Journey Metaphor and Home
Symbolism in “The Pixar
Universe”
Sean Johansen (10849599)
University of Amsterdam, dept. of Media Studies (MA thesis,
film track)
sjohansen93@outlook.com
©2015
Supervisor: Dr. Ch. J. Forceville
Second Reader: Dr. A. Tseronis
Abstract
Academic studies of metaphor in the model of Lakoff and Johnson’s ‘conceptual metaphor theory’ (CMT) have frequently used the conceptual realm of the journey as the source component of a metaphorical schema as the basis for their overall investigation. The pervasiveness of journeying within filmic storytelling allows for a rich variety of schemas of the journey metaphor to be adopted when assessed in relation the medium of film. Contrastingly under-analysed within academic study on cognitive linguistics, the concept of symbolism has recently been assessed by Charles Forceville with concern to the concept of the ‘home’ as a means of drawing connotative meaning within animation film. In this thesis the journey metaphor and the home symbol are assessed in relation to the feature-length works of Pixar Animation Studios. This thesis shows that (a) the journey metaphor and the home symbol are commonly presented in Pixar films as a way of communicating ideas and cultivating the world view of both children and adults (b) ‘The Pixar Universe’ (highlighted in this thesis’ title) relates to the interconnectivity of storytelling themes amongst the studio’s feature-length works (c) the vivid imagination of Pixar’s visual and thematic storytelling presents an ideal platform for future investigation on symbolism to be conducted.
Acknowledgement:
I would like to thank Dr. Charles Forceville, my supervisor, whose experienced knowledge in
the academic field of cognitive linguistics helped to formulate the foundations of this thesis,
and whose regular read-overs were a valuable aid to me throughout the writing process.
Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction……… p 4
Chapter 2. Journey Metaphor………. p 6
Chapter 3. The Road Movie………... p 13
3.1- Introduction……… p 13
3.2- Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)……….. p 15
3.3- Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)……….. p 18
3.4- Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)………. p 20
3.5- Conclusion……… p 22
Chapter 4. Journey Metaphor- Case Studies……… p 23
4.1- Introduction……… p 23
4.2- Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003)……… p 24
4.3- Up (Pete Docter, 2009)……… p 28
4.4- Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) and Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010)……… p 32
4.5- Conclusion……… p 36
Chapter 5. Home Symbol- Case Studies……….. p 37
5.1- Introduction……… p 37
5.2- Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)……….. p 38
5.3- Wall-e (Andrew Stanton, 2008)………. p 41
5.4- Toy Story 2 (John Lasseter, 1999)……… p 44
Chapter 6. Concluding Remarks……… p 46
Chapter 1. Introduction
Since the studio’s first feature length production in 1995, Pixar Animation Studios and their canon of CGI animated films have demonstrated a distinct style of storytelling for children. The studio’s series of works have struck a unique blend of fantasy, combining the normality of the spectator’s day to day world, with an alternative setting in which to present common social experiences shared within children. For example, Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) is largely set in the familiar setting of a
suburban neighbourhood, but the story is then provided with a more fantastical element through the incorporation of toys which come to life. Another example, Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003) (with its speaking amphibious characters its obvious source of fantasy), though set in a far more unfamiliar under-water setting, still presents the viewer with more personally resonant narrative elements such as a pre-school for the film’s protagonist to attend and the central element of a humanised father-son bond. The studio’s series of feature-length works (and short films) can be argued to have displayed a modernised update to the classic storytelling of hand-drawn animated Disney features exhibited in the decades prior to Pixar’s feature length debut. Pixar Studios present a sense of imagination necessary to evoking escapism, but significantly also a world not too far removed from a reality that resonates with the spectator. The richness of Pixar’s animated visuals and vivid storytelling juxtaposed with resonant narrative elements therefore help to form an alluring platform for young children to engage with the studio’s stories. Perhaps two of the most prominent storytelling devices utilised to construct a story to captivate their audience, are Pixar’s use of symbolism and metaphor.
The notions of metaphor and symbolism when attributed to Pixar’s canon of works lead to an enormous richness of interpretations regarding each film. Despite this, any investigation into the studio itself (let alone a metaphorical/symbolic reading) remains sparse within film studies. Robert Velarde’s The Wisdom of Pixar- an Animated Look at Virtue (2010) is one of the few examples of academic analysis into the studio’s films. Velarde attempts to examine Pixar’s films through an ethical study regarding virtuosity. The interpretations themselves, however, are articulated by one review found in Publisher’s Weekly to be “slender”, shortly following to claim; “Velarde does pose some interesting questions – can a superhero's courage be taught? What is a Christian's proper stance on technology to avoid a polluted Wall-E world? But Pixar's current corpus of fewer than 17 hours of film feels like a thin foundation for answering them.”1 Though four further studio features have been
released since Velarde’s book, the problematic aspect of his findings as raised by the review remains pertinent. Academic work concerning the studio itself tends to ground itself in broader studies on
animated film, rather than a specific textual analysis of Pixar’s feature length works. Much analysis of the studio tends to appear on an online platform, usually contributed by fans of the studio rather than as academic writing. Jon Negroni’s extensive article “The Pixar Theory: Every Character Lives in the Same Universe”, was published on social media, and news sharing website Mashable in 2013. An interpretation of Negroni’s article title with regards to the idea of a ‘universe’ in which the film’s characters all live helps to stimulate the core investigation of this thesis.
While the aim of this thesis will in no way be to further the notion of an actual
interconnectivity between each features’ settings, what I would like to demonstrate is a connection between various films in terms of their vivid imagery and multifaceted narrative elements. Probably not literally set in the same world, Pixar’s feature length works do however share a number of symbolic and metaphorical images to aid their stories. Therefore what I believe should be
acknowledged (and will attempt to argue) is an intrinsic link between each film in the messages they intend to convey through their presentation of metaphor (specifically the journey metaphor) and symbolism (specifically that of the home); both in shaping the psyches of the young spectator and potentially re-moulding those of older audiences. Furthermore, elements such as the vivid style of the studio’s story design (as will be asserted later, the medium of animation is suitable to metaphor), present a key opportunity to explore visual symbolism. At least in the framework of Cognitive
Linguistics, in which my analyses are rooted, symbolism is a far less vigorously analysed concept than metaphor2, which would add relevance to using the works of Pixar animation studios and their films
as stimulus for adding to material with which academic readers will be able to understand the concept. The case studies I will address will be separated into two chapters (one on the journey metaphor, and the other on the home as a symbol), and as a result I will demonstrate the
pervasiveness of metaphor and symbolic readings across several of the studio’s films. It is my hope that this will highlight the works of Pixar as a rich corpus for future investigations into metaphor and symbol study. I would lastly like to assert that the aim of this thesis will not be to shed light on a new way of approaching metaphor and symbolic study. Rather I will use academic studies already
conducted as a way of focusing on readings of Pixar films which remain largely absent from academic study due to the modernity of the studio’s works. I will therefore be able to convey an understanding of how the filmmakers of Pixar animation studios use symbol and metaphor as a way of
communicating ideas, and enhancing the audience’s emotional engagement with the films’ narratives.
