this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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People being very gung-ho about a particular philosophy, then having their mind changed by experience.
It’s really hard to write a story about a person transitioning worldview because unless the audience is undergoing that same transition when they watch the movie, they won’t be able to identify with both the before and the after.
I mean, there are movies about people undergoing radical changes in outlook, but the audience doesn’t feel what the character feels, because the old philosophy is presented as obviously bad to the audience, and the character is presented as being asleep or brainwashed or something.
What I’m referring to is a character that is actually, fully portrayed as the good guy, in a way the audience believes, who later realizes he was doing bad things, and the audience realized it along with them.
An example of the pattern I’m not talking about is Equilibrium. Christian Bale’s character undergoes a radical transformation of his outlook on what is good, but his previous state (enforcer of the anti-emotion policy) is depicted as obviously bad to the audience.
If I understand you correctly, I think the following might qualify.
Breaking Bad, Imposter, American History X, American Psycho and Fight club. All pretty popular. You might have seen them.
I’ve seen Breaking Bad recently. Who is it you think changed?
If you’re thinking of Walter, I’d describe his philosophical change as the emergence of his monster, but without control. He just descended into evil.
I’m hoping for a story where someone gets better.
Fight Club is a good example though. (Spoilers) Narrator has found a guru, it’s legit depicted as freeing and enlightening, then you slowly realize the guru is an unhinged psycho without moral grounding, and Narrator wins by killing his guru.
American History X I haven’t seen in a long time so I barely remember. But Norton’s character transforms there as well if I recall. Thing is, his previous state as a Nazi skinhead isn’t very sympathetic to the audience.
How are you figuring this fits for for American Psycho?
(I haven’t seen Imposter)
Well I did preface it by pondering if I fully understood your meaning. I guess I didn't catch the part about changing for the better.
In breaking bad my thought process was that, at least from the viewer's point of view Walter was the good guy, fighting for his life against cancer, and maybe he was, but in the end, not only was he doing evil, but enjoying it.
So my suggestions were I think more from the viewer's point of view than the character's. Imposter is the same, but if you enjoy sci-fi, I think it's worth a watch. I'd give it an 8. But I haven't seen it in a long time.
I feel like movies, comic book movies in particular, are structured to condition people to resist changing their worldview, especially views that society wants the audience to have.
Like Batman movies are notorious for this because they're always about pressuring Batman to kill and his refusal to for stupid reasons, even when it is obviously the morally correct thing to do. And producers do it because they don't want the audience to think killing evil people is good -- can't enable the peasants to guillotine their masters, after all.
I genuinely wish we'd get a movie that kind of does what you're asking; that has a character who holds socially correct worldviews and who rejects those views in a way that philosophically makes sense. A movie that sincerely questions those views.
I think the closest we ever got to something like that in modern film is Fight Club.
However the interaction with Raz Al-Gul in Batman Begins did have a little transformation. I haven’t seen it in a really long time but I remember it being a darkening/opening of Wayne’s outlook on life.
And then Batman was completely derailed at the end of TDK leading to the mess that was TDKR.
I don't think the Nolan trilogy was well thought out and he was just winging it toward the end. Begins and TDK were good, granted, but you can still tell.