Yesterday at university we had a little discussion about Aristoteles and how he divides the plot from the characters, and that in a play there are certain rules a character has to follow, or that the plot itself is more important than the characters in it.
This is of course just a simple abstraction of his thoughts, and don´t get me wrong, i´m far far away of calling me an Aristoteles expert, i don´t even scratch the surface, but in my opinion it is the exact opposite: it´s all about the characters.

I think the most important part of a story (be it in a movie, a theater play or a novel) are the characters. A deeply complex character, with all his problems and weaknesses, that has to face difficult situations, has to make choices that could drive his life in a different direction (not between good and evil, that wouldn´t be a choice), that´s what stories are about.

While Aristoteles describes the very basics of dramaturgy that are absolutely true even in modern dramaturgy, in my opinion some of his thoughts are a little bit too “easy” for me, it´s not really possible to divide a character from the plot, the plot just exists because of the character, it evolves out of the choices a character makes.

I want to give you a little example why characters are more important for me than the plot itself: i´d rather watch a movie with excellent characters in a crappy plot than boring characters in a brilliant story, simple because plain and boring characters would ruin every story, but a boring story isn´t able to ruin a character. So even in a boring plot a well designed character is quite exciting to watch, and if the character is really good, his actions and choices are more complex and exciting, so the story itself gets more interesting. What i´m trying to say is that the plot strongly depends on the characters, if they are good the basis for a good story is created, so in my opinion in the beginning of every well designed story there are the well designed and complex characters.

4 comments zu “It´s all about the characters”

1. Johannes Lerch

   , 28. November, 2006 at 10:49 am

   sorry miso but i think you are plain wrong here. it totally depends on the medium you use.

   series are definetely about characters. how they develop, how they do in different situations etc. (and thats why i guess you like series most, if you have a charcter-centric preference).

   movies on the other hand are about stories. in 2 hours or an hour or a half you can only show that much of a character. most movies have a closed plot with a defined beginning and an end (or they are series on their own, mostly trilogies), a special situation and setting where characters are improtant, but the story is really the thing what the movie wants to tell (maybe the creators choose to transport the story through the characters, but not necessarely).

   just don’t make the failure to explain the world (or dramaturgy) through the perspecitve of your personal preferences.

2. michael

   , 11. December, 2006 at 8:35 pm

   Well, sorry for the delay, but since the shooting i really had very few time.

   Of coure my statements about the importance of characters over the story very a little bit exaggerated, but nevertheless i think they are true - not only in series.

   In movies there are several aspects that make it a “good” or “excellent” movie, it´s the story, the camera work, the editing, the locations, the actors, the make up, the sound, the music, and so on, all in all really lots of different aspects, but when it comes down i still think it´s all about the characters.

   Just take your favourite movie and examine it, of course it has got an excellent story, but what would that story be without interesting and deep characters? It would just be a plain hull, in fact i think that just the characters make the story good.
   A dull character would not drive the story that forward than a well built character would. Most of the stories are about the protagonist that has to face an extraordinary situation in his life, and during the story he has to face this situation and deal with it - in his / her own special way. At some point he should make a change, everything in his life should depend on this decision, and if he / she decides wrong everything should be lost.

   So what i´m trying to say is that as a matter of course the story IS really very important, but when you break it down the beginning of the story is the situation that the character has to face, and the rest of the story develops out of his / her decicions.

   Please consider that this is just a really basic theory, there will be lots of movies that follow a different approach, but in my opinion this is what dramaturgy is about.

   Just a last note: i´m really not trying to explain the world with my theory, this is just my own opinion about it

3. Johannes

   , 12. December, 2006 at 9:53 pm

   still i think in some movies the setting is more important then the characters. take recent children of men for example (dont know if you seen it). the characters where partly cool, but mostly pretty much chliche, but you know it just didnt matter. it was all about the science fiction setting (where often the characters arent that important) in the near future. about how humanity has lost its faith because there where no children around anymore. that was the important part. still it was a really great movie in my opinion
   there are also much examples in classic movies, especially in very old movies where settings & pictures are more important then the characters. metropolis comes to mind for example.
   or take episode movies. there is not enough time and to many characters to get them know better, but its still cool how their faith is connected. i aggree that movies with great characters often make also a great movie, but its no necesity.

4. Johannes Lerch

   , 13. December, 2006 at 9:19 am

   one thing i wanted to add, but have to think about over night was: that good characters dont necessarely make a good movie. i couldnt come up with an example in my initial post, but than some movie i watched lately came to my mind: solaris. its a highly regarded movie, and has all that well drawn characters, with interesting background and points of view, but well, in my opinion the plot is told far too slow. so after about half an hour i was like ‘okay destroy that fucking planet, i just cant care less’.
   also thats what happens when i see most of the french films. they all got their nice characters with their problems and backgrounds and their struggle with life and so on, but well the stories mostly consists of plain boringness.
   thats also a point i want to critizize about one of your films i’ve seen called ‘40 mal’. it has a very interesting main character (well retarts are allways a good start), but you know after 5 minuites or so i am like, okay, what will happen in the rest of the movie? maybe she will cook another soup and that will be all the action, so, well basicly i dont care and stop the movie and do something else. sorry for that but i think interesting and well drawn characters are NOT enough for a great movie.

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