the identity of their characters, irritate narrative
conventions and images of humanity . It is one of the essential functions among
many others of fictional media offers and their characters that they propose strange,
alternative modes of being and novel perspectives on human beings and other
creatures; and these modes of being and perspectives often do not become
intelligible at the first glance.
As characters are thus of such central importance to the reception and interpretation
of entire texts, they may not only offer enigmas but also trigger controversies. Can
and should one feel compassion for the gutter philosopher and rapist Johnny in
NAKED or for the boxer Jake La Motta in RAGING BULL? Does one like the heroines in
Rosamunde-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 their
characters are sympathetic and realistic but the producers insist on revisions.
The most impassioned character-related conflicts are commonly stirred up by
questions of whether certain characters convey distorted images of humanity,
whether characters are exploited as ideological Instruments, or whether they
disparage 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 in
his propagandistic historical film JUD SSS. The indictment against him ran: crimes
against humanity and psychological assistance to the Holocaust. A somewhat less
drastic example: Nowadays the extraterrestrials in STAR WARS THE PHANTOM
MENACE strike some critics as disguised racist stereotypes.
5
In order to settle such
conflicts and unravel the enigma of a character, precise and reproducible analyses of
each character are indispensable. Such analyses are carried out under the most
diverse 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 particular

5
Cf. the docu-drama JUD SSS EIN FILM AS VERBRECHEN? By Horst Knigstein and Joachim Lange,
NDR 2001. For STAR WARS THE PHANTOM MENACE see e.g. Hubbard 2003.
14
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 their
characters.
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, the
enigmatic behaviour of such and such a character be explained? What are the
means and the strategies with the help of which the character in question is
fashioned, and what does it contribute to the meaning of the film? In this context, it is
generally the multi-layered characters and films that stand out as works of art.
7

3. Socio-cultural analyses concern themselves with the representation of humankind
in general or of particular social groups as they are determined by sex, age,
ethnicity, economy, occupation etc. and examine the communicative power and the
impact of the representation: In what ways are women and men, blacks and
whites, labourers and doctors represented in the film? What is the significance of
the appearance of clones in contemporary cinema? In most cases, the analyses
focus on certain types of characters, but individual characters (e.g. Lara Croft) or
special aspects of characters (the personality, the body; the Evil, the Beautiful) may
also be the object of culture-theoretical considerations. Here it is usually popular and
highly influential films and characters that are dealt with.
8

These three focal points of character-analysis practical dramaturgy, film
interpretation, and socio-cultural analysis are often connected with value
judgments: characters are evaluated according to their dramaturgical suitability, their
artistic perfection, or their societal impact. Frequently, a historical perspective
enlarges the analysis with a diachronic and intertextual dimension: How can I as a
scriptwriter 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 women
developed in the cinema of Hollywood?
In the analysis of characters, the concentration is thus on particular figures in
concrete films, or on specific types and aspects of characters. The process of
analysis, as a rule, follows certain steps: one watches the film or reads the script
several times, concentrates on the aspects relating to characters and supplements
the resulting impressions with additional information, e.g. about viewers or historical
contexts. On this basis, one formulates statements about the characters and those
aspects of the film which are relevant to them (perhaps adding a demonstration of

6
Such dramaturgical analyses, which have their ancestry in Aristotles Poetics, are documented, on
the 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 on
the other hand in the corresponding advisory literature (e.g. Seger 1990, Kress 1998).
7
In such cases, the analysis of particular characters is usually part of the interpretation of films, which
may be encountered in viewers conversations, newspaper reviews, auteur-monographs, genre-
surveys, or other related publications.
8
The bandwidth of approaches extends from the empirical procedures within communication studies
(e.g. Nitsche 2000, further information in Bonfadelli 2003: 87f.) to hermeneutical-interpretative
methodologies (e.g. Hinauer / Klein 2002 on the representation of masculinity). A survey of modes of
representing 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 not
quote a detailed selection but only the reference to the bibliography created by the library of the
university at Berkeley, which contains several hundred items (University of California Berkeley Library
2003).
15
selected scenes or images).
9
When questioned, these statements should be capable
of rational justification because such an analysis can serve the exchange of
controversial views, eliminate misunderstandings, and render different reactions of
viewers comprehensible.
The process of analysis, therefore, includes typical tasks and problems. The question
arises how to select relevant observations and relevant information (heuristics), how
to express these observations in a linguistically adequate way (categorisation,
conversion into language, reduction of complexity), and what kind of justification
would be accepted as valid for character-analytical assertions. The analysis requires
the simplification of what is too complex and the linguistic representation of what is
non-linguistic; both operations presuppose categories for the description of at least
three domains: the text, the represented (human) beings, and the reception by
viewers. A special requirement with regard to film is the identification of properties
which 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 greatest
relevance, because what we call descriptions, are instruments for particular
applications (Wittgenstein 1989: 372f.). For these reasons we produce different
descriptions of characters for different purposes. Film titles often announce the
protagonists of films in the form of brief characterisations (e.g. DER WINDHUND UND
DIE LADY); and film criticism, reviews, serial bibles, contain plenty of descriptions of
characters. Seth Godins Encyclopedia of Fictional People (1996) is made up
exclusively of brief characterisations, for instance:
Lund, Ilsa: An almost ethereal presence whose courage, beauty, and romantic allure
capture the hearts of many men. Loyal wife to freedom fighter Victor Laszlo, though she
was once involved with Rick Blaine [..]. (Godin 1996: 176)