Chapter 2. The Journey Metaphor
Perhaps one of the most extensively covered tropes within academic metaphor and symbol study is that of ‘the journey’, a trope discussed more specifically in studies on conceptual metaphor. One of the most susceptible artistic forms to metaphorical analysis through the scope of a journey is film. Considering the importance of a film protagonist’s progression across their narrative arc (to overcome conflict, reach a new understanding of themselves etc), a film viewer can perceive numerous cinematic texts to embody some form of journey in the story. This is often achieved through the achievement of a character’s personal “goal” via a journey that character undertakes in order to reach the narrative’s end. In order to establish the significance of ‘the journey’ to my overall study of Pixar’s works, I will draw upon several separate examples of the journey metaphor
presented by academic authors. These overviews of the journey in their separate areas of metaphorical study will build towards my own use of the schema for the Pixar case studies in the second half of my thesis.
The first instance of the Journey to address in this chapter is derived from George Lakoff’s ‘The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor’, as he uses the vehicle of travelling in order to posit the target of a relationship: “Imagine a love relationship described as follows: Our relationship has hit a
dead-end street. Here love is being conceptualised as a journey, with the implication that the
relationship is stalled, that the lovers cannot keep going the way they’ve been going, that they must turn back, or abandon the relationship altogether.”3 The lexical arrangement of Lakoff’s theorisation
is significant. His use of terms such as ‘stalled’ and ‘turn back’ helps to create imagery that resonates with the way the reader of his text would visualise the actions one would perform on undertaking a journey. Taking into consideration the logistics of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory (CMT), we can therefore observe that the aim of this text is clearly to posit the target domain of this metaphor as a love relationship, whereas the source domain is a journey— the source domain within a conscious formulation of the journey metaphor should always remain as such. As is the case with other conceptual metaphors, the source and target within the journey metaphor is difficult to reverse. If one were to take Lakoff’s cited example of the state of someone’s relationship as a dead-end street, reversing the sentiment into ‘a dead-end street is like a
relationship’ would fail to yield the emotional impact of a relationship and its state targeted by connotations of journeying (and to add, the metaphor would then simply not be about a
relationship, but making a journey). The journey vehicle attributed to the target of a relationship therefore establishes the importance of ‘the journey’ as being the source of the constructed
3 Lakoff, George, ‘The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor’, in Ortony, Andrew, Metaphor and Thought (Second
metaphor. As will be clear from the following examples, this is an aspect of the journey metaphor by no means exclusive to the concept of a relationship.
Mark Johnson’s articulation of the source-path-goal schema is key to observe in order to understand the steps of, and motivations behind a narrative protagonist’s journey: “In every case of PATHS there are always the same parts: (1) a source, or starting point; (2) a goal, or end-point; and (3) a sequence of contiguous locations connecting the source with a goal. Paths are thus routes for moving from one point to another.”4 Under the analysis of this schema, we are able to gain a
perspective of how rooted the journey metaphor is in our day to day life as well as through multi-modal artistic and textual platforms. In order to demonstrate the presence of the journey metaphor in our physical day to day life, another Mark Johnson study can be referred to. In his investigation ‘The Narrative Context of Self and Action’ Johnson builds on the source-path-goal schema by positing the metaphor PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS: “The PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS metaphor has as specific instances the LONG-TERM PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITIES ARE JOURNEYS and LIFE IS A JOURNEY METAPHORS… Any temporal process can be understood metaphorically as movement along a path, with stages of the process corresponding to points along the path.”5 Johnson, earlier in the chapter,
analysed the source-path-goal schema in relation to the narrative of a hypothetical story concerning a young prostitute. In the creation of this story (and with his incorporation of the source-path-goal schema in his breakdown of the narrative), he was able to demonstrate the sense of ‘self’ we create for ourselves in our day to day lives. Therefore the following metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY enables the ubiquity of the journey metaphor in one’s daily life to become even more apparent: “Since living a life is a long-term purposeful activity, too, life can be understood metaphorically as a journey along an abstract metaphorical path toward a final destination.”6 In the context of Johnson’s study, the idea
of ‘storytelling’ is used as a way of describing the re-telling we demonstrate to reveal personal experiences in our lives. Therefore an intertwining between the fictional storytelling (that we may associate with literature for example) and the reality of our daily lives is made apparent. Ultimately the rooted nature of the journey metaphor in our actual lives leads to a cinema-viewers ease in their ability to engage with and perhaps even sympathise with a character’s narrative journey in the diegetic world of the film.
Following on from Mark Johnson’s analysis of the source-path-goal schema, reference can be made to Jonathan Charteris-Black’s study ‘Metaphor in the Koran’, a study that typifies the journey metaphor’s prevalence across various textual mediums. Building on the studies of George Lakoff and
4 Johnson, Mark, The Body in the Mind, The University of Chicago Press, 1987, p 113 5 Johnson, Mark, Moral Imagination, The University of Chicago Press, 1993, p 167 6 Ibid
Mark Johnson on conceptual metaphor theory and Johnson’s further work on the source-path-goal schema, Charteris-Black has produced an extensive reading of the Koran and its usage of
metaphorical language. What is expressed through this study is the importance of the journey metaphor to the intended purpose and effect of the Koran on the reader—his overall observation hinging on the idea of the scripture as ‘guiding’ the Muslim reader. Charteris-Black opens his findings on the Journey metaphor’s presence in the religious text by stating: “Given the importance of precepts of moral guidance and didacticism in the Koran, it is not perhaps surprising that journeys are a very important metaphor domain.”7 Already clear from this early stage of Charteris-Black’s
analysis is the idea of ‘guidance’. Guidance in this context is very much rooted in a Muslim follower’s moral conduct adhering to Islamic teachings. This is a notion that becomes even more explicit as the analysis develops: “Islam is presented as a source of guidance and those who follow its precepts are conceived as travellers moving along a straight path, while those who fail to do so are conceived as
travellers who err from the path.”8 The ‘straight path’ in this instance ultimately refers to a
“righteous” way of life. The journey across the straight path is therefore the steps a Muslim takes towards living their life the right way under the guidance of the Koran. To conclude my textual reference to Charteris-Black’s investigation, the concept of ‘spirituality’ has been tied to the idea of a religious believer’s path, articulated through the idea of one travelling towards a goal. Reviewing the number of times words such as ‘guide’ and ‘path’ are mentioned in the scripture, he states: “This suggests a very similar conceptual framework as that we found for the Bible comprised of a
conceptual metaphor SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY IS TRAVELLING ALONG A PATH TOWARDS A GOAL and the related conceptual key SPIRITUAL LIFE IS A JOURNEY.”9
Taking into account the analytical steps posed by Charteris-Black (culminating in the conceptual metaphor ‘spiritual life is a journey’) the overriding idea of ‘guidance’ appears to be the key aspect of the text which enables us to identify the importance of the journey metaphor in the Koran. But with further significance, the concept of guidance allows for its importance to be
identified within other religious faiths. It is with his assertions to guidance in relation to the prophet Mohammad that the reader can begin to assess potential links to other religions. If we are to take the prophet Mohammad as the epitomised ‘guide’ for Islam’s teachings, then links can be made to other figures within religious text. We can therefore apply the importance of the journey metaphor to other religious scripture – Jesus Christ in the New Testament being perhaps the most widely renowned instance of an epitomised moral guide in religion (in this instance a ‘guide’ to Christian
7 Charteris-Black, Jonathan, ‘Metaphor in the Koran’, in Charteris-Black, Jonathan, Corpus Approaches to
Critical Metaphor Analysis, Palgrave MacMillan, 2004, p 224
8 Ibid, p 225 9 Ibid
believers). What can be said of the analysis of the Koran and the way it guides its reader is how it relates to the purpose of the text as a form of religious teaching. In essence the use of the word ‘guide’ is quite explicit (much in the same way as religious believers are often referred to as ‘followers’ of a faith). The Koran is very much based on a strict form of instructing – a text of
teachings informing a Muslim how to lead a spiritual life. In order to relate this to the filmic medium relevant to my thesis, a more abstract observation into the concept of a ‘guide’ is necessary – specifically in regard to how the diegetic character is guided (and also what guides them) on their narrative journey. An even more abstract interpretation can be read into how the viewer is guided by the film, and how their social attitudes/world view is cultivated in response to the narrative journey on-screen.
