Film Courage: What is symbolism?
Christopher Vogler, Author: I think symbolism is a way of making invisible things visible that's a
concept I guess that I learned from observation of Alfred Hitchcock's work because he uses a lot of
things in the environment in a symbolic way sometimes it's an object that represents some
idea that he's trying to transmit sometimes it's simply environmental things like sounds
or Shadows he will do little things like if someone is trying to decide if they're going
to do something or not if they're going to be involved in a spy plot or something like that
he sometimes will sneak in a little train noise on the soundtrack just a little like some the
train is leaving are you going to be on the train so he's giving you subliminal messages
that you might think is it just random sound but in fact it's totally intentional
and so it's his way of bringing out this other dimension the people are
talking they're doing things there's action but they're also feeling things and there are forces
in the story that are almost operating like gods or fairies sometimes you get that feeling in
Hitchcock's movies that he himself is a puppeteer manipulating things or that there is some kind of
malign God who's looking out for these people or laughing at them so the symbols help to convey
those things but I think that's the key to it is that symbols are a way of making invisible
ideas feelings concepts visible to the audience and it's quite wonderful the way you can just
show me something like a glass of water and I'll start if you emphasize it in the frame and just
linger on it for a second I'll start thinking well what does that mean is that what is that a
symbol of well the glass is half empty so maybe this character is at that point and they need
to fill the glass or they need to drink or the glass is maybe going to break and it will mean
something in the text of the story and we're so ready to do that that it makes it quite easy for
filmmakers to assign these things and it doesn't have to be even the thing it could be a color or
a sound sometimes a good filmmaker will will use a color to signal you something bad is going to
happen or don't go there that every time you see the the color green perhaps something bad happens
and if after that sequence of cause and effect happens two or three times every time the audience
sees green they're going to be scared and they'll they'll know on some deep level they'll know that
this is trouble coming so this is one of the ways that that symbols can be used and and the audience
enjoys playing with those toys with imagining what is what does that mean what does that symbolize
so it's almost like Pavlovian there's a you they're starting to train you so you salivate
when you're the Bell kind of thing it is it is like a Pavlov's dog sort of response that we
pick it up very quickly that if you see an evil character cooking that's what he does just before
he kills somebody so after one or two examples of that the next time you see him cooking you're just
waiting or who's gonna die you're looking around for who is he coming after next so it is fairly
easy to program the audience with little cues like that it's a lot of fun to find those things
you talk about the embolism in myths and how symbols communicate universal truths
yes symbols in myths have their own peculiar power I think this started around what they
call attributes in the scholarship of Greek gods and goddesses every god and goddess has
certain objects or animals that are associated with them and when we see that object or that
symbol we might suspect that God is nearby or that that the hero maybe is under the influence
of that god or goddess Athena for example who's a goddess of wisdom has a number of things that
are associated with her in art so when you make a picture of her or a sculpture or something
you include those things and it helps tell the audience oh that's Athena but because she has an
owl on her shoulder which is a symbol of wisdom she has a certain piece of armor on her chest
that's called the Aegis that protects her she has a helmet pushed back on her head that represents
that she's a warrior goddess and she sometimes has a spear and so forth so all those things
are Clues to that character's presence or that God's presence but also can kind of move around
independently of them so when the owl comes by Athena is watching out this is a an idea that
comes out in Scandinavian mythology that the god Odin has his own attributes and tools and weapons
and so forth but one of the things he's associated with is two Ravens who sit on either side of his
throne and they're always going out and flying around and gathering information and then they'll
come back and tell him what's going on on Earth so when you see Ravens circling around Odin is
nearby and they actually put this into the text of the Vikings TV show the HBO series that every time
the Ravens show up Odin is paying attention and the hero has maybe access to that at that point
so the these symbols help to suggest what what is the energy at that moment are we under some dark
dangerous influence or are is some God looking out for us and sending their messenger in the
form of one of these animals or just an object that represents them sure and then with the
the quote unquote villain there was always fear of the witch's familiars the cats or different
rats or sometimes even Raven suit doing the evil bidding for the witch when he or she wasn't there
yeah these animal familiars or animal sidekicks are very useful when I was working for Disney we
were developing the movie that eventually became Aladdin and this was very early in the development
Aladdin was kind of immature street kid and he was a solo act he was like in the original Top Gun
kind of a guy who didn't need anybody else was not a team player and as it developed he got a little
more mature they had a different idea of the ideal person to play that more of a more like Tom Cruise
but I said in the sessions discussing all this it would be so nice if the hero had somebody to
talk to or somebody who could go with him on the adventures and observe and comment and I
said it could be a camel or it could be a monkey or something and the animators went monkey and
started drawing the hero's sidekick a monkey and then I said well maybe the villain needs one too
so they created this character Iago who was this harsh voiced parrot who sat on the villain's
shoulder and the villain was very serious but this other character was the humor of the piece so the
monkey didn't talk he made noises but he couldn't speak but he let he let what he thought about
things and we kept going with this and I think I and some other animators had the same idea at the
same moment which is well he's got this magic carpet why can't we animate that why shouldn't
that be a character with its own expressive abilities and the animators went wow that's
great and immediately started drawing pictures of the the rug waving hello or shrugging or crossing
the two corners to cross its arms disapproval they they found this whole vocabulary for a piece of
carpet and and turned it into a character who added dimensions to the story so I've enjoyed
making that that contribution that isn't in the original source stories of Aladdin or any of those
Arabian Night stories but that's that's my little pleasure is to have planted some of those things.