The reconstruction of star images in film studies derives generalisations from the
characters embodied by the stars, e.g. in the case of Hanna Schygulla, the image of
the Marilyn of Suburbia:
For one, the part shows a character dependent on the male, preoccupied with external
appearance, 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 of
happiness, and that embodies the principle of longing desire [..]. (Lowry / Korte 2000:
225)

Characterisations of this sort are the result of processes conditioned by a double
interpretation: 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, such
conversion being necessarily dependent upon categorisation, weighting, selection,
semantic reduction, metaphor and imaginative compression. The accurate
description of a character requires an artists skill. The essential point is to find the
key to the character, to establish properties which are particularly important and
imply further properties. The system of properties making up the character is nearly
always of greater complexity. The brief instances quoted above strikingly
demonstrate that only a small number of property domains is actually taken into
consideration. For llsa Lund from CASABLANCA, for instance, the domains of external

9
Frequently, 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 he
is played by Bogart and unites integrity with elegance).
16
appearance, of moral character, of basic emotional attitudes, and finally of important
social relations are touched upon, whereas other property domains are not
mentioned at all (e.g. age, intelligence, abilities).
What those properties are that possess enough relevance to be included in the
description of a character, seems to depend on numerous different factors. One of
the most important criteria will certainly be the intensity of the performance of
characters in the text, e.g. whether characters act in ways that suggest particular
properties, whether characters are introduced with these features, whether the
sequences in question have been styled in a particularly impressive way and are
made to stand out by means of contrasts and analogies, whether the features keep
changing etc. Further criteria consist in the place characters hold in the larger
constellation of characters, in the theme of the film, and in the deviations of the film
from standards relating to reality or the medium itself.
Now, the analysis of characters does not only aim at relevant descriptions of
characters, it also represents, as a rule, a thick description in the sense of Gilbert
Ryle or Clifford Geertz (
5
1997: v.a. S. 715). A thin description limits itself to the
externally visible, bodily aspects of a culturally identifiable phenomenon such as the
external appearance or behaviour of human beings. A thick description, however,
offers an interpretation of this identifiable phenomenon that takes into account its
mental and social aspects, for instance its singular intentions or cultural contexts. In a
thin description one might, for example, state no more that that some persons rapidly
move their eyelids whereas in a thick description one would have to state explicitly
whether those movements consisted in involuntary twitching or in purposive blinking
with a special meaning. Thick descriptions are often shorter than thin ones: How
would 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, an
act 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 and
ordinary language. Proceeding, however, intuitively and by way of ordinary language
implies proceeding from ones very own mental presuppositions, and this may be
unsuitable for reaching particular goals. For the purpose of penetrating the
experience of other people, of making new observations or rigorously justifying some
thesis, a systematic, model-based approach and the application of a specialist
terminology may be essential prerequisites. We thus face a number of fundamental
questions with regard to the analysis of characters, questions which extend beyond
the single analysis and are, at the same time, presupposed by them: What belongs to
the object domain of this analysis? What are characters? How do they come into
existence? How can one justify assertions about them? How can they be thoroughly
and systematically examined? What categories, structural models and procedures
can one resort to? What are the presuppositions one can rely on? How does the
involvement of viewers come about?
Supplying answers to such questions is, at the same time, an essential task of the
theory of characters. As the saying goes, nothing is as practical as a good theory: it
provides the foundation for a systematic and transparent analysis. It helps its
heuristics by offering general descriptions of the structure of the object under
investigation and by thus singling out those aspects of a character which can and
should be investigated, in the first place. In this way, it defines central points of
relevance, draws attention to neglected aspects, and calls certain other areas into
17
question (should one analyse the mind of characters rather than the ways and means
by which it is represented?). The theory of characters clarifies methodological
questions and makes suggestions as to the means, categories and models (for
instance, semiotic or psychological ones) with which characters ought to be
analysed. The result of the clarification of the basic terms and forms of argumentation
is, finally, the argumentation-theoretical foundation of the analysis that makes clear
under what circumstances statements about characters will be accepted as correct
and with what kind of justification. The theory of characters thus places the analysis
of concrete characters on a precise conceptual and methodological footing, develops
categories and heuristics for the guidance of analysis, improves the methods of any
single analysis, links the results, and thus broadens its detail-oriented perspective. It
offers a logically consistent set of concepts, definitions and models [..], that can be
operationalised 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 of
general 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 cultural
variety of film creations at all amenable to description. The comprehension and the
interpretation of particular characters depend, to a high degree, on culturally,
historically and individually variable contexts, on images of humanity, conceptions of
personality, and conventions of representation. In a comprehensive theory of
characters, concrete characters are therefore similar to variables that are positioned
within the context of constant functions.
11
The general structures, conditional
frameworks and contexts of effects of the theory must be specified anew in every
single application to different films, kinds of films, epochs, genres and oeuvres. But
only a consistent theoretical basis can guarantee that the characteristic peculiarities
of each individual character are reliably apprehended, precisely described and
compared with other characters. It is, therefore, a fundamental requirement for all
forms of character-analysis: if they seek to go beyond mere intuition, if they seek to
be 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 contribution
to analysis; it is furthermore borne out by more abstract forms of knowledge. It is set
to deal with the probably most profound enigma offered by the character: the fact that
human beings treat fictitious characters like real beings in many respects, that they
try to understand their personalities and their actions, that they react to them