The next example I will address represents a slight shift from the journey metaphors discussed to this point in the chapter. As has been shown in the previous two examples, the exact destination within the journey metaphors discussed has been left ambiguous. We presume the guidance illustrated through the Koran to be a journey towards spiritual enlightenment, and the source-path-goal schema to represent one moving towards a destination which will help them become a stronger/wiser person, however the destination will be expected to vary significantly between individual texts. Charles Forceville’s ‘Searching for One’s Identity is looking for a Home in Animation Film’ however makes use of a concrete destination for an individual to travel towards in order for their metaphoric journey to reach its end – the home: “I will examine the metaphor SEARCHING FOR ONE’S IDENTITY IS LOOKING FOR A HOME, which is a special case of the more general metaphor PURPOSIVE ACTIVITY IS MOVEMENT TOWARD A DESTINATION.”10 Signposted via a
more extensively elaborated illustration of purpose activity is the movement-toward-a-destination schema; the home in fact presents the first instance in this chapter where the journey metaphor can be explicitly tied in with the notion of quest. The symbolic aspects of a home that one might
immediately draw, such as a sense of security or belonging, are all desirable rewards for the end of one’s ‘journey’— and thus the reward for the completion of a quest. As Forceville elaborates: “The house-as-home is often used as a symbol for safety, intimacy with kin and friends, and thus for experiencing a sought-after identity.”11 The idea of a home as a setting through which one is able to
experience a ‘sought-after identity’ appears tied together with the fact that a house is fundamentally a place of security, but also a location able to be designed in order to reflect the individuality of the inhabitant. Through these symbolic connotations of the home as security as well as an extension of one’s character, Forceville has been able to position the home as a setting which embodies a sense of
10 Forceville, Charles, ‘Metaphor and symbol’, Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 11:2, p 254, 2013 11 Ibid
belonging difficult to be replicated by any other setting in journey metaphor construction: “the source domains LOOKING FOR/GOING TO CHURCH/THE OFFICE/THE MUSEUM, for instance, while all potentially giving rise to emphatic metaphors in their own right, cannot serve as replacements to LOOKING FOR A HOME because what people typically do at home is very different from what they do at these other buildings. Another way of putting this is that the symbolic connotations (if any) evoked by these other buildings do not coincide with those of “home”.”12
When observed in relation to cinematic instances showing the role of the home to their narratives, a number of examples tend to support the schema of searching for one’s identity is looking for a home. Forceville article draws on several expressions (“make yourself at home” etc) which display the subconsciously embedded importance and value we hold for the home setting in our lives. This embedded significance is another factor which enables film audiences to sympathise and engage with a fictional character’s narrative journey that contains the return to, or finding a new home as the destination. To briefly draw on one of the expressions highlighted by Forceville, in terms of cinematic fame, “there’s no place like home” is the expression which was popularised through The
Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939). In this film a journey is made by the protagonist Dorothy (Judy
Garland) to return to her home. Initially unhappy with her home life during the film’s opening, the journey of the narrative takes place within a dream sequence, in which she finds herself in the fantasy ‘Land of Oz’, as she longs to return to her home setting. Her joyous exclamation of “there’s no place like home” at the end of the film after she awakes from her dream represents a new heartfelt appreciation for already familiar homely settings. The iconic nature of the quote “there’s no place like home” is reflected through the multitude of film references and pastiches prior to its release. It’s even an expression jokingly referenced in Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995) through the protagonist’s own search to return home (a case study that will be assessed later in my thesis).
Taking into consideration the notion of ‘quest’, the entertainment medium that could arguably be considered most apt for a reading of this notion is the platform of video games. This is patently reflected with analysis to Roelf Kromhout and Charles Forceville’s study ‘Source-path-goal structure in the video games “Half Life”, “Heavy Rain” and “Grim Fandango”’, the source-path-goal schema can be strongly argued as important to the medium of video games: “Goals, and developing strategies how to achieve them, thus dominate our thoughts, emotions and actions, and therefore we need ways to conceptualise goals.”13 A clear argument can be made for the way in which we
‘conceptualise goals’ when considering people’s interaction with the activity of ‘play’. Despite being
12 Ibid
13 Kromhout, Roelf and Forceville, Charles, ‘Life is a Journey: Source-path-goal structure in the videogames “Half-Life 2”, “Heavy Rain”, and “Grim Fandango”, Metaphor and the Social World, 3:1, p 101, 2013
instinctively considered recreational, ‘play’ is an activity that frequently evokes a set of aims and goals to aspire to. Perhaps acknowledging the explicit manner in which goals are outlined in the medium of video games (whether to get a high score or to advance to a further level etc), Kromhout and Forceville have evaluated the source path goal schema in relation to that particular platform. In doing so, they have helped further the notion of ‘quest’ discussed in Forceville’s study on the autobiographical road movie: “Stories, moreover, typically are about QUESTS: they have a
protagonist pursuing a goal— whether winning the contest, saving the princess, finding the treasure, or beating the monster.”14 As mentioned earlier in the chapter, the lexical choice is telling here—
‘winning’, ‘contest’ and ‘beating’, and their gaming connotations are all indicative of how entwined the concept of ‘quest’ is to video games, as the player controls the in-game character to complete a given set of objectives. The satisfaction attained from such an interactive process is highlighted later in Kromhout and Forceville’s investigation: “In “Half-Life 2” a large variety and proper pacing of mini-QUESTS enhances the player’s sense of achievement when another one is dealt with. Indeed, that is precisely why good videogames are so enjoyable: they have a clear set of goals and a variety of ways for players to achieve these themselves, which is in stark contrast with ‘real life’, where control over goal-achievement is much smaller.”15
The idea of the journey in relation to film previously alluded to comes to light in the analysis of Heavy Rain (David Cage, 2010), a noir thriller in which the player’s decisions in fast paced action sequences affect the outcome of the narrative: “the injured protagonist’s visible difficulties in the simple act of running, for example, inform the player about approaching the end of the STORY.”16 The
evolution of video games from a former, less realistic medium is then highlighted: “This is very different from the situation in “Half-Life 2”, in which the player never has troubles with such injuries: when his health reaches ‘zero’, he simply dies and the player has to restart at an earlier point in the game.”17 Though the video game in its classic form (as less narrative driven) offered a set of goals for
the gamer to achieve, Heavy Rain demonstrates a more recent type of gaming phenomena closer to the sensation one experiences when viewing a film, as well as even experiencing reality. The gamer is provided with a narrative arc from the point of view of one character (or several in the case of Heavy
Rain) to engage with, as well as a more realistic aesthetic and sensory representation of physical
fatigue as an obstacle to the achievement of goals. Kromhout and Forceville draw upon the
contrastingly “messy” nature of real life in the achievement of goals, and signpost video games as an ideal template for reflecting a structured outline of the journey one takes to achieving their given
14 Ibid, p 105 15 Ibid, p 109 16 Ibid, p 112 17 Ibid
objectives. It is through the interaction from the gamer towards the game whereby the in-game character’s quest is fulfilled, and they are able to reach a conclusion to the narrative.
