Psychologies is a partner in the 49th Deauville American Cinema Festival, which will take place from September 1 to 10. We revisit the peculiar link between a character and the viewer.
The melancholy Joel Barish from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the independent Nola Darling, the eccentric Sara Goldfarb who sinks without stopping in Requiem for a Dream, the heartbroken idealist Tom Hansen in (500) days together, and the bubbly Olive Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine all left a lasting impression on their audiences.
For decades, cinema has used fictional characters to advance the plot, but behind the fourth wall, a true connection is formed. How can we explain our attachment to nonexistent people?
Cinema can represent reality whether it wants to be realistic or not. “We watch the film as if it were independent of our reality, but that's not true,” says psychotherapist Marine Colombel. A film is meant to move viewers. In the symbolic arena, filmmakers write character attributes and events to touch viewers.
Viewers project, identify, and become linked to themselves when facing the screen. The doctor says the seventh art “zooms out”. Someone else personifies our darkest anxieties, intimate feelings, and buried memories. Sometimes how these people tackle a subject will give us new perspectives.
Being linked to a character goes beyond sharing their humour, relationships, life style, or objectives. Some can mark us by crystallising what terrifies, rejects, or want to forget. “We not only see the projection of our light parts, but also of our shadow parts,” explains the psychiatrist. Juliette was upset by Calum's dark side in Aftersun, last year's Deauville Festival grand prize winner.
The young father, played by Irish actor Paul Mescal, swings between delight and sadness with his daughter. Many observers, including the young woman, related to this personal battle. “It shows a hidden version of ourselves,” Juliette says. It terrifies me that my loved ones or I could feel like him in this film.
If the entire feature film lets you connect with the characters, sometimes it just takes one moment to put yourself in their shoes. Victoire changed after watching Million Dollar Baby. One character asking the other to help him die reminds him of his grandmother's plea. She is still marked by her intense reaction to the picture. “It's a personality or particular cognitive patterns that will awaken things in us,” says Marine Colombel.
“When we find ourselves in a film, we will adhere to it and project ourselves,” says the psychiatrist. This is supported by a 2010 Communications research. A dramatic film's emotional impact is predicted by character identification. It also involves higher cognitive elaboration and complicated viewing reflection.
The Papageno effect and Werther effect had previously been discussed in relation to a character's journey and its impact on the reader or spectator. First, the character in Mozart's The Magic Flute, helped avert suicide, while second, Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, did the opposite. This is why the doctor advises monitoring.