10
I have here transferred Stefan Webers concept of a basis theory to the domain of the theory of
characters (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 with
questions concerning the composition and the effects of media offers and their elements here: the
character. Such a poetics or basis theory of the character is not only the foundation of all analysis
but 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 of
the analysis of characters would be a sort of piecemeal theorising, i.e. the selection and assembly of
theoretical building blocks that would appear especially appropriate to the particular research task at
hand. Consequently, there would be no attempt to create a larger systematic framework. Even such
piecemeal theorising requires, however, minimal general control of the theoretical elements and their
interrelations that are available at all; there is, furthermore, the risk of argumentative gaps and
inconsistencies.
11
Harvey speaks of constitutive categories in this context (Harvey
3
1970: 23). Herbert Grabes
(1978) and Fotis Jannidis (2004) have argued convincingly that theories of characters must do
adequate justice to the historicity of characters.
18
emotionally and behaviourally to the point of sending messages to fictitious
television characters.
The prime ambition pursued by the present book is, however, to improve the analysis
of characters. The reason is that, so far, methodical procedures have barely been
developed here. Anybody who intends to investigate characters find themselves
forced to fall back on their intuitions. Most of the textbooks for film analysis still
consider characters as a rather marginal aspect and limit themselves to fragmentary
observations. None is able to offer a set of instruments that would even come
anywhere near the differentiated categories worked out for dealing with the structures
of 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 will
now 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 thousand
years, which encompasses an impressive spectrum of themes. In many respects,
however, the theory still remains stuck in its initial stages.
13
The short historical
summary given in the next chapter will make this clear.
14
In order to ascertain the
greatest gaps and problems of the theory of characters, it will be helpful to compare
the present state-of-affairs with an ideal state. What are the questions that a theory of
characters should deal with, and what standards of quality should it meet?

Seven
successive steps in the construction of an appropriate theory may be distinguished
as follows (cf. also Margolin 1990a: 843f.):
1. In a first step, the subject matter character and its most important aspects will
be explicitly defined and delimited as precisely as possible. The prime aim here is,
amongst others, to specify what characters essentially are and what ontological
status they can claim. The answer to these questions is of the most profound
consequence: If I understand characters as mimetic analogues of human beings,
then I shall primarily investigate their psychological properties; if I take them to be
elements of the text, then I shall concentrate on textual structures. In the theoretical
work on characters up to the present time, these positions have generally been
irreconcilably opposed to each other.