What I have attempted to demonstrate in this chapter is the various forms the journey metaphor is able to take, and as a result the various artistic mediums in which the metaphor is construed and used to enhance the progression of the narrative, and its ability to engage the receiver. Conceptual metaphors such as PURPOSIVE ACTIVITY IS MOVEMENT TOWARDS A DESTINATION and SEARCHING FOR ONE’S IDENTITY IS LOOKING FOR A HOME resonate with the receiver of these works because of the familiarity these schemas embody within the day to day life of the given receiver. The findings I have established in this outline of the various forms the journey schema can take will be covered with pertinence to Pixar narratives in the next chapter. As has also been demonstrated through the prevalence of the journey metaphor within religious texts (specifically the Koran in this instance) as a form of ‘guiding’ the reader, the journey metaphor within literature and other artistic forms is also a valuable educational device alongside its construction as a means of entertainment found within video games and films. To follow on from my outlining of several key journey metaphor examples, later in my thesis I will be able to demonstrate how the aspects of my findings aid the narrative development of several Pixar feature length works. This will also enable me to assess how the narrative impacts on both young and old viewers of the stories. In the next chapter however, I will apply the journey metaphor to a brief study on a genre that heavily relies on the physical journey – the road movie genre. The physical journeying integral to the genre presents an important link to my case studies in the second half of this thesis.
3.1 Introduction
So far I have briefly addressed some of the investigations which posit examples of the journey metaphor, and the specific schemas presented within each case. Some further investigation however is needed before proceeding to my Pixar case studies. As the aim of this thesis will be to focus on the metaphorical content of Pixar works with relevance to the journey, it is appropriate at this point to address one particular movie genre in which the journey metaphor is especially pervasive. In covering three examples of the road movie genre, I will be able to establish some of the narrative conventions important to building the journey within a story (with particular focus in this chapter on the physical act of journeying). A metaphorical study of these conventions will support my analyses of the Pixar case studies in which a physical journey is undertaken by the central characters as a means of reaching a new understanding/sense of belonging in their community, or indeed locating a new community altogether. As one of the iconic examples of technological advancement and freedom, the image of the automobile in cinema establishes a plethora of connotative readings towards a given film’s story and its characters. Firmly engraved into the history of Hollywood
filmmaking, ‘The Road Movie’ is a genre that perhaps more explicitly than any other exploits aspects of the journey metaphor in order to construct its narrative. The outcome of such narratives tends to be a yearning for self-discovery on behalf of the protagonist. This is achieved through movement away from a seemingly un-fulfilling ordinary life (or more pertinently a ‘stagnant’ life, lacking in any progressive direction or meaningful purpose to the story’s central character) in search of a new identity or understanding of the world. In Devin Orgeron’s study ‘Road movies’, he fittingly suggests: “Road movies, I argue, extend a longstanding cinematic tradition that posits a hopeless and
lamentable mobility in an effort to eulogise or find stability.”18
The success and prevalence of the road movie in American cinema can, in the first instance, be attributed to its continuation from previous hallmark Hollywood genres. The emphasis on journeying across the country’s wide-reaching environment for example suggests comparisons with the Western genre, and the cowboy’s journey across vast Southern climates. The road movie’s ability to utilise the journey as a way of conveying diegetic character development, and allegorical
commentary on the American climate can be therefore be viewed as a response to the commercial success of previous Hollywood genres. As Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark write:
From the old studio system to the new Hollywood in short, the American road movie has measured the continuity of the US film industry throughout its various economic incarnations. The
18 Orgeron, Devin, Road Movies- From Muybridge and Melies to Lynch and Kiarostami, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p 2
road movie is, in this regard, like the musical or the Western, a Hollywood genre that catches peculiarly American dreams, tensions, and anxieties, even when imported by the motion picture
industries of other nations.19
The ‘American dreams, tensions and anxieties’ referenced by Hark and Cohan can be strongly linked to the ubiquity of the automobile and cinema in American culture during the mid-20th century
– a reflection of attractiveness of, and desirability for modernity within US culture at the time. While the social context of modernity in large sections of American culture would suggest a sense of optimism towards technological innovation, the diegetic content of these films often presents a different kind of tone. Alongside romanticizing the contemporaneous allure of the automobile as a means of motion, the road movie can also be perceived to illustrate a sense of longing for the past. Frequently set against the backdrop of the American wilderness and its empty highways, a sense of retracing cultural roots appears to be prevalent in numerous films of the road movie genre. This longing can be attributed to the identification of the driver in the classic road-movie— frequently illustrated as a loner cast out from the rest of society. The vast open space instantly associated with the American road movie, and the central character’s movement away from mainstream society therefore creates a sense of dissatisfaction with modernity, rather than an urge to embrace it. This movement away from the ‘progressive’ society thriving in 20th Century America
presents somewhat of a paradox. Devin Oregon writes: “Beneath an attractive veneer of iconoclastic radicalism, especially as the American road movie genre peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, these motion-obsessed films are often, paradoxically it seems, dead set against the forward march of culture, clinging nostalgically to a past that only ever existed cinematically.”20 This reading of the
road movie and the notions of (unreliable) cultural nostalgia against society’s progressive technological/social development is drawn to a broader context further in Oregon’s analysis: “Modernity… is a distinctly American affair; something coveted across the Atlantic but only
incompletely absorbed. History on the other hand… is understood to be a distinctly European
commodity. The road movie, perhaps more than any genre, exists between these poles; it is a genre that appears to move forward, though always longs for some mythic past.”21 Oregon’s statements on
European history and American modernity, and the characters’ quest for a past which may not have even existed typifies a fundamental aspect of the journey within the road movie genre— the trip’s oft apparent futility. As will become clear through the three examples to be discussed in this chapter,
19 Cohan, Steven and Hark, Ina Rae, ‘Introduction’, in Cohan, Steven and Hark, Ina Rae (eds.), The Road Movie
Book, Routledge, 1997, p 19
20 Orgeron, Devin, Road Movies- From Muybridge and Melies to Lynch and Kiarostami, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p 2
Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott) and Y Tu Mama Tambien
(Alfonso Cuaron, 2001), the exact destination within the films’ diegetic journeys is unclear. The focus within all three films is not the physical destination of the trip, but either the characters’ sense of personal cultivation and arrival at a new outlook on their lives (in the cases of Thelma and Louise and
Y Tu Mama Tambien) or the escape from a previous location after the committing of a crime (most
pertinent within Thelma and Louise and Breathless).
