Repression Across Genres

The Mystery, one of the most enduring story forms, requires a storyteller to withhold information from the audience. The act of concealing some facts can build suspense, and in some cases, when the lack of information goes unnoticed, the reveal can be an unexpected surprise. The relationship of suspense and surprise is also a key part of film editing. In the early days of Hollywood, silent filmmaker Edwin S. Porter, in his film The Great Train Robbery, used the surprise shooting of a passenger to shock the audience and to increase the story’s tension. Suspense was used extensively by Fritz Lang in M, his first sound feature, which used long silences interrupted by the whistle of Hans Beckert to alert the audience to the oncoming crimes. These “tricks” of editing were visual, temporal adaptations of the storytelling technique of repressing information to create mystery. Variations of repression lead to several storytelling genres, which rely on different combinations of knowledge and ignorance; the audience and all the characters can be kept in the dark (horror), the audience can be informed while a character is unaware (thriller), or the audience and most of the characters can be mislead by one or a few characters (mystery). While writers can use repression as a tool of storytelling they can also use it as a storytelling theme. Many novels and films have used the subject of repression to explore themes of trauma, delusion, or mental illness, and to explore the infinite possibility of dreams. As both a storytelling technique and a recurring theme, repression is a cornerstone of narrative.

Charlie Chaplin explored repression in a very obvious and comical way in the classic romance City Lights. The Tramp (Chaplin) falls in love with a blind flower girl who has mistaken him for a rich man. Instead of correcting her mistake, the Tramp attempts to continue the charade in order to win the girl’s heart. Along his journey to love the Tramp befriends a suicidal, drunk millionaire, who is completely ignorant of his alcohol-induced antics after he sobers up. The millionaire represses, for the sake of respectability, both his friendship with the Tramp and his suicidal urges. This very straightforward representation of repressed memory is a constant source of comedy in City Lights, and the character of the millionaire fills a narrative requirement as a steppingstone for the Tramp to achieve his goals.

The repression of memory can also be used as a narrative link in more serious ways, such as in Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King. On the surface the film is a comedy, but, as the relationship between Jack (Jeff Bridges) and Perry (Robin Williams) evolves, a heartbreaking tragedy is revealed. Jack is a shock deejay whose career is ruined when he is blamed for a mass murder, and Perry is a homeless history professor who sees the world as a fantasy land of knights and damsels. Perry has repressed his understanding of reality to live a happier, care-free life, and his positive outlook appears to be an antidote to Jack’s depression. However, when the source of Perry’s repression is revealed to be the tragedy that Jack was responsible for, the film shows its true colours to be a drama about overcoming grief and guilt.

In both City Lights and The Fisher King the narrative is linked, thematically and structurally, to repression. Neither film withholds this fact from the audience, and both would be incomplete without the repression subplots. The split personality millionaire is necessary for much of the Tramp’s charade, and Perry’s fantastical outlook is key to Jack overcoming his selfish depression and guilt.

It is possible for stories to use repression as a key narrative link while withholding it from the audience. Shutter Island, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane and directed by Martin Scorsese, was established during its marketing campaign as the story of Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), a US Marshall, investigating the dark secrets of an asylum for the criminally insane. The ruse is sustained for the first two acts of the film until Daniels’ investigation leads him to discover that the island has no dark secrets and that he is not a US Marshall but is an inmate of the asylum. Shutter Island uses classic horror movie techniques to unsettle the audience and hint at the main character’s true nature, but the truth of his repressed memory is not fully revealed until the final act. As storytellers, Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker were able to use the fractured, mysterious nature of repressed memory to both mislead and inform the audience. The film includes many continuity errors, which are usually avoided, but because continuity errors can sometimes be legitimate mistakes they are a deceptive tool employed to unbalance the audience. The inclusion of several dream sequences further upsets any attempt to predict the story’s true nature by leaving portions of the film up to interpretation; being unable to declare whether a scene is real or not leaves the audience to question any conclusions they may have drawn from a particular moment.

The structure employed by Shutter Island of misleading the audience before revealing the repressed, “true” story of the film is one that is repeated in a variety of thrillers. Identity, with an Agatha Christie-style plot, and The Machinist, with Christian Bale’s haunting physical performance, are two thrillers that apply misdirection in their narratives. While these films successfully employ repression as a theme, and mystery as a structure, they leave the audience to discover the story and either guess or be surprised by the genre-conventional twist ending.

Guillermo Del Toro, with his Oscar-winning film Pan’s Labyrinth, created a fantasy film involving repression. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Conversation, or Inception, Del Toro’s film can be interpreted in multiple ways because of the ambiguity of the film’s conclusion. Ofelia’s interactions with the fantasy world of the faun are isolated from other characters. In the finale Captain Vidal approaches Ofelia and the faun in the labyrinth, but when the angle of the camera switches to his point of view the faun has disappeared and Ofelia is talking to empty space. The ambiguity continues when Ofelia’s reunion with her parents and the faun is intercut with her death. Del Toro leaves it to the individuals in the audience to believe that Ofelia is actually speaking to the faun, which is invisible to the captain, or that the faun is only in her imagination. With this ambiguity the film includes a layer of mystery that would have been otherwise absent from the war, fantasy, or coming-of-age genres.

Repression of memory is the subject matter of Charlie Kaufman’s Oscar-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Like Pan’s Labyrinth it is a mixture of genres. Comedy, drama, and romance collide as Joel (Jim Carrey) and the memory of his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) attempt to escape a memory-erasing treatment. Repression also figures heavily in John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt. In a key scene the mother of a boy who may have been abused by a priest admits that the abuse could be overlooked if it means her son is accepted and cared for. Both films include repression as a thematic subject, but in almost every other way, including tone and genre, they are wildly different films.

Although repression and misdirection are cornerstones of thrillers, there is no genre that remains untouched by the narrative power of repression. Whether it is a tragic story of repressed memories of sexual abuse (Mysterious Skin), a science-fiction exploration of humanity (Blade Runner), or a romantic pantomime (City Lights), the search for what has been repressed or hidden is a recurring component of film narrative. At times it is both the subject of a story and the trait of an audience that a storyteller can manipulate, which makes it a rare, archetypal narrative subject.

Works Cited

2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kier Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1968.

Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. Warner Brothers, 1982.

City Lights. Dir. Charles Chaplin. Perf. Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, and Harry Myers. Charles Chaplin Productions, 1931.

The Conversation. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Perf. Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, and Harrison Ford. American Zoetrope, 1974.

Doubt. Dir. John Patrick Shanley. Perf. Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis. Miramax, 2008.

The Fisher King. Dir. Terry Gilliam. Perf. Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams. Columbia Pictures, 1991.

The Great Train Robbery. Dir. Edwin S. Porter (uncredited). Perf. Gilbert M. “Bronco Billy” Anderson and A.C. Abadie. Edison Manufacturing Company, 1903.

Identity. Dir. James Mangold. Perf. John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, John Hawkes, Alfred Molina, and John C. McGinley. Columbia Pictures, 2003.

Inception. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard, Pete Postlethwaite, and Michael Caine. Warner Brothers, 2010.

M. Dir. Fritz Lang. Perf. Peter Lorre and Otto Wernicke. Nero-Film AG, 1931.

The Machinist. Dir. Brad Anderson. Perf. Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michael Ironside, and John Sharian. Filmax Group, 2004.

Mysterious Skin. Dir. Gregg Araki. Perf. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, and Elisabeth Shue. Desperate Pictures, 2004.

Pan’s Labyrinth. Dir. Guillermo del Toro. Perf. Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu, and Doug Jones. Estudios Picasso, 2006.

Shutter Island. Dir. Martin Scorsese. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kinsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, and Ted Levine. Paramount Pictures, 2010.