Psychology technique · used in 16 films
Having a character invent and keep up a false version of reality to shield someone they love, or themselves, from a truth too painful to bear. The lie is a way to survive.
Examples
Yasujiro Ozu · 1949
The father tells Noriko he plans to marry a young widow so she will feel free to leave him. It is a lie to protect her from guilt. Only after the wedding does he admit to a friend that it was a ruse.
Where to see it: The father's announcement. After Noriko becomes jealous at the performance, her father tells her he plans to remarry.
David Lynch · 1980
Merrick has elaborate manners, a love of theater and a carefully built model of the cathedral. These are the fictions that let him keep his dignity in a world that treats him as an object. Lynch presents all of it as a real inner life. Merrick is denied an ordinary human life, so he builds these things to make room for one anyway.
Where to see it: Merrick's room at the London Hospital. His model of St. Philip's Cathedral, the books and the photographs of his mother make up the private world where his sense of self lives.
Alfonso Cuarón · 1995
Sara's imagination is how she survives being made a servant. She insists that every girl is a princess, no matter what she has. In the attic, she makes up a feast for Becky to get them both through a bad night.
Where to see it: The imaginary feast. After Becky has been locked in the attic all day, Sara describes fine food and clothes to Becky as if they were really there.
Roberto Benigni · 1997
Guido tells his son the camp is a competition, with the camp's rules as the rules of the game and a tank as the prize. He has to keep this story going under impossible pressure. Every new horror needs a new explanation, and Guido's genius is that he makes each one up on the spot. The lie is absurd and heroic at once.
Where to see it: Guido translating the guard's instructions into game rules. This scene sets the rules of the lie.
Park Chan-wook · 2000
Both sides invent a story to shield the people they care about. After the shooting, Kyeong-pil arranges a false kidnapping account and destroys proof of the friendship. The lie keeps the survivors alive, and it also traps them in it.
Where to see it: The cover story after the shooting. Soo-hyeok shoots Kyeong-pil in the shoulder to complete the kidnapping alibi.
Guillermo del Toro · 2006
Whether or not the labyrinth is real, it lets Ofelia survive a world where she has no power. The fairy tale gives her tasks, an identity and a say in what happens to her, which she can't have in the real world. Del Toro treats the fiction as morally necessary. Imagination is the only place where a powerless child gets to make a choice.
Where to see it: Ofelia's conversation with the mandrake root beneath her mother's bed. She makes a private world there where she can care for someone and act for herself, and the film treats it as real.
Sam Mendes · 2008
After the fight, April makes breakfast as if nothing happened. She keeps up a calm, normal morning to hide what she is planning. Frank, who does not know what to say, plays along, and the pretending is more frightening than shouting.
Where to see it: The breakfast scene: Frank wakes to find April calmly making breakfast, eats with her and leaves for work, and April then goes to the bathroom.
Woody Allen · 2010
Helena starts seeing the fortune teller Cristal after her divorce and comes to believe in reincarnation. The belief protects her from loneliness. Allen said he was interested in the idea that people need some delusions to keep going. Helena is the only character who ends up content.
Where to see it: The seance. Helena and her new partner Jonathan receive his late wife's blessing, so their romance can go on.
Céline Sciamma · 2011
Laure's lie keeps her inside the group, and her little sister Jeanne agrees to protect it. For a while, the made-up version of reality is kinder than the real one. It also becomes harder to hold up as the summer goes on.
Where to see it: The sister's deal. Jeanne learns the secret and agrees to keep it in exchange for time with her big brother.
Woody Allen · 2013
Jasmine lies to herself and to others. She tells Dwight her husband was a surgeon who died of a heart attack, and she poses as an interior designer. These stories shield her from a past she cannot face. They also cost her the one chance she has at a new life.
Where to see it: The party in Marin County. Jasmine meets Dwight and tells him a false story about her husband and herself.
Robert Zemeckis · 2016
The cover marriage in Casablanca turns into a real marriage. Marianne also keeps a bigger lie going, and she says she did it because German agents threatened her daughter. You can read the film as asking whether a lie told for love still counts as love.
Where to see it: The pub: Marianne admits she is a spy and says she sent the message Max left in plain view. She insists her feelings for him are real.
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert · 2016
Hank tells Manny a story about loving a woman from the bus, which is really his own fantasy. He keeps the story going so he never has to face how alone he is, and you slowly see the lie for what it is.
Where to see it: Playing Sarah: Hank coaches Manny on how to talk to women by playing Sarah himself, and the two share a kiss.
Guillermo del Toro · 2017
Elisa builds her life around small fictions that give it warmth (her friendship with Giles, the musicals she watches, the private rituals of her apartment). Calling them escapism would undersell them. Elisa has no voice and no institutional power, and these fictions are what let her keep her dignity and her ability to love. The creature is the one fiction that becomes real.
Where to see it: Elisa's fantasy sequence. She imagines a black-and-white musical. For a moment, the film turns into the kind of movie she loves, which shows how seriously it takes her inner life.
Robert Zemeckis · 2018
Mark imagines the dolls are alive so he can cope with his trauma and memory loss. In Marwen he is a hero who gets the revenge and the love real life has not given him. The film shows the fiction helping him and also keeping him stuck.
Where to see it: Mark's village: Mark photographs scenes in his model town of Marwen, where he is the pilot Cap'n Hogie.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi · 2021
Kafuku has not dealt with his grief over his wife's infidelity and death, so he pours it into staging Uncle Vanya. The theater production is a controlled space. There, he can handle grief indirectly, through the pain other people perform.
Where to see it: Kafuku directing the actors through Vanya's most devastated speeches. The emotion in the play does the grieving he can't do outside the rehearsal room.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi · 2021
In the last episode, two women who mistook each other for someone else play out a make-believe version of the past. The pretending lets them say things they could not say as themselves. The lie is how they get to the truth.
Where to see it: The third episode. At a reunion, Natsuko mistakes Aya for her first love, and the two role-play to work through old feelings.
Questions