3.2 Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
The first film I will address is Breathless, the earliest example I have cited, and significantly
considered a blueprint for future instalments of the road genre in American cinema. Its borrowing of Hollywood gangster conventions through the characterisation of the criminal protagonist Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) juxtaposed with a neo-realist approach to capturing the French scenery typifies the earlier mentioned clash between modernity and a search for history in the road movie: “A pivotal precursor to the American road movie, Godard’s Breathless stands at the intersection of this transcontinental flow of traffic, signalling Europe’s conflicted relationship to American cinematic modernity and providing a richly modern cinematic template for a generation of international introspection of the subjects of vehicularity and domesticity.”22 It should initially be noted that the
extent to which Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless can be considered a road movie is debateable. This is particularly evident given our contemporary associations with the road movie, and its frequent reliance on the ‘road trip’ in the narrative. Simply put, the screen-time spent on the road in
Breathless is minimal in comparison with some of the most popular films belonging to the road
movie genre. In relation to the previous citation, large sections of the film centralise on domesticity — a 20 minute hotel-room sequence with the protagonist and his love interest Patricia (Jean Seberg) being the clearest example. This emphasis on domestic settings throughout much of the film
however, elicits a key concept to address in relation to the film’s use of the journey metaphor— motion.
Utilising a lightweight Cameflex camera to film the road sequences, Godard was able to create a seamlessly mobile illustration of journeying in the French countryside. The aesthetically alluring way Godard has captured these instances of movement can be suggested to reflect the film’s central character. Michel’s flippant assertion: “if you don’t like the sea, or the mountains, or the big city, get stuffed!”23 acts as an early indication of his appreciation of the settings one would encounter 22 Ibid
when travelling, but over the course of the film his enjoyment in (even dependence on) mobility becomes even more apparent. The fluidity of the tracking shot achieved through the Cameflex is contrasted with the less crisp, discontinuous jump cuts deployed by Godard when the film moves away from the open road and into more domesticated locations (hotel rooms being the
aforementioned most prominent example). This particular aspect of Godard’s editing style in the film is most clearly illustrated during the previously mentioned exchange between Michel and Patricia. During this sequence, the pair engages in a number of dull and stuttering exchanges, all strung together through a dis-orientating series of jump cuts, as the characters quickly shift from one talking point to another. Godard’s direction of these awkward verbal exchanges therefore helps to establish a complete contrast to the freedom Michel experiences on the open road, in which shots of the environment (whether it’s the French countryside or Notre Dame cathedral) linger without the interruption of discontinuous jump cuts. The length of the scene (reaching over 20 minutes) is further indication of the loss of momentum experienced once Michel finds himself in a stationary position, a loss of momentum further reflected in the apparent lack of progression in the relationship between the love interests. As Orgeron writes in his analysis of the film: “these are characters existing on two wholly separate linguistic planes, a state of affairs rendered all the more apparent when the two are still.”24 Orgeron’s study on Breathless offers a substantial account on the concept of
mobility to the film, and extensively addresses various points of the narrative. Through his study, further attention is drawn to one of the film’s earliest sequences, as Michel’s desire for movement can be identified during the moment where he hot-wires a car. After first introducing Michel, the viewer is then alerted to a female accomplice who aids his stealing of the vehicle. While in the hotel scene the awkward communication was the telling indicator of Michel’s superior comfort in mobility, the significance in this earlier scene can be seen through an entire lack of verbal interaction. The pair communicate in visual gestures (non-verbal nods) to alert Michel to the opportunity of a hot-wired car. This is a key (albeit fleeting) example of Michel’s communicative habits that Orgeron identifies as symptomatic of the lifestyle he desires: “The exchange of glances and gestures between Michel and his accomplice are indicative of this film’s engagement in alternative, non-verbal means of
communication. They also comment critically on Michel’s character. Michel, we learn quickly, desires a relationship defined in terms of movement not words.”25
Despite Michel’s apparent desire for a life dictated by mobility, his final comeuppance is the result of an ultimate lack of direction to his movements. Having shot a police officer in the film’s first instance of road travel, his narrative path appears patently laid out— to escape arrest. However the
24 Orgeron, Devin, Road Movies- From Muybridge and Melies to Lynch and Kiarostami, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p 94
progression of the narrative demonstrates frequent acts by Michel that disrupt the flow of that objective, and contribute to the sense of aimlessness to the journey he undertakes in the film. An example of this is seen in a bathroom scene, in which Michel attacks a man without provocation. We expect this has been acted out by Michel in order to steal the man’s wallet, but in any case the viewer is aware that its contents would simply not be enough to sustain a new life away from the crimes he has committed. This therefore helps the viewer identify the scene as another act of aimlessness on Michel’s behalf, which continues to occur throughout his journey: “Michel is moving, but he is going nowhere, in part because his motion, like the violence in the bathroom, is utterly random, lacking in both direction and purpose. The film continually alerts us to its own
aimlessness.”26 Further to the protagonist’s random acts of violence, Godard’s editing techniques
offer a telling insight into the very identity Michel has fashioned for himself: “Michel sings and talks to himself as a series of jump cuts alters the very basic representation of distance travelled and time spent. To the already shaken viewer, these “gaps”, these discontinuous representations of space and time, challenge the basic notion of “classic” cinematic linearity.”27 The ‘classic cinematic linearity’
Orgeron refers to carries significant weight to the characterisation of the protagonist. Michel, through aspects such as his clothing and conscious rubbing of his lips with his thumb (a reference to Humphrey Bogart28) seems to have modelled himself on the traditional gangster star of the golden
age in Hollywood filmmaking. Through Godard’s unconventional jump cuts, which frequently disrupt the cinematic flow of the film, the artifice of Michel’s gangster persona is ultimately exposed as hollow. Just as Michel’s movements appear random and without aim, Godard’s disruption of the conventional Hollywood narrative means the very identity he has created for himself expresses the same futility. Once Patricia reveals she has turned Michel into the police (advising him to try and escape), he appears to finally accept the aimlessness of his journey, dejectedly uttering: “No, I’m staying! I’m all messed up. Anyway, I feel like going to prison.”29 Orgeron’s final assessment of this
sequence poignantly illustrates Michel’s resignation and what it means in the context of the film as a potential road movie: “In pointing to prison, the ultimate static location – second only, perhaps, to the final stasis of death – Michel quite literally puts the brakes on in this frustrated road movie. He defies his own mythic notions of gangster methodology and looks ahead to a static, monological life.”30 This lack of direction to Michel’s movements, as will become more apparent in my next two
examples, were an early indicator of the way in which the travellers of a given story were to be depicted in later films in the road movie genre.
