Essay

Page 1

Kat Williams

OUIL501

An experiment in character design: how psychology and colour theory can be used to develop effective characters for film, graphic novels and animation. What makes Charlie Brown relatable? Why is Mario the protagonist, and his brother Luigi the sidekick? Just why are those twins in The Shining so disturbing? Does a character’s appearance affect an audience’s perception of that character, even before the full story has been revealed? In order to explore some of the theories and techniques used to create complex and meaningful character designs for film, graphic novels and animation, it is necessary to form comparisons to a wider range of visual culture, from ancient sculptures to hyper-realistic robots.

*****

Ernst Jentsch opens his 1906 essay On the Psychology of the Uncanny by drawing the reader’s attention to the ‘rather fortunate formation’ of the German adjective ‘unheimlich’ the opposite form of ‘heimlich’, which refers to something homely and familiar, ‘unheimlich’ is used to describe the feeling someone may have in a foreign, uneasy situation. Thirteen years later, Sigmund Freud offers a further etymological study of the word ‘unheimlich’ in his 1919 book The Uncanny. According to Freud, it is insufficient to define ‘unheimlich’ as simply the opposite of ‘heimlich’, as what may be new and unfamiliar is not necessarily frightening. Something else is required to trigger this uncanny feeling. A second meaning of ‘heimlich’ is used to describe something private, concealed or hidden; and the opposite of ‘heimlich’ in this sense - that is, something that has been uncovered that ought to have remained a secret - we again use the word ‘unheimlich’. The two meanings are applied to two very different - yet not contradictory - ideas: one one hand, ‘heimlich’ means homely, as in friendly, intimate, familiar, and on the other ‘heimlich’ means home-like, concealed, hidden from others - as one’s private home is concealed from outsiders. Freud adds that ‘unheimlich’ in this sense is not only to reveal the ‘heimlich’ to others, but also to oneself. Thus Jentsch explains the feeling of the uncanny as something that is both familiar and unfamiliar; while Freud proposes that the uncanny is the return of something repressed. Nonetheless, both Freud and Jentsch agree that while little research can be found on the subject in the field of aesthetics, the uncanny has long been used in fiction to create a certain atmosphere or feeling around a particular character. Both papers go into considerable detail into these narrative techniques and the effect they have on the reader, as seen in both writers’ in-depth analysis of E.T.A. Hoffman’s novel The Sandman. Page 1 of 13


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.