Useing Familiar Archetypes
By
Jack Rooney
Using Familiar Archetypes
Whether you like Spielberg films or not, one thing you need to know as a
screenplay writer is that Spielberg is not doing anything unique or new; he
never has. Much of the secret of his success is due in large part to the
fact
that he uses the classic formulas and story lines and plot structure and
film formats he knows will appeal to the mass audience
His formats for the stories he tells with film are as old as the
"Odyssey" and "Iliad" There is nothing new here. He plays to the
Archetypes, and this method works every time; but to get it to work, you
need to know what the archetypes are, which he does, and he uses them over
and over and over again in every story he tells. It sells like hotcakes
because people like familiar archetypes; they feel comfortable with them,
and this is also the main reason many art films fail to connect with an
audience, they make people feel uneasy, the formats are so divergent from
the classic archetypes, people don't know what to make of it, and they walk
away from the viewing experience not knowing how they were suppose to
respond. The typical "...does that filmmaker know what he/she is doing?"
response or "What was that all about?" can be expected from an approach to
filmmaking or screenplay writing which ignores the universal archetypes.
The ambiguity of audience response to a film arises often when the film
digresses too far from the familiar, classical, archetypal story lines we
learn throughout life, ingrained in us since youth, perhaps, as
Jung,1875-1961,
suggested, imbedded in the collective unconsciousness of the human species.
Much mind manipulation goes into movie magic; pure theatrical sorcery. If
you know how people respond to certain events or images, sounds, tones,
colors, character types, contexts and situations, etc, on a primal level,
you can make them believe and feel almost anything. Of course, much of this
has to do with the director, but if, as a writer, you employ the classic
archetypes in your writing, not only will it be more widely accepted, but it
will also be easy for the director to interpret your story for translation
to film.
A good master filmmaker is nothing less than a master wizard manipulating
the emotional state of an audience on a fundamental, primal level. This is
difficult to do; this is also why there are not that many truly great films.
Spielberg is pure imitation of the classic forms set in varied contexts. As
a screenplay writer, you can make the director's job a lot easier, and your
writing more widely accepted by mainstream Hollywood by playing to the
classic forms.
From the standpoint of most professional filmmakers, we may find the
approach somewhat mechanical and contrived, but when the bottom line is the
box office, give them the classic archetypes until you are rich, then do
your art film.
Jack Rooney
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