12
To quote some examples of current publications: In David Bordwells and Kristin Thompsons Film
Art. An Introduction (
6
2001), 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- and
Fernsehwissenschaft by Borstnar, Pabst and Wulff (2002), characters are likewise only touched upon
in connection with narrative structures and constructions of perspective. Faulstichs Grundkurs
Filmanalyse (2002) does indeed devote a whole chapter to characters but his presentation of
analytical categories barely comprises six pages and excludes numerous important aspects, among
them identification and involvement. Lothar Mikoss Film- und Fernsehanalyse (2003), by contrast,
concentrates almost exclusively on this aspect. Knut Hickethiers Film- und Fernsehanalyse (
3
2001)
offers more detail and focuses on character constellations as well as the performance of actors.
13
Theory is here understood in a broad sense: as the methodical, argumentatively structured
reflection of a topic, which intends to clarify conceptual relations and work out general law-like
regularities. It has repeatedly been noted that the character has definitely been neglected by theory,
e.g. in Chatman 1978: 107; Rimmon-Kenan
6
1996: 29; Michaels 1998: xiii; Trhler et al. 1997: 9; Frow
1986: 227; Schlobin 1999.
14
A 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 been
unable to find research surveys in the fields of theatre studies or in the history and theory of the fine
arts.
19
2. Once the subject matter character has been specified, one can ask what is
required for its proper constitution and characterisation. How do characters arise?
Through what media-transcending and media-specific means are they created? How
are the identity and the continuity of a character guaranteed or denied? With regard
to 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 sufficiently
considered.
3. A core area of the theory of characters is the detection of the fundamental feature
dimensions and structures of characters. What kinds of properties must be
distinguished with regard to characters (e.g. body, personality, social role; central
and peripheral features etc.)? How are its fields of properties interconnected? In what
ways can characters change during the course of a film? It is particularly with
reference to these questions which are of central importance to any analysis that
previous theory-formation work has proved itself especially underdeveloped. It has
essentially remained limited to actant-models which reduce characters to their
functions in action. There are no structural models on a middle plane of theory
formation (cf. Stckrath 1992: 107) between single, concrete characters and abstract
action-functions. The question, therefore, of how one can adequately describe
characters as fictitious personages and artificial constructs remains largely
unanswered.
4. On the basis of the preceding steps, hypotheses about the relationship between
characters and other formal and material aspects of media offers may be formulated.
In the research so far, the relationship between character and action has been kept
in the foreground; and the relationship between characters and narrator instances
was 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 of
their original texts.
5. Woven into the stages of theory-development as outlined so far, but still
independent, is the question of the reception of characters, their perception and
processing: How do viewers perceive characters and how do they become involved
with 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 do
characters elicit feelings? In the attempts at answering these questions the
competing theories are mainly psychoanalytical and cognitive ones.
6. Problems arising from expanding the field of observation are concerned with the
connections between character, culture, and history: How does the socio-cultural
environment influence the emergence of characters? How do characters affect
culture and society? What images of humanity are revealed in them or conveyed by
them? With regard to these questions many theses, often extremely far-reaching
ones, have been advanced; they range from the mirroring of given real conditions to
the determination of actual behaviour by characters. Only rarely, however, such
theses are based upon a careful examination of the questions formulated earlier;
they usually start out from intuitive presuppositions or from theories that were
developed for other domains and were then, only slightly modified, applied to
characters.
20
7. Typologies may make it easier to gain a more comprehensive view of each of the
levels introduced so far
15
: What types of characters dominate particular historical
phases? What characters are typical of genres or stylistic groups like the cowboy for
the Western or the femme fatale for the film noir? What do the characters within the
oeuvre of some filmmaker have in common? Is it possible to recognise all-
encompassing conceptions of characters, for instance in the fragile characters of
modern films (cf. Michaels 1998)? Constructing typologies has been one of the
central activities of the investigation of characters so far; as already pointed out in the
preceding considerations of the different levels and problem complexes, these
activities are also all too often deficient with regard to their required appropriate
underpinnings.
These seven complexes of questions encompass the essential steps in the
construction of a theory of the character.
16
A theory of characters, which tackles all
the seven themes in adequate detail, still does not exist. There certainly is a large
number of treatments of selected aspects, but comprehensive theoretical designs
remain extremely rare. Although all the different themes of the spectrum unfolded
above are intimately connected with each other with regard to content, there has so
far been no attempt to deal with them all in their systematic interconnections. This
would, however, be the prerequisite for developing a consistent basis for the analysis
of characters.
Moreover, not even in a single one of the different thematic domains does some
consensus seem to be forthcoming; if discussions take place at all, they are highly
controversial. The reason is that very heterogeneous positions have evolved within
the theory of characters. By way of ideal-typical simplification, four approaches or
theory-groups with different thematic focal areas and methodological foundations can
be 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 understand
characters primarily as images of human beings, investigate their connections with
historical and cultural contexts, and develop typologies. They emphasise the
necessity of taking into account the historical background of characters and their
creators. The fundamental questions of the ontology, constitution, and reception of
characters are, as a rule, ignored by hermeneutical analyses; they operate
prevalently under the guidance of intuition and only minimally under the direction of a
theory.
Psychoanalytical positions generally presuppose a far-reaching analogy between
characters and human beings. They complement an essentially hermeneutical
approach with psychoanalytical models of personality (especially those proposed by
Sigmund 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 their
central area of interest is the psyche of the characters and the recipients. Certain
positions, e.g. the one held by Carl Gustav Jung, take characters to be the symbolic
expression of internal processes. Once again, the fundamental questions of the

15
In 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 to
characters in the horror film (Rasmussen 1998).
16
Empirical research on the character in Margolins model the fifth and last step can, in my view,
be carried out adequately only after the theory has provided appropriate conceptual pre-structuring
and selected hypotheses to guide investigations. Cf. however the work by Johan van Hoorn and Elly
Konijn, e.g. 2003.
21
ontology and the textual constitution of characters are paid only scant attention by
approaches deriving from psychoanalysis.
Structuralist and semiotic approaches have been developed since the 1960es as
movements to counteract hermeneutics and psychoanalysis, and they have
remained dominant for several decades. They insist emphatically on the difference
between characters and human beings and concentrate on questions of the definition
and constitution of characters, thereby making the role of the text their central object
of attention. They describe the emergence of characters with the help of semiotic
models that marginalise the aspect of reception; frequently the characters
themselves are considered to be nothing but complexes of signs and textual
structures. 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 field
of vision, and that the connections of characters with themes and cultures can only
be sketched out in a very abstract and reductive way.
Since the 1980es, cognitive theories of the character have evolved, which seek to
anchor themselves in the cognitive sciences, in particular in psychology and
analytical philosophy. The designation cognitive theories is to be understood in a
broad sense here; it is to refer to all those approaches which focus centrally on the
most exact modelling of cognitive and affective processes within the overall
processing of information.
17
Characters are here conceived of as text-based
constructs of the human mind, whose description requires models of the
comprehension of texts and also models of the human psyche. The cognitive models
of texts differ here from the semiotic approaches in that they pay more attention to
the level of reception. The cognitive models of the human psyche differ from
psychoanalysis especially by their more detailed representation of mental processes
and a stronger association with empirical psychology. However, the cognitive
theories have so far concentrated their work on the interrelation between character
and 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 an
urgent necessity. Frequently, the diverse theory-groups apply themselves to different
focal areas using a variety of methods. Each one of the groups has come up with
interesting results with regard to their particular focal areas but has, at the same time,
revealed extensive blind spots.
18
Only very recently have the attempts to explore the
subject domain systematically and to forge connections between different
approaches, become more numerous.
The state of research may, therefore, be summarised as follows: the subject domain
character can be broken up into at least seven complexes of questions, i.e. the