26 Ibid, p 91 27 Ibid, p 82
28 Andrew, Dudley, Breathless, Rutgers University Press, 1987, p 64
29 Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), StudioCanal, scene starts at: 01:05:30
30 Orgeron, Devin, Road Movies- From Muybridge and Melies to Lynch and Kiarostami, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p 94
3.3 Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)
As a much more recent addition to the road genre, and subsequent to the influx in popularity of road films during the 1960s and 70s that Godard’s Breathless preceded, Thelma and Louise demonstrates a re-telling of road genre conventions (and indeed the historically masculine connotations associated with the automobile itself) by positioning female subjectivity at the fore-front of its narrative. The subject of femininity and its importance to the film is a topic I will address shortly; however it is important first to consider the fundamental structure of the film involving ‘the outlaw couple’ (a recurring motif when conducting analyses on the road genre).
To follow on from the influence of the gangster genre on Michel’s representation in
Breathless, Corey K. Creekmur’s study ‘On the Run and on the Road’ is another demonstration of the road movie’s connection with the most popular movie genres of classic Hollywood. His study draws a comparison between the classic musical and the outlaw couple films: “In short, the appeal of both musicals and outlaw couple films is in large measure fuelled by our desire to see two individuals— who often dance, sing, rob, or kill quite effectively on their own— team up and perform as a
couple.”31 It is interesting to consider Creekmur’s observation with relevance to Thelma and Louise.
The film’s title characters (portrayed by Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon), especially Louise, initially do not appear to possess any of the efficiency in criminal activity that Creekmur references. The film can be argued to take the idea of ‘teaming up’ as leading to a more drastic result than simply connecting their respective strengths. The pair in fact set out on their road journey with the aim of a leisurely weekend trip, as they first do not appear to possess any noticeably rebellious
characteristics. However, circumstances which occur along their journey (a series of events kick-started by Louise’s shooting of a man attempting to rape Thelma) force them into a position in which they have to adopt a more ruthless approach towards their obstacles— often paradoxically resorting to petty crime to maintain their escape from the police.
As was demonstrated through the instances of Michel’s lack of movement in Breathless, the pair’s stops at bars and motels prompt the main obstacles to their journey (the aforementioned rape sequence and their money stolen by a fleeting love interest being two prime examples at these locations), which in turn act as the catalyst for attempts to atone for previous set-backs to their escape from the law. For example the moment Thelma robs a convenience store serves as a character shift from naïve side-kick to Louise’s more collected personality, into undeniable outlaw:
31 Creekmur, Corey K, ‘On the Run and on the Road’, in Cohan, Steven and Hark, Ina Rae (eds.), The Road
“The road was destined to be travelled by a couple… most often the road film couple is divided along these lines: one is more wild, the other more straight.”32 With pertinence to those moments in the
narrative, Creekmur’s analysis again pin-points the importance of mobility to the central characters of the road movie: “Whereas musical performers on a circuit of one-night stands stop at hotels, boarding houses, and theatres to sing and dance before getting back on the road, outlaw couples on the lam pull into motels, roadside diners, gas stations, and, increasingly, convenience stores, to steal and kill before resuming running for their lives.” 33
Michel adopting the masculine qualities of the classic American gangster in Breathless is one gender aspect of the road movie shifted for Thelma and Louise’s two central characters. This shifting, as Neil Archer comments in ‘Capturing freedom: marginality in the road movie’, was a common theme in contemporary filmmaking: “A key motif in early 1990s American cinema… was the rise of so-called ‘fatal femmes’, films which… inverted the gendered motifs of classical film noir by letting their women protagonists have it all yet still come out on top.”34 Archer’s description of the fatal
femmes of the early 90s draws attention to the scene in Thelma and Louise which helps to set the narrative in motion— the attempted rape sequence. After attracting the attention of a man at a roadhouse, Thelma becomes increasingly drunk, leaving her defenceless to his advances. Lured in by his libidinous attraction towards her, Louise’s intervention at the scene is ironically carried out when his own guard is down (at the height of his libidinous attraction towards Thelma). Her adoption of a cinematically masculine action (her shooting of the man) is the catalyst for their journey. The escape from the scene of this crime, alongside the hapless heterosexual marriage Thelma is a part of provides the necessary motivation for the pair to head for a new life away from the society where they began their trip.
Shari Roberts’ ‘Western meets Eastwood- Genre and gender on the road’ addresses the idea of a female friendship on the road and away from mainstream society: “How do women’s friendships work out under pressure, not only of the road, away from society, but also of their former immersion in patriarchal society, and that society’s omnipresence?”35 As Roberts continues, what is apparent is
the character’s personal history and how it influences their physical route: “The women’s past set events into motion and determine the actual physical course of their journey as well as its emotional momentum. For instance, the aversion Thelma (Susan Sarandon) has to Texas, where she
32 Laderman, David, ‘What a Trip: The Road Film and American Culture’, Journal of Film and Video, 48:2, p 47, 1996
33 Creekmur, Corey K, ‘On the Run and on the Road’, in Cohan, Steven and Hark, Ina Rae (eds.), The Road
Movie Book, Routledge, 1997, p 95
34 Archer, Neil, The French Road Movie- Space, Mobility and Identity, Berghahn Books, 2013, p 66
35 Roberts, Shari, ‘Western meets Eastwood- Genre and gender on the road’, in Cohan, Steven and Hark, Ina Rae (eds.), The Road Movie Book, Routledge, 1997, p 64
purportedly was raped, determines the women’s route.”36 The limited routes available to the duo on
their journey (depicted in the film through Thelma’s aversion to Texas) could be considered to represent the common-place of male dominated societies in Western culture. As with Breathless, the film’s central characters gradually appear resigned to a life without mobility, despite not appearing conscious of this resignation until the narrative’s end. Their crimes appear more desperate and occasionally lack any clear long-term purpose (parallels can be drawn between Michel’s bathroom attack and Thelma’s convenience store stick up). Their resignation to their own journey’s end is accentuated through the film’s climax, as an intense police chase culminates in the pair finding themselves at the Grand Canyon. Together, they make the decision to “keep going”37 and drive the
car from the top of the Canyon, rather than turn themselves into the police. Their kiss before they drive towards their death poignantly reflects their relief in escaping from a world that neither can truly thrive in as woman: “These female protagonists go on the road to avoid what is pictured as a male-dominated, anti-woman society. They gain temporary escape into single-sex freedom that can end only in death, compromise, or fantasy.”38
3.4 Y Tu Mamá También (Alfonso Cuaron, 2001)
The last example I will address is Y Tu Mamá También. In contrast with the previous two examples, Cuaron’s film centres on a road trip in which the travellers are from different genders and stages of maturity. Adolescent males Julio Zapata (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch Iturbide (Diego Luna), acting on teenage lust, invite thirty-something Luisa Cortes (Maribel Verdu) on a road trip to their
fictionalised ‘Heaven’s Mouth’. The film utilises the road-journey aspect to construct both a coming-of-age story (centring on Julio and Tenoch) alongside a story about the wronged woman and, similarly to Thelma and Louise, her retreat to the road to escape from an ungratifying married life. A key aspect of the road movie genre can be linked to the political climate at the time of the film’s release— the rise of Vicente Fox against the Institutional revolutionary party in Mexico: “Road movies are too cool to address seriously socio-political issues. Instead, they express the fury and suffering at the extremities of civilised life, and give their restless protagonists the false hope of a one-way ticket to nowhere.”39 In keeping with the idea of road movies as being ‘too cool’ to address
socio-political climates, Julio and Tenoch themselves almost appear as an extension of this notion. Throughout much of the road-trip they are exuberant in their acts of juvenile behaviour, engaging in
36 Ibid
37 Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991), Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, scene starts at: 02:03:21
38 Roberts, Shari, “Western meets Eastwood- Genre and gender on the road”, in Cohan, Steven and Hark, Ina Rae (eds), The Road Movie Book, Routledge, 1997, p 64
immature humour with one another and sharing crass fantasies about their ideal sexual situations. By contrast they remain quiet as they drive by locations which, judging by the narration, ought to stimulate political intrigue for the contemporary affairs taking place in the country. Rather than dwelling on a political journey which has taken place in Mexico, Cuaron instead emphasises the personal journey of Julio and Tenoch, as they recruit Luisa to be their companion on their trip.
