Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Film, is usually depicting the phenomenon of human life. Therefore, many aspects of human life can be showed as the central theme of a film or other kind of fictions. The theme of a film or other kind of fictions controls its central insight. It unifies generalization about life, stated or implied on the story. In many stories, the theme might be equivalent to the revelation of human characters. It means that the theme can be determined from the development of the characters. Psychoanalytic theme is one of the themes which can be easy determined from the development of the character. It is because “Psychoanalysis applied the concept about personality which is used to mean the configuration of individual characteristic and ways of behaving that determines an individual unique adjustment to her or his environment.” 1 Personality includes any characteristic that are important in the individual’s personality adjustment, in his maintained of self respect. Any description of the individual personality must take into the account of appearance, abilities, motives, emotional reactivity, and the residues from experience that have shaped the person as people find him or her. Therefore, a psychoanalytic research of a film or other kind of fictions must be related to the development of the character’s personality. 1 Ernest Hilgard, Richard C. Atkinson, Introduction to Psychology USA: Harcout, Brace Worl, Inc, 1967 p. 483 Film with psychoanalytic theme still becomes an interesting theme to be aroused such as Number 23 2003 and Monalisa Smile 2003. A film with psychoanalytic theme is not only good to be watched but also good to add someone’s knowledge about psychoanalysis theory, and further it can be a source to be analyzed as a research. Psychoanalysis is generally the study of human personality. Sigmund Freud was credited as the first person who has brought out the theory of Psychoanalysis. One of many aspects of psychoanalysis which is very important in analyzing someone’s personality is the existence of unconsciousness in his or her mind. Freud even stated that the most important aspect in human life is determined by the unconsciousness. Therefore, Freud proposed the theory of personality structure. According to Freud, personality is made up of three major systems. Those three major systems of personality are known as id, ego and superego. 2 The id is the original system of the personality. The id works based on the pleasure principle. It related to the biological aspect of a personality. The ego is the personality system which conducted the id encouragement. Ego has a contact with the reality world of the personality. The ego is said to obey the reality principle. The superego is the morality aspect of personality. It is the internal representative of the traditional values and ideals of society as a system of rewards and punishments of someone’s activities. Based on the explanation above, there is a close connection between Psychoanalysis and film. The psychoanalysis is a theory about unconsciousness of someone’s personality, while film is rather the product of imagination, the unconsciousness of the writer. Both of them have an aspect about unconsciousness. Mr. Brooks’ film is one of the films that has psychoanalytic theme. The film 2 Calvin S. Hall, et.al, Theories of Personality New York: John Willey Sons, 1997 p. 35 depicts Mr. Earl Brooks, the main character of the film played by Kevin Costner, who is suffering from personality problem Mr. Brooks is a 2007 thriller film directed by Bruce A. Evan who is also the script writer of the film together with Raynold Gideon. This film tells about Mr. Earl Brooks, a loving family man and a local business icon, but Mr. Brooks is deeply flawed and very aware of it. He is addicted to kill. Struggling with his pathology, he tries to quit, but his id, which is visualized as “Marshall”, has an altogether different idea. “Marshall” enjoys his “existence” and his “work”. “Marshall” whom only Brooks can see or hear is actually not the other person. He is the other side of Brooks. With the dogged Detective Atwood on his trial, Mr. Brooks are forced to play out an increasingly elaborate game. Mr. Brooks is a successful businessman but in the other side, he is also a killer. In this case, Mr. Brooks was identified as a person who can not repress his id. Therefore, he conducted the activities which only reflect on his own pleasure principle, that is killing. Generally, in a mature human’s personality structure, the ego is able to repress the negative encouragement of the id because they have known the morality values of society. Interestingly, in Mr. Brooks’ film, Mr. Brooks’ as a mature and intellectual person is depicted as a character who is not able to repress his id which always encourage him to do negative things. The id is having dominant place in Mr. Brook’s personality structure. Therefore, the writer interests to analyze the work mechanism of the personality structure of the main character in Mr. Brooks’ film , through Sigmund Freud’s personality structure.

B. Focus of the Study