17
Among the cognitive theories I also count the investigation of characters as constituents of fictitious
worlds (e.g. Ryan 1992; for a survey see Surkamp 2002) and approaches within the neurosciences
and empirical communication studies (e.g. Bryant / Zillmann 1991).
18
The hermeneutical approaches have devoted themselves to the relations between characters and
culture without, however, really clarifying the proper basis required for this undertaking. The
structuralist positions provide a set of instruments for the textual construction of characters but neglect
the aspect of reception and, furthermore, tend to reduce characters to only a few domains of rather
abstract properties. Psychoanalytical and cognitive approaches both foreground reception and
characters-psyche in their different ways, but they often still remain too inexact with regard to their
instruments 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 of
instruments that would be suitable to capture the sphere of social structures of affect, of desire, and of
daydreams. The psychoanalysts, by contrast, confine the broad field of the processes of
understanding and experiencing too rigorously to this area only.
22
definition, constitution, structure, interrelations, reception, cultural contexts, and
typologies of characters. These questions have so far neither been dealt with in
combination nor in any systematic way. A number of different approaches that
diverge considerably as to their basic theoretical assumptions and their
methodologies, select different focal areas; noteworthy among these approaches are,
in particular, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and cognitive theories. The
consequence: especially within the field of media studies, the theory of characters
has been split up into a disordered assortment of isolated pieces of knowledge,
particularistic perspectives, and rival positions. In the German-speaking world there
exists to date not one single monograph whose topic would extend beyond the study
of some specific aspect. Hardly any of the current specialist dictionaries has a
separate entry for the keyword character.
19
In other linguistic areas and in literary
studies all-embracing investigations are certainly equally rare and divergent, but
pioneering contributions to the theory of characters have been made in this field
during the last few years.
20
For this reason alone, it is highly advisable to deal with
the 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 different
causes: the apparent self-evidence of the character; the factual complexity of the
subject matter, i.e. character; the necessity of an interdisciplinary approach; and the
ambivalence of the very concept of character. To many it has seemed unnecessary
to occupy themselves with characters by way of theory because of the pervasive
feeling that characters are, as it were, self-explanatory and that any kind of theory
could, therefore, produce nothing but trivia. In what follows, however, I shall be able
to show with greater precision than before that ordinary intuition is insufficient to
tackle 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, that
the subject to be investigated, namely character, is of extraordinary multifaceted
complexity, and that most of its aspects demand an interdisciplinary approach.
Questions, for instance, of the definition, textual construction, and reception of
characters can only be answered properly by taking recourse to philosophy,
semiotics, and psychology. If one intends to focus on the connections between
character and culture or on structural models of personality and bodyhood, then the
resulting problems are even more disturbing: as characters cover the domain of the
representation of human beings, all the scholarly fields that study human beings may
claim to be relevant fields of competence.
21
The essential questions faced by human
beings revolve around human beings, and characters as images and effigies of
human beings inherit a good deal of these questions. But the spectrum of characters
includes not only humanlike characters but also zoomorphic and artificial characters:

19
Thus there is no entry on character in many otherwise useful lexicons like Rainer Rothers
Sachlexikon Film (1997), Reclams Sachlexikon des Films (2002) edited by Thomas Koeber, or Metzler
Lexikon Medienwissenschaft (Schanze 2002). In the (Internet-) Lexikon der Filmbegriffe edited by
Hans 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.
20
Among the comprehensive conceptions of the study of film, Smith 1995 and Tomasi 1988 must be
considered outstanding; for French work cf. the survey given by Blher 1999. For the study of
literature, 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 Metzler
Lexikon Literatur- and Kulturtheorie (Jannidis 1998) and in the Reallexikon zur deutschen
Literaturwissenschaft (Platz-Waury 1997).
21
On these problems cf. further Frow 1986.
23
animals, cyborgs, monsters, creatures inhabiting the border areas of what is
considered possible and areas beyond these borders. Besides, characters do not
only serve to represent human realities as they are at some given time, they also
serve 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, fall
back on other fields of study like psychology or sociology? How can one present all
the detailed aspects of the character in their systematic interrelations and still
sensibly handle the inevitably emerging thematic and disciplinary complexity?
These central problems of the subject domain are intimately associated with equally
fundamental problems of methodology. On the one hand, it is only too well known
that an interdisciplinary approach courts the dangers of theoretical inconsistency,
superficiality, and tedious clumsiness. On the other hand, the notion of character
characteristically involves ontological and methodological ambivalence:
22
characters
stand 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 real
persons; the pre-theoretical treatment of characters follows human-related
associations, standards of judgment, folk-psychological explanations etc., often
without adequately taking into account the differences between fictitious characters
and real persons. In extreme cases this may lead to aberrations of para-social
interaction: Fans write letters to the residents of Coronation Street. In contrast to real
beings, however, characters come up as the products of dealing with artefacts, as
products of watching films, reading, going to the theatre. They are created by human
communication, constituted through signs and texts, and they are subject to an
eigenlogic 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 problem
of character-analysis: How are we to deal with characters are we to analyse them
psychologically like human beings and to judge them morally likewise, or are we to
dissect them like texts by their formal structures, by their make-up? Is Hamlet
merely a proper name to which properties are added through textual utterances, or
can one meaningfully query whether he really loved Ophelia?
For a long time, rival character-theories have uncompromisingly opposed each other
with regard to this question.
23
In the meantime, however, the insight has been gaining
ground that the consequences of a methodological polarisation are bound to be fatal
in any event. If one considers characters as mere textual functions and therefore
concentrates on the means of their construction, then questions of content, for