Supporting the notion of these character’s adolescence, Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark’s introduction to The Road Movie Book raises an important point about the idea of ‘responsibility’ in relation to the road: “The road movie promotes a male escapist fantasy linking masculinity to technology and defining the road as a space that is at once resistant to… the responsibilities of domesticity: home life, marriage, employment.”40 It is Julio and Tenoch’s inclusion of Luisa on their
trip that appears most indicative of the open-road with a lack of responsibilities, or significant consequence. The pair clearly view her as a subject of sexual desire, despite at first having no apparent intention to act on these urges. However later in the narrative, now in a vulnerable state having just engaged in an emotionally heated conversation with her husband, Luisa seduces Tenoch in a motel room (an envious Julio sees the moment take place). Later, almost flippantly, Luisa seduces Julio in the back-seat of the moving car to restore their sexual experience to equal states. These moments almost point towards a set of rules entirely created on their road trip which would have little place in regular society— that an act which Julio sees as betrayal by Tenoch can simply be reversed through Luisa’s seduction of the other friend. The seduction sequences are some of the strongest illustrations of the lack of responsibility on the open-road— presenting what ought to be the ideal lifestyle for characters such as Julio and Tenoch (a stark contrast to the adversaries Thelma and Louise were faced with on the road as female travellers).
3.5 Conclusion
What I have attempted to show in this chapter is the importance of the road movie genre in analysing the journey in metaphorical terms. The emphasis on motion within the genre creates the sense of a search for both personal cultivation, and ultimately a new belonging in the world. In contrast with the notion of quest covered earlier in my study, what the road movie presents is often a lack of destination— the characters within these films experience the aforementioned cultivation on the move, rather than when their journey comes to a halt. In essence the end of the characters’ journey often indicates the film’s end. This can of course have tragic implications. As shown through
40 Cohan, Steven, and Hark, Ina Rae, ‘Introduction’, in Cohan, Steven and Hark, Ina Rae (eds.), The Road Movie
Breathless and Thelma and Louise in particular, their exposure to the wilderness of the open-road
and lack of domesticity led the films’ central characters to a final resignation to their obstacles— both culminating in their demise. What will be demonstrated in the next chapter is the success with which Pixar works have been able to alter this template, and generate a frequent use of journeying which instead yields a positive final outcome for their protagonists— an outcome in which they can once again belong to a community by the film’s end.
Chapter 4. Journey Metaphor- Case Studies
4.1 IntroductionHaving covered some of the key studies into the journey metaphor, I will now undertake a series of case studies on several features from Pixar animation studios. Taking into consideration my earlier assertion to the works of the studio regarding their potential ability to mould the
social/environmental psyches of their intended young viewers, aspects of the journey metaphor previously covered (the sense of ‘guiding’ within the Koran as discussed by Jonathan Charteris-Black being the clearest example) are intrinsic to the studio’s storytelling. As Pixar’s works are primarily children’s films, they provide an appropriate platform for messages to be conveyed by the filmmaker which help to form a young child’s social/environmental understanding of the world. However where Pixar stands out for particular interest in this regard is in its ability to embed messages into their stories which resonate with a variety of audiences, rather than the child audience for which they are
primarily marketed. As will be demonstrated in this chapter, a common theme concerning the type of audience members communicated to seems to be apparent. The works I have selected most clearly appear to target two specific audiences: children and their parents. The journey schema is used by the filmmakers to construct a captivating narrative in which to embed messages concerning notions such as personal growth and the building of relationships. Moreover, Pixar’s filmography presents a pertinent subject for an application of the journey metaphor due to several films’ explicit deployment of the character’s physical ‘journeying’ within the story. ‘The journey’ in relation to film often tends to be perceived by the viewer through a broad figurative perception relevant to a given character’s narrative arc. For example a narrative aspect as straight-forward as character
development could be understood as ‘a journey’, much in the same way as a real-life instance involving the life-changing experience of an individual may be referred to as a ‘personal journey’. It is in response to the studio’s explicit reliance on the journey that I have chosen to open a set of textual analyses on Pixar’s features. In doing so I will unravel the importance of the journey to the narratives and elaborate to assess the kind of messages the final outcomes of these films attempt to convey to their audience. Ultimately I will therefore be able to demonstrate how these films are to be read as metaphorical texts, and highlight the narrative parallels which can be drawn across the studio’s canonical works. I will analyse several films from Pixar Animation Studios which deploy a literal journey as a way of expressing different target domains. Four films will be addressed in this chapter (albeit that the final two belong to a trilogy, thus fall under a more closely entwined analysis than the first two films) – Finding Nemo (Lee Unkrich and Andrew Stanton, 2003), Up (Pete Docter, 2009), Toy
Story (John Lasseter, 1995) and Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010).
4.2 Finding Nemo (Lee Unkrich and Andrew Stanton, 2003)
To open my case studies, I will first discuss Finding Nemo, the film that (from my three examples) arguably most explicitly addresses the kind of audience mentioned in my opening – its narrative construction clearly appears to speak to both a parent and child audience through its focus on a father-son relationship. As the film’s title suggests, a physical journey is central to the story,
illustrated immediately through the verb ‘finding’. Indeed, the journey in the narrative is stimulated once Nemo (Alexander Gould) is captured by a diver, and Marlin (Albert Brooks) has to begin his quest to rescue his son (though as I will establish, Marlin’s personal journey had started a while before this moment in the narrative). Michael Johnson’s brief, but central study ‘How Schemata Constrain Meaning, Understanding and Rationality’, is a key starting point to assess the progression of Marlin’s journey – with specific relevance to the path schema. He writes: “In metaphor we are thus understanding very abstract purposes (such as writing a book, getting a Ph.D., finding
happiness) in terms of the performance of various physical acts in reaching a spatial goal.”41 The
narrative involves Marlin’s movement towards this ‘spatial goal’ (a location which he learns over the course of the narrative to be a dentist at Port Jackson, Sydney). In fact, the case could be posed that this journey means that throughout much of the narrative, an adult audience is more directly spoken to than a child audience. The film’s title character, though providing a fundamental role in the narrative, can be argued to be the secondary character to Marlin. The focus is predominantly on him, as he travels towards his intended spatial destination to achieve his ultimate quest of being re-united with his son. So in the first instance what can be noted is that the focus of this film appears very much on the character performing the action of a journey rather than the character that is to be saved (an aspect of the narrative sustained at least until the film’s final acts).
