You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Psychoanalysts tend to examine the narrative trajectory of film much as they look for meaning in the trajectory of a session. A film, however, has a different mode of communication with a different intent. It is composed mostly of consciously created acts, usually derived from a plan (script) used by a group of people to construct a visual/verbal narrative. The movie screen is a canvas upon which imaginary characters and their fictive conflicts are created, then usually solved. Sling Blade (Miramax; directed by B. B. Thornton) written by and starring Billy Bob Thornton, offers a unique opportunity to examine creative acts in screenwriting and character creation.
Sling Blade opens in a mental hospital ward, and in monologues we are introduced to Karl. He reveals himself in part through two narrative devices, being talked to and being interviewed. Slowly he is revealed to be a simple character to whom much has happened but which he has little ability to convey in language. He is drawn imaginatively from Thornton's past as a backwoods southerner (Arkansas). Thornton's use of southern dialect and speech patterns fit both him and his characterization well. A tale unfolds that explains Karl's current predicament—the result of familial deprivation and primal scene revenge ending in matricide. His weapon—variously called the keiserblade, sling blade, or scythe—is the symbolic weapon of the rural reaper. Thornton evokes the old fictional image of southern chivalry, but filters this portrait through madness. Karl, the son, was awakened and protected his mother in a misunderstood primal scene; then he attacks his mother for her failed comprehension of the rescue and her amorality. Moral judgment aroused by the attack is seemingly projected by the audience (as jury) onto her alone, while Karl is imagined as, paradoxically, violent yet innocent and misguided, unable to comprehend either his acts or their motives. This naive presentation appears anti-Freudian, that is, Karl is wit