Day 3: Pushed to a Breaking Point – GOOD WILL HUNTING

[Sandeep Gupta]

While I worked on the principle of this assignment, I am afraid, that bona fide I have a completely different take and I mean no disregard to class. I am also a little troubled by the assumptions I made when I watched the movie the first time. Not out of guilt albeit that our job is harder.

When I saw the movie, it was quite simple. SEAN got provoked. But when I saw it for this exercise, I see no sign of provocation on him.

Even if in the movie Sean hands WILL a victory, telling him soon after that he tore up his life.

The shot is owned by Will, just because he doesn’t look beaten, I presumed he was winning. In reality he lost four duels with Sean in this clip we saw, and one or two just before the clip. Sean doesn’t lose his cool even for a second in that entire scene, even while and after handling Will. He is calm, collected, and keeps his back towards Will leaving, probably to see if he will do anything once his back is turned.

In good faith, as I see it’s Sean who got to Will in the end. The duels¹ Will lost to Seans’s repartee-touchés, he just ignores the loss and hits the next one. Will has a problem with authority because of his past, and he has demonstrated a lucky streak attacking and avoiding being “owned” by the shrinks — as he perceives it. Here, Sean found a way to get him to listen.

¹ Sean has a sharp and skilled-calm riposte to every insult or challenge Will throws at him. His unchallenging demeanor is deceptive, but he has won every attack.

With books for a start — Zinn is an anarchist historian, and he has written simplified and accessible texts. Chomsky is a harder read, even for those who claim to have to read him. Sean answers he benches 285, Will clearly isn’t close, avoids answering. Sean is indulging him in his critique of the painting, but the moment Will actually starts to cross roles, bingo! Sean starts to reclaim the session.

Will is still marching onto Waterloo and desperate, attacks his significant relationship. Sean takes that as an opportunity to reclaim the role, in the form of a stern warning.

Now Will’s got a reaction. He takes that as a win and strikes harder. Sean, calmly takes off his glasses, makes a very measured move and deftly pins him with his 285 grip.

Will has lost, met more than his match. He deflects again as “time’s up.”

Albeit Sean got to him, and this shrink, would be his psychologist, not victim. That’s the consequence.

I had presumed Sean probably had Vietnam trauma and unprocessed grief regarding the painful loss of his wife. But I looked up enough today about conflict, rivalry, PTSD, and behavior of lashing out, to be pop psych certain Sean exhibited absolutely no symptoms of any of them. Will does get to him by the end of the movie though, and Sean channels that constructively, putting cards back on the table.

The dramatic foundations of this scene are unbelievably sound, and that’s when frankly on Sean’s side (if I remember correctly) it’s just Robin’s acting, presence and the two dudes writing it for us on the fly as we watch.

One coincidence helping is both are Southies, other than that we are just hurriedly connecting the dots on Sean at this point.

If I remember correctly, we are discovering, and a little incorrectly perhaps that Sean has unprocessed grief and got triggered — at least that’s the first conclusion I safely jumped towards. We already want Will to come through it, so we want this to go well. That Robin Williams is here, raises our hopes but doesn’t convince us, until Sean does.

I may have contradicted the subtext of the question, but honestly this is what I saw.

[Jim]

Sandeep,

I need to apologize for my post to you earlier regarding I had never heard of Level 1 and 2 characters. You replied it was in the Character Design session. Recently I was reviewing all my notes in this class and realized you were correct. Sorry, about that misjudgment.

[Sandeep Gupta]

No worries Jim, I really appreciate it and also, not a problem at all, we’ve all been there done that — I guess comes with being writers. If I had a count for each time I skipped the first two lines and jumped to watch the scene or couldn’t read what I had scribbled yesterday …

[Deb Johnson]

What I learned:

Since we know Will is a fighter, he is not going to acquiesce to Sean in any way. Sean is ready for a fight, but he doesn’t exactly know what’s coming. There is a tension that builds throughout.

Sean is humble and passive through the onslaught of insults that Will throws his way. We see the tension build ever so slightly… but Sean continues to defuse the situation.

Until Will picks at his wound. Will thinks he’s got him where he wants him – but he doesn’t see the power behind Sean’s fierce love for his wife. It is this love that causes Sean to “lose it” and threaten Will’s life.

We now see that these are the Right Characters – finally someone who can stand up to Will. And we also see the future: Ultimately, Sean will be able to help Will (because he has the power to do so.)

[Lawrence Fraly]

Deborah. YES! They are right characters because Sean can stand up to Will, as no one else has throughout. I had missed that. Your response is a good example of putting all the lessons together, not just the one we’re focusing on. Thanks for nudging me to be more aware.

[Trish Carothers]

Interesting dynamic between will, the “son” and Sean the “father” figure. The scene is powerful in emotion and attack – deflect. Will wants confrontation because he feels safe in that emotion of defensive anger…and don’t we all. Then Sean’s repeated declaration of “It’s not your fault.” A gentle rain of repeated caring on the ears and emotion of Will until Will cracks open…and can’t we relate…if we have been so fortunate to have had this experience of release of long held shuttered emotions. And Will doesn’t even see it coming until it’s there.