The physical challenges facing Marlin are both fitting of the suspense intended within the story, and are also established as harsh tests of his own desire to achieve his goal by the narrative’s end. The technical scope of Pixar Animation Studio’s production values are perhaps typified no more successfully than through charting Marlin’s journey across the ocean. The lauded visual effects of the film were achieved as a result of the animation directors taking crash courses in fish biology and oceanology (scuba-diving in Hawaii and visiting aquariums to ensure the movements of the fish were believable)42. As a result, the realness of the film’s under-water setting is enhanced, and accordingly
the threats Marlin and his recruited travelling companion, Dory (Ellen Degeneres) are faced with become all the more intimidating – such as an escape from being digested by a whale, and their frantic attempts to swim through a colony of jellyfish. The technical success in executing these effects can in fact, can be linked to Mark Johnson’s study. Considering the contrasting means by which one may travel his depicted ‘paths’ in the world, Johnson asserts: “Our lives are filled with paths that connect up our spatial world… Some of these paths involve an actual physical surface that you traverse, such as the path from your house to the store. Others involve a projected path, such as the path of a bullet shot into the air.”43 The design of the East Australian Current through which Marlin
and Dory experience a late motion in their journey presents a direct comparison with Johnson’s notion of a ‘bullet shot into the air’, as they are propelled across their route with no physical effort required on their part. Other parts of their journey, which on the surface may appear highly threatening, also in fact serve as metaphorical mappings onto the target domain of achieving the goal. For example the moment they are engulfed by a blue whale presents Marlin and Nemo with literally their biggest obstacle in the narrative. However once Dory expresses the goofy solution of
41 Johnson, Mark, The Body in the Mind, The University of Chicago Press, 1987, p 114
42 Lovgren, Stefan, "For Finding Nemo, Animators Dove Into Fish Study". National Geographic News, National Geographic, 2003
‘speaking whale’, in an effort to communicate with their captor, she and Marlin start to slide down the stomach, believing they are about to fall to their death. Dory, the helper to Marlin’s journey, exhibits the determination to escape from the whale, calling on Marlin to adopt the same mind-set as they hold on to the tongue to stop themselves falling: “he says it’s time to let go, everything’s going to be alright!”44 Her perseverance is rewarded once the Whale expels them through his blow
hole, and they find themselves just a short distance from their final destination at Port Jackson. Having established Marlin early on in the narrative as an over-protective father-figure (a parental trait stimulated by the death of his wife and unborn offspring in the opening scene), the film presents the sheer scale of the obstacles he is faced as appearing to contradict this early
characterisation, and therefore leave him no choice but to evolve as an individual if he wants to overcome these obstacles. Though not a perilous moment in the narrative, the East Australian current sequence offers one of the film’s most explicit examples of the purposive activity schema in the film. Mark Johnson’s source domain ‘motion along a path to a physical location’ mapped onto the target-domain ‘achievement of a purpose’45 is illustrated through Marlin’s exchange with turtle
Crush (Andrew Stanton). Witnessing the far more free-spirited parenting demonstrated by Crush as he talks about letting his children swim freely in the ocean (see Fig.1), Marlin asks how he knows when they are “ready” to which Crush responds: “You’ll never really know, but when they know, you’ll know, you know?”46 Though simplistic (and intended for comic effect), his response has a
visibly strong effect on Marlin. The fact he exchanges in this conversation about fatherhood
(apparently causing him to adopt a new parental outlook) during the physically fastest moving part of his journey symbolically emphasises Marlin’s sense of personal growth and cultivation as his
narrative journey progresses. The growth Marlin experiences on his journey can be linked to Jose Luiz Alvarez’s educational manual citing the journey metaphor: “The journey narrated by Conrad in
Heart of Darkness, and later by Coppola in Apocalypse Now, takes the reader/viewer through various
stages of a physical and metaphysical journey, as the travellers continue up the river toward the source of evil. For the narrator, it is a trip of self-discovery, and even though we know he will return, the experience will change him completely.”47 The acknowledgement of the journey changing Marlin
is extended from the viewer to the film’s characters, as through the use of a series of cross-cuts, a short sequence shows various side characters recall to one another the story of Marlin’s search for Nemo. Each side-character’s account of Marlin and his over-coming of various threats is as fanciful as one another (accounts which would appear untrue of his character prior to the start of his journey,
44 Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003), Buena Vista Pictures, scene starts at: 01:09:10 45 Johnson, Mark, The Body in the Mind, The University of Chicago Press, 1987, p 116 46 Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003), Buena Vista Pictures, scene starts at: 00:51:30
47 Alvarez, Jose Luis, ‘Journeys to the Self: Using Movie Directors in the Classroom’, Journal of Management
but by this point in the narrative reflect how the journey has changed his attitude towards overcoming danger). Before moving onto a brief analysis of Nemo’s role in the film, I will end on a segment from the previously mentioned article, which seems pertinent to both Nemo (as will be demonstrated shortly) and Marlin’s respective narrative journeys: “Travel often involves crossing cultural boundaries, and learning about others and oneself. The more extreme the experience, the greater the possibilities to learn about oneself.”48
Fig 1. Still from Finding Nemo— Marlin and Dory join Crush and his family, as they rapidly travel the East Australian Current
The journey that Nemo has undertaken is clearly a far less physical one than Marlin’s (the physical journey he is taken on to Sydney harbour occurring away from the narrative space). This is not to say however that the journey metaphor in this film is restricted to Marlin. Nemo’s own experience away from the protection of his father as a guiding figure triggers new personal strengths unapparent in the film’s opening section. Once contained in the dentist fish tank at Port Jackson, Nemo has to integrate with an unfamiliar group of fish in order to achieve his own quest – to escape the fish tank. As Alvarez writes: “In some tribal rituals, a young man becomes a fully-fledged member of the tribe only after he has made a solitary journey into the wilderness.”49 After a failed attempt to
escape led by Gill (Willem Dafoe), once word of Marlin’s journey reaches Nemo and the others in the fish tank, Nemo becomes inspired by what he has heard and unassisted re-attempts the escape plan (using a pebble to jam the tank’s filter so the tank will have to be emptied and cleaned). This enables him to take the next step in his own quest, removing the fear of a fatal end to the escape and
successfully gaining further momentum towards freedom. Therefore partly in response to the personal journey Nemo has undertaken, as well as being motivated by hearing of Marlin’s journey,
48 Ibid, p 352 49 Ibid
