On Character Arcs

A portion from my review of Bob Thielke’s Father Max:

Let's first talk about the central figure of this story, Father Maxsmillian Kolbe. It could be argued that there was not much of a character arc in Father Kolbe. These events certainly sharpened his character and deepened his faith, but did he actually learn or change? Not really. It could be argued that all tests of faith are steps of growth for any individual, but, of course, what we're talking about here is the cinematic, 3-act structure, inner-problem-in-Act-One-that-is-realized-and-fixed-in-Act-Three, kind of character arc. Was there any here? Another question: is it essential that in EVERY story, the lead character MUST have a character arc? Even McKee wrote that by the end of every story, a character must change whether for the better or for the worse. Is it even quantifiable how Kolbe changed in this movie? Is this not instead a story about Kolbe's affect on everyone around him?

Consider this: Charlie Kaufman famously argued against character arcs in his great movie, "Adaptation." I absolutely agree with him. Character arcs are good in many stories, but they are not essential in every story. Especially franchise films. And action films. And comedies. Since when did James Bond ever have a character arc? Or Inspector Clouseau? Or Indiana Jones? Or Atticus Finch? Even in the classics with, say, Bogart, we watched him play Sam Spade, a man who knew who he was and whose true character at its core never changed. Yet, we were fascinated by him. We wanted to be like him. And we watched him play the game with all of those other tricky characters and wondered what he was really doing. We even got worried at times if he was himself a bad character. We asked ourselves, "Sam Spade is supposed to be good, so why is he acting this way? Is he really bad?" But then, in the end, when Bogart came out on top, as he always did, we discovered that he was, in fact, two steps ahead of everyone including the audience, and although he may have played games with the other characters, he never abandoned his own true character. Those endings were not only about Bogart beating the bad guys, but it was also about clarifying his true character, which was still good.

We have a similar setup in "Father Max" and there's NOTHING wrong with that. Instead of having a man in the lead role who needs to learn, we have a man who knows who he is. So we ask ourselves, "Is this really his true character? Will he stay true to himself? In the face of these overwhelming and horrific circumstances, will he lose his faith and abandon what he believes?" Bob wrote in his Production Notes that "although this is a story about a religious man, this is not a story about religion." I agree. One does not have to believe the things Kolbe believes in order to be inspired by the way he, time and again, shows love to others and stays true to his character. This was a man who expressed a belief in showing absolute love to everyone, even his enemies, and in the end when he was imprisoned in one of the most notorious labor camps in Germany, Kolbe gave his life away to save another man, which was, in essence, a huge statement of True Character, because he really was willing to die for what he believes. At its core, this is a story about love, about a man with strong beliefs on love, and he is put into a position that forces him to decide how far he is actually willing to go to show love to others. Of course, he chooses to go all the way and he makes the ultimate sacrifice to save another human being who was not even part of his faith. "No greater love hath any man than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friends."