A Filmmaker's Guide to: Allegory

In this chapter of ‘the filmmaker’s guide’ we’re actually going to be learning about literature and film together. I understand that many of you are sitting in university during difficult times and finding it increasingly hard to study and I understand that many of you who are not at university or not planning on it are possibly stuck of what to do, need a break or even need to catch up on learning film before you get to the next level. This guide will be brief but will also contain: new vocabulary, concepts and theories, films to watch and we will be exploring something taboo until now in the ‘filmmaker’s guide’ - academia (abyss opens). Each article will explore a different concept of film, philosophy, literature or bibliography/filmography etc. in order to give you something new to learn each time we see each other. You can use some of the words amongst family and friends to sound clever or you can get back to me (email in bio) and tell me how you’re doing. So, strap in and prepare for the filmmaker’s guide to film studies because it is going to be one wild ride.

Allegory

What's an allegory?

An allegory is a narrative with a hidden purpose. This hidden purpose could be a moral or it could be political. It could be to deliver the audience a message about art or it could be a life lesson. It is really up to the creator of that work as to what message they hide in their piece.

How is it used?

In literature, some of the most famous allegories include: Animal Farm by George Orwell and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Allegories are normally used by the author to hide a true meaning either out of the want for the readers to figure it out themselves or out of fear of persecution by the state or other states.

What about in film?

There are many famous examples of allegory in film and many of them are more modern than we think. During the 21st Century, allegory became more and more popular with the critique of the commercialisation and politicisation of modern life being the key topics in the minds of filmmakers. Some of the films you would want to watch in order to investigate allegory include:

- Avatar (2010) dir. by James Cameron

- Fight Club (1999) dir. by David Fincher

- Blade Runner (1982) dir. by Ridley Scott

In film, allegories are easier to hide because of the way in which we can physically depict an extended metaphor. For example if we take "Avatar" (2010) and look at the physical side of the allegory. We first have the heavenly Pandora which is a direct representation of the Amazon Rainforest, then we have the Navi People which are representative of various tribes who have either resided or moved through the rainforest at some time and finally, we have the deflectors from the humans to the Navi who choose the side of the protectors of the land which is an allegory for these companies who have decided that now may be a great time to save the rainforest because the world is going down the drain. The whole movie therefore can be viewed as an allegory for saving the Amazon Rainforest. It can also be viewed as an allegory for colonialism and yet, it is also an allegory for civil war. If you can justify your reason for the allegory being the way it is then, unless it is a confirmed allegory by the filmmaker, you can be right in your own way.

In comparison to this, in literature, there needs to be a vivid description of place, time and character in order for the reader to pick up the metaphor. But, there is very little chance that the filmmaker would have been persecuted for making a film as an allegory of a political situation or socio-economic critique. Whereas, when an author of the allegory-era of the mid-20th century wrote a novel, there was a high chance they could have been killed or at least put on watch-lists for secret services across the world because of their writing. Where film pedals the allegory of the masses and therefore is accused of 'pandering', the author of the allegory era was going against the grain and thus was accused of 'free speech'.

Films normally have a touch of disconnection in them when they deal with allegory as well. There is something we don't recognise as from our own world or time in there which slightly disconnects us from the story, character or theme the allegory is dealing with and so, it is far more difficult to recognise upon first watch. In conclusion, whether it is an adaptation from literature or an original script, filmmakers will nearly always use at least one thing the audience are not familiar with in order to throw them off from discovering the true allegory upon first watch. This is normally because it makes us watch and re-watch the movie over and over, discovering new meanings.

Further Reading:

• Basu Thakur, G (2015). Postcolonial Theory and Avatar. USA: Bloomsbury Academic USA.
• Bloom, H. Fletcher, A. (2012). Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode. USA: Princeton University Press.
• Derrida, J (2006). Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International. UK: Routledge.
• Fabe, M (2017). Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique. 10th ed. USA: University of California Press.
• Hawthorne, N (1992). The Scarlet Letter. UK: Wordsworth Classics.
• Jameson, F (2002). The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. UK: Routledge.
• Kornbluh, A (2019). Marxist Film Theory and Fight Club. USA: Bloomsbury Academic USA.
• Orwell, G (2000). Animal Farm. UK: Penguin Classics
• Shanahan, T (2014). Blade Runner and Philosophy. USA: Palgrave Macmillan.