Week 3 Discussion
Part One
Field describes great characters as those which bring about transcendent truths and allow the audience to enjoy a moment of recognition and shared understanding. They are illuminated by key incidents, defined by what they do, and an active forward force within the screenplay. Field defines four key elements of great characters. They have a strong defined dramatic need. A clear purpose in life. They hold strong belief systems acquired through lived experience. A crisply understood attitude about the world around them based on personal opinion. And they undergo a transformation from beginning to end as a central tenet of the story’s arc.
In The Holdovers, the character of Paul Hunham opens with a crisply defined set of characteristics. A long tenured academic, a stickler for tradition and the stoic rules which have kept him safe for decades. His mission is to perpetuate the classical literature he loves, but has become cynical of the students required to take his class. His pessimism is reciprocated by his students, the tension between teacher and class only spiraling downward. His relationship with Angus begins as one of mutual resentment to the point of violence, but he comes to realize the boy holds many of his own traits, including mental illness. Through Angus he undergoes an emotional, empathetic transformation which culminates in sacrificing his own position. The traditionalist is redeemed by understanding it is morally better to break the rules to save another. And in the finish we understand what we need to do too.
Part Two
Bobby Driscoll is a fallen child actor with a simple ambition. To remain young. He is a real-life historical character which has been transformed into a supernatural terror in my screenplay. When we first find him, slumped against the wall in the last moments of addiction, Bobby’s posture holds all the agony of a life shot into his arm. His fingers are crippled, his bones distorted through years of sleepless nights. Everyone Bobby has loved is gone. Discarded by a studio system with a ruthless appetite for fresh talent, he has found himself a bum amongst the East Village bohemian lifestyle of late sixties Manhattan. He has become deeply cynical about the motivations of others, and holds no affiliation other than those who would enable him.
Adulthood has meant that despite being the voice actor behind Disney’s Peter Pan, he is truly a lost boy and cannot escape the stories of his childhood. Peter Pan references torment him everywhere. His substance addiction keeps the demons at a distance, but he’s unable to see that he himself has become the very demon he feared the most. It’s not the drugs which calm his fears, it’s the supernatural harvesting of children which provides the restorative medicament which turns back time. By taking the youth of others, he consumes it for himself with growing appetite and violence inside of a ritual of luring children into abandoned buildings.
While Bobby understands it is morally wrong to take the lives of others, he must keep doing it to satisfy his ambition to stay young, whilst also coming to terms with addiction. This conflict might take the form of holding his arm and wincing in pain as he sees children in the street. Closing his eyes and covering his ears as he hears the local children playing pirates. Or experiencing hallucinations of elements from the Peter Pan story as the violent effects of substance abuse crash together with his previous life of fame. But the opportunity for change is offered when Peter Pan gets re-released in theaters, and a writer asks ‘whatever happened to Bobby?’
