The Shadow of the Outsider

Movies Examined: Cultures Examined:

Fistful of Dollars American/Italian/Western

Yojimbo Japanese

The Shadow of the Outsider is an examination of the outsider archetype within film, and
would be relevant to IB Film students because the deeper analysis deeply rooted in
human psychology provides a connection between cross cultural use of Jungian
archetypes.

Audio Video

The character of the outsider in film Mirrored opening credit shots of Yojimbo
and Fistful
comes from a deep history and culture

traditions within every culture. And the

psychological want to belong is shown

across film and cultural tradition.

Music start: very soft Yojimbo theme

An ingroup is a social group to which a

person psychologically identifies as being

a member. For example, people may find

it psychologically meaningful to view

themselves according to their race,

culture, gender, age or religion. It has

been found that the psychological

membership of social groups and

categories is associated with a wide

variety of phenomena.

This is contrasted with the idea of the

hero within cultural mythos, a hero is

usually characterized by their destruction

of the Jungian serpent of chaos, and

embodiment of change and danger within

or to a society.

Heroes express a psychological aspect of

human existence. They can be seen as a

metaphor for the human search of self-

knowledge. In other words, the hero

shows us the path to our own

consciousness through his actions.

In film, the hero could often be considered

the representation of the conscious mind

or ego, or rather a persona thereof. In film

the viewer is obviously supposed to

identify with the hero, regardless of

differences in characters.
In contrast, the villain could be seen as

the unconscious realm, and the

archetypical representation of the shadow

or adversary. The shadow may be also

seen as the projected undesirable parts of

ones personality.

In the films Yojimbo and a Fistfull of

Dollars which are incredibly similar, the

viewer identifies with the main character,

who is an outsider to the societies each

find themselves in. Each stranger finds

themselves as a spectator to the feud

between two factions. Were going to use

Yojimbo as our primary example, though

most instances are so similar to Fistfull of

Dollars that all you need to do is change

the name and aesthetic.

A lone man wanders through a desolate

landscape, and heads to a town

embroiled in conflict, it is strangely

desolate though. In Yojimbo we easily

identify with the character as he is the first

person we see, and we follow his actions,

though he is an atypical hero, lacking

many of the moral scruples that make for

a traditional hero. We see the main

character as synthesis of the shadow and

the hero archetypes, being both the most

likable, and yet the agent of change and

disorder within the story.

Throughout the story the main character

changes very little, he has gone through

the individuation of the merger of the

shadow and the self already, and acts

only as an agent of change within the

story. He plays both sides, remarking that

the town would be better of without either

gang.

Sanjuro or Blondie both represent

outsider challenges to societal structures,

and from a standpoint one might

instinctively expect the viewer to root

against them. However we find many

positive qualities in the main character

aside from our focus on him, the wit

required to play both sides, a sense of

morality alien to the culture surrounding

them, and skill in their respective

mercenary crafts, swords and guns. The

outsider mystique surrounding both of

them is some what subverted by way that

we spectate them, and that they embody

mythos rather than pathos as characters.

Typically a character is what we most

identify with within the movie, which we

do with Blonde and Sanjuro, but each are

also the main driving force of the plot,

both causing and reacting events