Duality in the Characters in Film

Duality is an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something. Duality can also be represented by two separate entities, or people for that matter, who provide contrast for one another. “Duality in people exists as qualities that seemingly in opposition of each other.” (Dualism in Film) The definition of duality can be seen in many ways, in modern cinema however, the meaning of duality is more specific, although its definition does not vary too much from what the common definition is. In film, duality is the contrast of two people or entities. These two entities however, can be portrayed in several ways. The duality can be a conflict within one’s self, as seen in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010) and David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), a dual personality or change in character, as seen in the Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy and George Lucas’s Star Wars saga, or duality can be portrayed as one character and his or her personality versus another character and his or her personality, as seen in Black Swan, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and The Star Wars Saga. Since a director cannot bluntly say in the film, without ruining the illusion of the world they have created, that one character represents another, or that these two entities represent one another and are dual, there are various techniques a filmmaker can use in order to plant this idea or theme of dualism into the viewers mind. My goal is to find out how the theme of duality is portrayed through the principal characters in The Star Wars Saga, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Fight Club, and Black Swan.

Duality in characters is expressed it many ways and when in pre-production, production and post-production, the director must see to it that ev...

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...Narrator’s confusion and internal struggle within himself to try to understand what’s going on inside his head, why he has a dual personality, and how to destroy it. Depending on what the director wants to convey through the visuals of the movie and how he wants to portray the theme of duality through these visuals, the film will convey this message to the audience in this way. “These films show us that dualism is an inherent part of human existence. They illustrate that the good and the bad exist together, often times in one person or one place. People are complicated. It is not necessary to flatten one’s character into a single dimension in order to understand them. Rather, one needs only to understand that seemingly disparate qualities, be it good and bad or male and female, can exist together to create a complex dynamic in people’s psychology.” (Dualism in Film)