ive read reviews recently that mention mystic river, and master and commander have excellent character development. i hear the phrase all the time but have never been really sure what it meant.

Rain Man. (Actually the brother, Charlie, exhibits pretty good character development)

Consiterd? Come on now ... you're not even trying.

In a basic sense, good character development is when a character is like a real human (or lifeform, depending on the case) would be, not just a servant of the plot. People are much more than a single emotion based on a single circumstance, but the culmination of a lifetime of experiences and memories, and our actions are often dictated -- or at least affected by -- those events. Too often, characters in films (or tv, books, etc) exist only to serve the plot ... they have one or two formulaic characteristics ("the cool guy," "the angry guy," "the hot chick"), but they're not fully realized characters. When someone says a film has excellent character development, it often refers to the film making an effort to show us why a character is the way he is instead of just accepting it as part of the plot. Some films delve deeply into the specifics of a character, and some just show the result leaving it up to the viewer to assume a general idea of what events led to this personality (e.g. "something" happened in a character's childhood that makes him unable to trust women), but the idea is that the character is developed ... there's more to him than just what the plot needs him to be in this scene.

I'm not sure if that's a good explanation or not ... that's kind of a weird question.

das

Chasing Amy

Ordinary People provides the best example of character development that I can think off the top of my head.

The Captain, the Executive Officer, and the young reporter in Das Boot.

What is considered good spelling.

The Rave Scene in Matrix Revolutions is one of the finest examples of character development ever seen in the history of motion pictures. Which is exactly why the scene is so despised by "Joe Six-Pack" types who didn't understand the film.

Cool Hand Luke
GoodFellas
King of Comedy
Kundun
Memento
Raging Bull
Taxi Driver

Barry Lyndon

And now, for something completely different: a serious response.

In my opinion, there are two kinds of character development.

The most common kind talked about is when a character changes (usually for the better, sometimes for the worse) due to the circumstances around them. If done right, the change is something that was in the character all along, but they are tested in a way that brings that quality to the forefront. Some classic examples:

Casablanca (Humprhey Bogart, Claude Rains)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Humphrey Bogart)
Rainman (Tom Cruise)
The Insider (Russell Crowe)
High and Low (Toshiro Mifune)

The other kind is when the character is static (they don't change throughout the film), but the other characters (as well as the audience) learn that there is more to that character than meets the eye. Examples of this kind of character development:

Rainman (Dustin Hoffman)
Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks)
Memento (Guy Pearce)
The Seven Samurai (Toshiro Mifune)
Unbreakable (Samuel L. Jackson)

Great Post

pulp fiction.
chasing amy.
y tu mama tambien.
shawshank.
the green mile.
true romance.
taxi driver.
it's a wonderful life.
magnolia.

on and on.

Five Easy Pieces
For a Few Dollars More(both TMWNN and Mortimer)
The Godfather(specifically Michael Corleone)
The Apostle
Resevior Dogs(Mr. White specifically)
Citizen Kane
Lawrence of Arabia

Man, so many, could go on all day. I'd start with these though, these were the favorites off the top of my head looking at my DVD collection.

Ang Lee's "Hulk"

ok....start your debating!

Lawrence of Arabia - He's asked at the midpoint, "Who are you?" Does he know? He's done so much, and yet, does he really?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - R.P. (Nicholson) wants nothing more than to leave the place, which he went to in the first place to escape jail. At the end, when his opporunity comes, does he? How about when they discover his friend is dead. His chance again comes up. Does he? He makes a choice that goes against everything that came before, and yet it makes sense, and adds soooo much to his character, and to the themes of the film. What happens to him next?

Raging Bull, Taxi Driver - What do we see again and again through repetition? We learn the character. We observe Travis and all his methods of lonliness. Lamata, we see is a desperate character who only knows how to fight in the ring. Everything domestic is terrible. Does he ever redeem himself? Maybe slightly toward the end.

Pulp Fiction - Jules goes through transformation toward the end of the film when he witnesses a miracle. Does he commit to his word, and not kill Honey Bunny and Ringo? He lets them go, after "buying" their lives. Had the diner scene not taken place, his words would be just that, words. There needed to be a scene that would test Jules on whether or not he would fulfill redemption, which in a lot of ways, the movie is all about.

God I love threads like these..... too few and far, far between....

The Matrix - Neo goes from someone who has no clue about "agents" and would go into their custody willingly after fearing a high-rise fall.... ...To someone who learns about the matrix, and receives martial arts training, and therefore knows kung fu, and discovers he's much faster than everyone else..... .....To being able to rescue and overcome most obstacles, including not running from Agent Smith..... .....To being able to stop bullets, go inside Agent Smith and tear apart his code, line from line, and finally fly away from a phonebooth!! --- Now, if that's not character development, I don't know what is!

My post on this issue from back in Feb

Character Development

I totally forgot about that earlier thread. I'm just glad my comments there didn't contradict what I posted here. *whew*

Great post, Groucho.

Additionally, however, I think that an interesting combination of the two types has started to emerge in movies recently, that is based on how the character is develop and how the audience perceives that development. This third type is the character that, in reality, stays the same, but exhibits false changes that are a result of the environment of the film. I think that this is most readily seen in movies like 12 Monkeys (Bruce Willis), Basic (John Travolta), and Memento (Guy Pearce . . . I'm stealing him from your type two list ). Throughout the movie, you are given glimpses into their character, but are not immediately given enough information to know if the glimpses are real or accurate. In some cases (e.g. Basic), you are left with a pretty good idea of the person at the end of the movie, but in others (12 Monkeys and Memento) you are still left with some doubt as to whether you have got the correct picture.

Personally, I find this kind to be a refreshing change to what can often be very predictable character development (after 30 minutes of the movie you know everything about the characters, even if it hasn't actually been revealed yet). To me, it seems more engaging and tends to pull me into the story more . . . mostly because I feel like I am trying to solve a puzzle.

Anyway, I don't know if you guys agree . . . perhaps it is just a subset of "type two", but it is something that I have noticed happening more and more, anyway.