The Emotional Core Of Your Story (Part 2)

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Emotional Core:

Redemption

Redemption films have strong emotional cores because of their very nature. Coming back from failure or from making a huge mistake are ideas that are instantly relatable.

Classic films like Seabiscuit, A Beautiful Mind, Rocky, and The Verdict all easily spring to mind.

More contemporary examples include Whiplash, The Whale, Promising Young Woman, and The Power of the Dog.

All films feature people who for various reasons have fallen into bad times or created a situation that has put them in a bad situation. The struggle to right the ship is perhaps the storyline; the embracing of their dysfunction, how they come to terms with what they did is the emotional core.

In Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) is so obsessed with fame that he practices drums until his hands bleed and accepts any abuse that his conductor, Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) hurtles his way, including actually throwing a chair at him during practice. Teller’s character eventually has a complete breakdown and loses every bit of the dream he had when he entered the school that Simmon’s character teaches at.

In an epic final scene, Teller’s character finds his center again. This from the script:

It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen… Andrew tearing a hole

through the stage, his heartbeat racing, the sweat pouring from

him like a waterfall, blood gushing from his hands and staining

the cymbals and drum-heads… Everything a BLUR…

Then — a BLAST OF SEPARATED SNARE HITS — and then — Andrew

CHOKES the crash cymbal. A second of pure silence.

Fletcher looks at Andrew. Andrew looks at Fletcher. And then —

Fletcher turns to the band, raises his hand…

…and CUES THE FINAL NOTE.

The whole band roars it out, horns hitting their highest C’s,

and Andrew rolling around his drum set like a madman, cymbals

and snare and toms and the entire apparatus about to burst, as

WE DIVE IN CLOSE TO HIM, his instrument, his sticks, his face,

all sweat and eyes about to pop, the next Buddy Rich, the next

Charlie Parker — Fletcher’s only Charlie Parker — decking

the stage with a climactic crash of cymbals right as, on that

very last hit of hits, we—

SMASH CUT TO BLACK and FADE OUT:

We all feel the same emotion at that point. A tremendous lifting of spirit. Teller’s character’s success is our success; his satisfaction our satisfaction. We move away from the story with a sense that anything is possible.

That’s the emotional core.

Other Types Of Emotional Cores

Messianic

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest shows us the power of sacrifice and love as Chief (Will Sampson) does a mercy killing and then epically lifts an impossible marble piece to smash through the window of the institution. He’s been empowered by the sacrifice of his friend, McMurphy’s (Jack Nicholson) sacrifice who at this point has been lobotomized as punishment for just trying to be human.

Earlier, Chief tells McMurphy that his father was a big man who was beaten down by the system.

Now, at the end of the film, Chief says to the lobotomized McMurphy:

CHIEF
They said you escaped. I knew you wouldn’t
leave without me. I was waiting for you.
Now we can make it, Mac. I feel big as a damn mountain.

When he realizes McMurphy is now unresponsive from a lobotomy…

CHIEF
Oh, no! I’m not going without you, Mac.
I wouldn’t leave you here this way.
You’re coming with me.

(beat)

Let’s go!

And then he smothers his friend and escapes, McMurphy’s influence having empowered him to be confident and large.

This is very emotional and powerful because we can all certainly relate to having someone who has lifted us up and made us better.

Connection

Green Book is about creating friendships that last forever that at first blush never seemed possible. Certainly, the two men who form the core of the story would never seem likely to become friends. They are so different in so many ways. But when Mahershala Ali’s character, Dr. Donald Shirley, rings the bell at Lip’s (Viggo Mortensen) home, our heart swells at the possibilities.

Enlightened Characters

You’d have to be made of stone not to feel something at the end of Titanic when Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jack, slips into the water dying from hypothermia. And you then are brought back to the present day where Kate Winslet’s character, Rose, now aged, drops her jewelery into the ocean and as she sleeps, we see her surrounded by photos of a life well-lived because of Jack’s sacrifice. No matter what James Cameron writes, he always seems to come back to this emotional core in some manner.

In Frozen River only Ray’s (Melissa Leo) sacrifice makes Misty Upman’s character, Lila, whole. When she turns away from the river, goes back and turns herself in, Lila Littlewolf is able then to recover from her tragic life and live again.

In No Time To Die James Bond (Daniel Craig) must sacrifice himself in order not to kill his wife and child because he’s been poisoned with nanobots programmed to kill them.

BOND
I’m not gonna make it.

MADELEINE
But you promised.

(beat)

Just get off that island. Everything is good
now. There’s no one left to hurt us.

BOND
(emotional)

Madeleine. You have made the most
beautiful thing I have ever seen.
She’s perfect because she came from you.

MADELEINE
(she knows it’s hopeless)

There must be a way. We just need
more time. If we only had more time.

BOND
You have all the time in the world.

MADELEINE
I love you.

BOND
I love you too.

We see the missiles fly through the air.

Even watching that ending for this article choked me up. It’s so tragic and it hits you where you feel. Of course, a part of that is it was Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond and that makes you a different kind of emotional.

Love Despite All

In Red White and Royal Blue two young men are willing to sacrifice almost anything to be together. No cost is too great. Even given how impossible their familial positions make it, their love finds a way. No one who has loved this deeply does not understand this point. This is a romantic comedy, certainly, but it tugs the heart with its purity of emotions.

Justice

Wind River has an amazing ending. The actions of Jeremy Renner’s Cory Lambert character creates justice for two men who have lost everything. We all hope for this type of justice if we are wronged and here we see a perfect manifestation of it. It’s just given the circumstances, it’s right, and we all know it and embrace it. The cops get the bad guy but more importantly two fathers find a way to heal from a deep, festering wound.

Conclusion

The Emotional Core of any story is what’s most important to that story. Theme may surround it and contribute to it, but at the end of a movie or a TV series season, if we’re moved in any way it’s because the writer made the right choices and connected us on an emotional level, making us care about the characters and the unfolding events.

A properly designed and executed emotional core is what deepens and elevates any story making it a powerful and memorable experience for the audience.