I'd like to make the characters in my screenplay a little more... how shall I put this... morally ambiguous? Also, the family's existence depends on the conception of the middle generation during the last days of camp life before liberation in 1945. I just finished reading Viktor Frankl's very important work, Man's Search for Meaning, which is half concentration camp memoir, half introduction to logotherapy. In Frankl's memoir, he vividly describes the systematic dehumanization that a camp prisoner undergoes. Piece by piece, a person's tertiary characteristics and needs fall away. Vanity, dignity, aesthetics,lust are all replaced by nothing but hunger and an inclination to survive (and even that wanes in time for most prisoners). In Frankl's account, the bodies of the prisoners were so starved (literally and figuratively) that there was really not even a thought of sexual interaction.
A colleague of mine, who knows more about the Holocaust and World War II than even me, suggested I make one of my characters a Capo, someone who traded their Jewish prisoner comradery for the privilege of more rations and the burden of beating, killing, torturing, foremanning, and otherwise-keeping-in-line subordinate prisoners. This would allow for a more believable reconcilation and procreation between the man who will grandfather and the woman who will grandmother the main character. What do you think? Everyone needs a little evil, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment