Emanuel Levy
Cinema 24/7
Research in progress, March 22, 2024
The attempt to create a hero for mass audience isa major challenge.
On the Waterfront: Terry Malloy is alienated, a bum who must develop consciousness and responsibility in order to become a real man.
American heroes are simpler than European ones.
In Europe, they are more human, weak, wise, and complex
American Heroes
Stoic male tradition
Loner
Rejection of official values; sometimes lawbreakers
Uncertain
Fear of the capacity to feel, or show emotions overtly
Brutal like the villains
Taciturn
Stoic loners whose pride covers deep wounds (Hemingway, Bogart)
Moral ambiguity; capable of killing
Semi-verbal
Heroes–Cowardly
Red Badge of Courage
Straw Dogs
The Shop on Main Street
David and Lisa
Death in Venice
Comic book blockbusters pay lip service to the strangest torment of their split-personality heroes
But beneath their bug and bat suits, they’re rather convention )even romantic) guys.
Batman: changes focus from a bland hero to intriguing villain, by necessity
The villains in these films are more colorful and so overshadow the heroes.
Outsider: Not Belonging
An ongoing type of male protagonist that began to appear after WWII.
Anti-hero has become an overused and underdefined term.
He is alienated by a confining world that does not accept him.
The ideal of responsible manhood, in films coded as realistic (“Hud”), and films that are not.
Fantasy figure like James Bond or Dirty Harry are not held to the responsibilities, but represent escape from them.
Anti-hero is not the same as anti-establishment.
Two strains of anti-heroes share the failure to complete the Oedipal identification with the father and then occupy a properly male hero.
They fail to move beyond the desire for the mother and join with a mate in a marriage that would perpetuate the traditional familial pattern,
James Dean’s Jim Stark Vs. Paul Newman’s Hud Bannen.
There are comics trip heroes that are dreamy, fetishistic types who mock toughness
Film Theory: Screen Types–Heroes and Villains (Notes)
Research in progress, March 22, 2024
The attempt to create a hero for mass audience isa major challenge.
On the Waterfront: Terry Malloy is alienated, a bum who must develop consciousness and responsibility in order to become a real man.
American heroes are simpler than European ones.
In Europe, they are more human, weak, wise, and complex
American Heroes
Stoic male tradition
Loner
Rejection of official values; sometimes lawbreakers
Uncertain
Fear of the capacity to feel, or show emotions overtly
Brutal like the villains
Taciturn
Stoic loners whose pride covers deep wounds (Hemingway, Bogart)
Moral ambiguity; capable of killing
Semi-verbal
Heroes–Cowardly
Red Badge of Courage
Straw Dogs
The Shop on Main Street
David and Lisa
Death in Venice
Comic book blockbusters pay lip service to the strangest torment of their split-personality heroes
But beneath their bug and bat suits, they’re rather convention )even romantic) guys.
Batman: changes focus from a bland hero to intriguing villain, by necessity
The villains in these films are more colorful and so overshadow the heroes.
Outsider: Not Belonging
An ongoing type of male protagonist that began to appear after WWII.
Anti-hero has become an overused and underdefined term.
He is alienated by a confining world that does not accept him.
The ideal of responsible manhood, in films coded as realistic (“Hud”), and films that are not.
Fantasy figure like James Bond or Dirty Harry are not held to the responsibilities, but represent escape from them.
Anti-hero is not the same as anti-establishment.
Two strains of anti-heroes share the failure to complete the Oedipal identification with the father and then occupy a properly male hero.
They fail to move beyond the desire for the mother and join with a mate in a marriage that would perpetuate the traditional familial pattern,
James Dean’s Jim Stark Vs. Paul Newman’s Hud Bannen.
There are comics trip heroes that are dreamy, fetishistic types who mock toughness