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🦋 Identifying with Travis

Here is what I am thinking about the main character of O Lucky Man!: the viewer is compelled to identify with him, to feel paranoid on his behalf. The mechanism for this, the driving force, is Travis' lack of self-consciousness. He moves through the world without putting together the strands of paranoia that are the fabric of the movie -- not exactly naïve; but unable to grasp how everything that happens in the world of the movie is directed at him. This is a little difficult for me to express:

1. A working definition of paranoia as the belief that everything that happens to you is connected and happens because of its effect on you.
2. Travis is the main character of this movie; and everything that happens in the movie happens because of its effect on him. Everything that happens in the movie is connected by virtue of being part of the same script. If Travis realized this -- if he realized he were a character in the movie -- he would be paranoid.
3. But he does not -- so you the viewer, as you get the levels of connection and of conspiracy against him, have to assume the role of his ego

This line of thinking needs some work. But it seems promising; it highlights how the experience of enjoying the narrative involves identifying with the main character as a key element, and starts working towards a mechanism for this process of identification.

posted evening of Friday, November 28th, 2008
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