22
The formulation is borrowed from Frow 1986: 227.
23
Cf. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan: Whereas in mimetic theories (i.e. theories which consider literature
as, in some sense, an imitation of reality) characters are equated with people, in semiotic theories they
dissolve into textuality (Rimmon-Kenan
6
1996: 33). The debate between these theories is much older
and 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 formal
analysis (Susan Sontags Essay Against Interpretation may serve as an example here), and the
mimesis-theory which considers the relation between the work of art and the world to be central
(Harvey
3
1970: 11ff.). The mimesis-theory has been dmod for a long time. Structuralist conceptions
which 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 the
world, and put an ever increasing distance between themselves and the experience of the normal
reader and the normal viewer, they ultimately brought all character-research to a standstill
(Jannidis 2000: 4; cf. further Michaels 1998: xiii f.).
24
instance of the image of humanity, of the transfer of values, and of the emotional
involvement, are lost sight of. Conversely, the aesthetic strategies in the formation of
characters as well as the deep-seated differences between characters and persons
are ignored if characters are seen merely as the mimetic analogues of real persons
and 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 to
do 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, the
guiding question runs: How can the analysis of characters in films be improved? The
book is, therefore, decidedly geared towards the practice of analysis. It is designed to
help with the more accurate perception of characters, the recognition of character-
related textual strategies, and the understanding of the involvement of viewers. In
addition, the assessment of the socio-cultural effects of films might in this way be
made more successful and aesthetic practice might derive profitable stimulation.
These goals could be best achieved by means of an integrative project. As the
opinions concerning characters are, however, so immensely divided, all too often the
unavoidable labour of reasoned justification will be enormous. What seems to be
self-evident for one side, is considered totally wrong for another. The very claim that
the book is designed to be practice-oriented makes it inevitable to work through a
relatively large body of theoretical reflections. The book will, therefore, not be easy
reading 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 the
following way. Most chapters target the development of concrete categories of
character-analysis, which will be collected together at the end in the form of
questions to guide the analysis, and which can in this way be directly applied. Other
chapters will concentrate on the theoretical groundwork. They have been marked
with a (T) to enable less theory-bent readers to bypass them. Their most important
results will be condensed in the form of diagrams in order to facilitate finding them
again, and they will also be repeated in reduced form at the beginning of the chapters
dealing with practical analysis. Readers may also, if they so wish, start with the
summary contained in the last chapter and then read those sections which are of the
greatest 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 the
phenomenon character has been going on, which has produced extremely
differing positions (chapter 2). In order to integrate the dispersed and controversial
research results into a consistent overall scheme, the disputed issue must first be
clarified, i.e. what characters actually are, how they originate and how they are
experienced (chapter 3). There is much to be said for the idea that characters are
best conceived of as recognisable fictitious beings, which are construed through
communication and are, consequently, given intersubjectively. How we perceive and
experience characters may be described in accordance with cognitive psychology by
means of a four-level model of character reception, which entails far-reaching
consequences 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 schema
distinguishes four aspects that may be considered in the analysis: characters are,
25
firstly, inhabitants of a fictitious world; secondly, artefacts of a particular mould;
thirdly, symbols conveying meanings and themes; and fourthly, symptoms permitting
inferences about their production and reception, causes and effects. In each one of
these cases, characters are embedded into specific contexts and trigger particular
kinds 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; the
subsequent parts differentiate its four areas into more detailed categories. In part III
the character is, first of all, treated as a fictitious being: How are fictitious beings
perceived and understood, and how can one analyse them? My view here is that we
experience characters in many ways like real persons in that we create their
imagined personalities during the process of viewing the film (chapter 5). The
development 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 from
the 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 of such
diverse sources distinguishes character models from our impressions of real beings.
Still, they both correspond in many respects of their basic structure. Humanlike
characters can, therefore, be described more precisely with the help of an
anthropological model that is presented in chapter 6 and that can also be transferred
to non-human characters like Lassie. The features of anthropomorphic characters
belong to three domains: body, mind, and sociality. The fact that these domains
overlap becomes clear from behaviour which always involves both body and mind
simultaneously and generally has a social orientation. The examination of body,
