Christopher Vogler The Writers Journey
reversal to experiment with the unfamiliar experience of being confident and highly
social. M o v i e s like The Nutty Professor or As Good as It Gets use this technique to
explore the extremes of behavior and show us characters g r a d u a l l y a n d then
drastically reversing their polarity.
T h e reversal may be almost imperceptible at first, trickling bit by bit like
grains of sand in an hourglass. For example, in the classic screwball comedy Topper, a
man who has been rigid, disciplined, and meek his entire life enters into a polarized
relationship with two playful ghosts, the Kirbys, who are loose, free, and rebellious.
At first Cosmo Topper is driven to even greater rigidity to counteract the w i l d energy
of the Kirbys. But this extreme position is unnatural and inherently unstable. Under
continued challenge from the Kirbys, Topper experiments tentatively with the free,
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