Narrative technique · used in 3 films
Sending a charismatic outsider into a closed system, where they free the people trapped inside. The system destroys the rebel in the end, and that sacrifice lets others escape.
Examples
Stanley Kubrick · 1960
Spartacus starts as a slave bought for a gladiator school and becomes the leader who frees others. Rome crushes the uprising in the end. His death still matters, because it gives the survivors and his son a chance at something else.
Where to see it: The final scenes. Spartacus is dying, and Varinia shows him his son, who is now free.
Miloš Forman · 1975
McMurphy arrives as pure appetite and leaves as a lobotomized shell, but his rebellion gives Chief Bromden the will to escape. The structure is openly Christ-like. The rebel is destroyed and someone else gets the resurrection. Forman earns the ending by making McMurphy dangerous as well as liberating.
Where to see it: Chief smothering McMurphy and throwing the hydrotherapy fountain through the window. The martyr makes the survivor possible.
David Fincher · 1992
Ripley learns she carries an Alien Queen embryo that the company wants for weapons. With most prisoners dead, she throws herself into the furnace to stop it. Sigourney Weaver reportedly agreed to the film only if Ripley died.
Where to see it: The furnace. Ripley throws herself into the furnace, and the Alien Queen is destroyed with her.
Questions