Playing God In Cinema

There's no subtlety to it, actors, directors, writers, producers, and director of photography's alike, all aim to create specific and constructed identities in specific and controlled environments. Writers and cinematographers alike all have the power to create a life that never existed, or at least a slightly different iteration, before. In a way that is a god-like power, which film, stories, and every great adventure story have cyclically taught us that it may come with a cost.

All of these creative forces must decide what contributes to a character, how are they going to be defined by their world, and how do they change or start to define the world around them, which is a basic question of determining one's identity. Every narrative ever constructed has always have had some element of a question of identity, and that is to make a character or a story have a complex and relatable personality. A major challenge with this is that the characters can have ambiguous and conflicting meanings, which may or may not be purposeful. Sometimes the challenge is straightforward like in a heroes journey. A clean cut example is Indiana Jones & his ridiculous fear of snakes. In the films we are constantly show Indiana Jones putting his life in major danger only to miraculously and bravely fight and find his way out, but there is one caveat, he's scared of snakes. While there is question of symbolism of his fear of snakes, which is a different issue altogether, this fear of snakes is also tested frequently throughout the trilogy, fighting through snake pits, snakes as barriers, & snakes in close vicinities.

But the point to this case, is that an identity is an extremely difficult and powerful tool that storytellers use to consciously and subconsciously show to an audience.  It requires an enormous amount of creativity, experience, an understanding of the world, as well as the reality of strengths & weaknesses of the human race.

Attached are two clips: One of Indiana Jones' fear of snakes & the other of Indiana Jones' bravery and strengths

Snakes : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL3ZIc5IL2w

Strengths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhkXmaEYMl4

This all ties into performance cinema in a few ways. One way is that a character's identity make's a commentary on the world around them within the film as well as the real world. Another way is that the idea of a performance is displaying of the ability to transform oneself into a new identity on screen.  In film & TV, this ranges from comedy sketches on SNL & TV dramas, to serious cultural or moral statements, to independent movies, to mainstream hollywood. An example of a performance piece can be seen in the film The Artist. The film, and specifically this scene offers a nostalgic message about the identity of silent actors and the transition to talkies, and how challenging it was for some actors to transition or be excluded from this big change in cinema.

Attached is a link to a performance piece within the film of The Artist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPJ_hXkdPuc