mind, sociality and behaviour of fictitious persons can make use of various concepts
of the human sciences, which will enhance sensibility and promote greater exactitude
of description. The sphere of the mind makes especially clear how strongly the
results of character-analysis depend on the choice of suitable categories: different
conceptions of the mind and its properties will lead to widely divergent ideas of one
and the same character.
We perceive characters, nonetheless, not only as fictitious beings but also as
artefacts which have been moulded in a specific manner (part IV). Chapter 7
presents the essential means of forming characters. The ways and means of
depiction by film, among them the performance by human actors, lend characters
sensory concreteness and presence. The provision of information and the
dramaturgy of the film direct and form the development of character models. The
result are characters endowed with characteristic properties as artefacts, which we
typically refer to with expressions like realistic, typified or multi-dimensional or
their antonyms (chapter 8). The specific constellation of such artefact properties
gives rise to general conceptions of characters for the mainstream, independent, or
avant-garde, film, by which film makers and viewers orient themselves in production
and reception.
After the general examination of characters as fictitious beings and artefacts, part V
turns to the embedding of particular characters in two contexts that are of special
importance to dramaturgy and interpretation. The motives and conflicts of characters
form the interface with the action and plot of the film (chapter 9), and as protagonists
or antagonists, leading or minor characters, they take up specific positions within a
character constellation (chapter 10). Their motivation and their relationships with the
other inhabitants of their world contribute decisively to their characterisation and may
26
be investigated in greater detail by means of concepts that derive partly from
scriptwriting manuals, partly from psychology and sociology.
As the motives, conflicts and relationships of fictitious beings often also determine
their personality core and their development, and as they contribute to the
transmission of higher-level statements, they are of special relevance to the
consideration of characters as symbols and symptoms, which follows in part VI. This
consideration will remain restricted to the most general fundamentals because
adequate models for analysis are not yet available; they will have to be developed in
close association with complex theories of interpretation and effect. Chapter 11
attempts to take a few steps in that direction in order to facilitate the interpretation
and the cultural analysis of characters. The initial question concerns the ways in
which characters as symbols can stand for something other than themselves, can
convey additional meanings, and can contribute to the thematics of films. Their
analysis as symptoms, i.e. as socio-cultural indicators, will eventually include their
contexts in reality, their communicative causes and effects.
The parts of the book dealt with up to here also concern the reception of characters
by the viewers but concentrate primarily on the apprehension and the understanding
of characters. Drawing on that, Part VII deals extensively with imaginative and
emotional relations with characters and proposes novel approaches to their analysis.
Following the clarification of widespread but problematical concepts like
perspective, identification and empathy, a model of imaginative closeness
and distance to characters is developed, which encompasses a network of diverse
factors (chapter 12). This model serves as the basis for a new conception of the
emotional involvement with characters in their manifold facets (chapter 13).
The theses and analytical concepts of this book are elucidated with the help of many
different examples which are taken from the mainstream as well as the margins of
film production. The choice of these examples was made primarily on the grounds of
their suitability for illustrating the cases under discussion (and also, unavoidably, on
the basis of personal predilection). The majority of the examples could only be dealt
with relatively briefly. I did try to compensate for this in two ways. Firstly, the example
CASABLANCA, in particular the character Rick Blaine, is dealt with in all the chapters
and is, in this way, penetrated ever more deeply step by step. Secondly, the book
closes after a general summary of the principal results with a more extended analysis
of the characters of Polanskis DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, which can also be read as a
rsum (chapter 14). Both films are well suited for an exemplary analysis of
characters, albeit for different reasons, and they both cover a broad spectrum of
possibilities: most readers will know the timeless Hollywood classic CASABLANCA; and
it can be demonstrated that one can make progress beyond the innumerable
interpretations of the film and its characters with the concepts developed in this book.
The intimate play DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, more than fifty years younger, by contrast
permits a more detailed focussing on the interplay of its few characters. In neither
case is the claim made to have accomplished exhaustive interpretations, but I do
hope that they render a convincing case for the newly won potential of the analysis of
characters. At the same time, they are intended to support a more general purpose of
this book: to improve the understanding of the cultural practice of our dealings with
characters.

Film Characters: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Film Characters: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Film Characters: Theory, Analysis, Interpretation

[English outline of the German monograph:

You might also like