And Sean’s face tells of his own emotional catharsis because of his work with Will, Will’s powerful response, and I suspect Sean’s own acceptance of his wife’s death…that wasn’t his fault either. Powerful writing coupled with powerful emotions, and acting…amazing.

[Karyn Laitis]

Week 4, Day3–Pushed to a Breaking Point–Good Will Hunting

The build up to this breaking point is Will’s character. He is perceptive; he reads people; he listens to discover their weaknesses. If he exposes the vulnerability of others, he maintains his superiority and insulates himself from exposing his own weaknesses–the best defense is an impeccable offense.

Will finds everything imaginable to diminish Sean–mind, body and spirit. When he feels someone might expose him, he pushes them to their limit. Will has no respect for someone’s journey or value.

This encounter was like watching two boxers. Will’s jabs were met with Sean’s bobs & weaves to deflect. When Will cannot connect directly, he goes for the jugular with comments about a loved one–Sean’s “woman”–being the wrong choice. Sean’s warning was when he postured in the doorway; shoulder/arms back and chest out. When Will breached a boundary; Sean calmly removed his glasses and whistle, then Will’s disparaging comment about Sean’s wife being unfaithful–that was the limit–Will doesn’t concede–but calls a “times up”–the bell rings and the adversaries go to their respective corners; leaving Sean, the Phycologist with a sickening feeling of remorse.

It’s a powerful scene to set the tone for future meetings.

[Lawrence Fraly]

“Will breached a boundary”. You nailed it! That’s what Will sets out to do, but this time he breached too far.

[Lawrence Fraly]

Week 4 Day 3 Pushed to the breaking point GOOD WILL HUNTING

FIRST WATCH

Built up to this breaking point To Will, Sean is just another therapist. And just like in the bar when he out-duels and bullies the grad student, Will attacks Sean with facts and name-dropping. Facts he derives from objects that appear meaningful to Sean. Sean parries every one of the thrusts with deeper knowledge than Will attacks with, until Will analyzes the watercolor, in which we see Will showing his own insecurities he’s projecting onto Sean.

How is Will able to get to Sean and what reaction does it cause?

A split second is all we’re allowed to see of Will’s own vulnerability in his self-reflective analysis of the painting—before Will realizes he can’t get to Sean through the usual trappings of ego. Will attacks what’s truly meaningful to Sean—not facts and artifacts, but what he thinks is Sean’s loss of manhood / intimacy with Sean’s wife. What Will doesn’t realize is that Sean’s wife is dead.

SECOND WATCH

Drama The court requires Will to see a therapist. Will’s gotten the better of every therapist so far. But he hasn’t run into Sean who parries every one of Will’s attacks on the artifacts in Sean’s office. Will lumps Sean in with all the other therapists. What he doesn’t count on is that Sean has a wound even deeper than Will’s.

Profile What Will also doesn’t realize is that Sean’s wife isn’t an object of Sean’s affection, not an object at all, but his life. Her death is Sean’s wound. Her life was his strength. Will’s attacking her also reveals Will’s own inability to love anyone but himself.

Will is aggressive, abstract, analytical, narcissistic, intuitive, and can’t stand authority.

Sean is intuitive, analytical, clever, witty, well-rounded. He will meet head-on any challenge to himself and/or his colleagues, except the one thing he holds sacred is his wife. Then it’s not a challenge, it’s a war, and he’s been to war.

Interesting from writer’s p.o.v. Both have powerful/archetypal subtext of vulnerability they refuse to let go of. Will doesn’t know his yet, but I’m sure he’s going to reveal it to Sean. The painting is a trope like a mirror, revealing the character’s subtext as he analyzes the meaning. These two are equally matched in the surface world. But Sean is so much more aware of his inner world than Will is.

My own writing I have two secondary characters who are in similar relation to WIll and Sean, with one character more vulnerable, and going at each other as one pulls away from the other. For my protagonist, whose wound is deepest of all and self-inflicted, I need to draw out the conflict between her and her mother, whose wound is also deep, but which she wears on her sleeve.

[J.R Riddle]

Each character is right for this script. Drama wraps around their wounds. One is vulnerable and one is not. One wants to help and one is denying help. One is kind and the one is selfish. These behavior differences and others create great conflict and a waiting for the emotional explosion. One has a higher IQ and one has a higher EQ, and that makes this interesting.

This is an interesting “cat & mouse” game. The question is, “Who is the cat & who is the mouse?” Will is ordered to therapy sessions, while hating authority and knowing he’s brilliant, Will sets out to play games rather that being honestly vulnerable. Both of these me have wounds and while Sean is a mature therapist, he is unwilling to tolerate emotional abuse from an emotionally immature, angry young man, no matter how brilliant he may be. Sean watches and listens, patiently, until Will crosses the line and attacks Sean’s beloved.

I’m learning how to create depth with many, many writing tools, but all the tools do not have to fit into my story. Applying all of these tools is unnecessary, as each would have to fit, make sense and would take some thought – where, what goes, how and why? Adding character depth cannot be about change alone or conflict alone just because we learned a new tool. The changes have to make sense on several levels and fit my character’s profiles.