The Mission is a very instructive film. It’s got excellent cinematography, beautiful pictures, excellent acting, and yet it’s one of the most disappointing pictures I’ve seen in a long time. In fact, I think structurally it was a mess.
Author’s Predicament: Somebody is trying to do a very ambitious piece of writing, and right away I’ve got to tip my hat to that. I love to see that kind of ambition and desire to really tell as encompassing a story as possible. The risk with trying advanced structures is they fail most of the time, because they’re hard to do.
The predicament of this writer is the predicament of all advanced structure writers: how do you present individual action as it is affected by the larger social and political forces. This is an advanced structure picture that uses a socio-political model. You try to compress the entire world down to one character’s situation and experience and hopefully have an effect on the entire world.
The first thing we need to do is to look at the end point, the self-revelation, of the story to see how the story path works. The self-revelation should come to the storyteller, who is the archbishop. He says a couple of things: “Thus have we made the world, thus have I made it.” Classic self-revelation: I am responsible. And he says at the very end the spirit of the Indians lives on in death.
The storyteller has taken responsibility for what has happened, but it’s been expressed in Western and Christian concepts. Their spirit lives on even in death. This whole story should turn on that idea, the idea of bringing Christian concepts, and the social forces that come with them, to these Indians. So that’s the end point. But I would suggest there may be a contradiction in that person’s thinking, and in fact, in the entire movie.
Let’s look at the storyteller. The storyteller should always be the main character. This is also a third-person storyteller, probably the most complicated storyteller form. As the writer, we must ask ourselves this key question at the beginning of the script: who is going to affect this storyteller and how? Is it going to be the Jesuit priest, played by Jeremy Irons? Is it going to be the Robert De Niro character? Is it going to be the Indians? Is it going to be all of them? Exactly how will they affect the storyteller and cause him to change?
Context: Let’s go back to the beginning, the context. Immediately, we need to focus on the larger social forces. There are agents from Europe acting on this new world, and particularly a group of Christians trying to bring the “Word” to the Indians. There are also Christians in conflict with the secular power. So right away there’s a very complicated context here. It’s going to have to be done really well.
As often happens, the script is made or broken with the choice of the main character. Who is the main character in this story? The hero should be the storyteller; the act of telling his own story should make him change. And in fact, he’s the one who has the comments at the end.
But is the storyteller the main character? Not really. The Jeremy Irons character seems to start off as the main character. But he doesn’t stay that way. We know the Robert De Niro character is in there quite a bit and seems to take over at some point. But is he the main character? Not really.
Stated simply, there is no main character in this film and that is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
Problem/Need: Let’s look at the sequence of how these guys are introduced, and what happens to the line of this story because of it. We start off with the storyteller, but he’s rarely there. So we lose him right away as the hero. Next up is the Jeremy Irons’ Jesuit priest, but he has no apparent moral need. He is presented in a very positive light. He’s going to the natives to bring the “Word”, he brings the musical instrument, wins them over, and this conversion process, this missionary process, is shown very positively.
Desire: His desire is clear. He wants to convert the Indians and build a mission. It’s a clear desire line. There’s one big problem with that. It gets accomplished pretty quickly. Which is exactly why we go to another main character, because there was no opposition to the first desire line.
Opponent: The first opponent seems to be the De Niro character. He’s a slave trader and he’s grabbing Indians. But his values are not expressed in any way, so we don’t really know what he’s about. And pretty soon he becomes the third hero. He does have a moral need because his initial desire is to catch Indians. But then he kills his brother, and now he’s got tremendous guilt.
So the story continues with him dealing in some very weird way with his guilt. Here is a very interesting and real element of Christianity. But what is the author’s attitude towards it? I don’t know. His guilt seems to be presented as a little weird, but certainly heroic. He is doing penance, dragging the armor up those damn waterfalls. But you get the feeling that this is all very heroic.
Then he becomes a priest. Which makes the story flip back to the first hero because now who has the central problem? The bishop. The bishop has to decide: are we going to keep the missions or not? He’s got to decide between the Jesuits and the secular power provided by the slavers.
With the return to the first hero, we also move to the second opponent, the slave traders. We’re jumping all over the place here. The slave traders are clearly opponents, first because they are presented in a very heavy-handed way. These are big fat guys. Awful people. But we learn very little about their values. And they are not the true opponents of the bishop. The bishop is actually there to decide between two lesser fighters, the Jesuits and the secular forces.
There is a suggestion of what the entire film should have been about when the slavers say “You Jesuits are the real enslavers, because you threaten the Indians with hell.” That is a powerful idea. To what degree is what these Christians doing positive, and in what way is it an enslavement?
But that is nowhere near explored here because no main character was chosen. Therefore, we have no sense of a desire line, no sense of a moral need, no sense of a main opponent, nothing. This fundamental question would have provided a system of values that could have come into conflict with another set of values. But that set of values can’t exist because the structural elements that would provide it aren’t there.
The film does have an interesting use of special worlds. Between the plan and the battle in many advanced structure stories you often show a subworld that’s a heaven or hell. Here the archbishop goes into the missions and sees how wonderful they are. And this is right out of the singing-happy-people type of world. It’s perfect. This is heaven on Earth. But again, the idea of how the Jesuits themselves might be harming these people is not explored in any way.
Whenever you show a utopian world, you have to show specifics. Why is this such a good world for these people? What are they learning from the Christians that is so wonderful, that’s making their lives so much better than it was before when they were just Indians? We don’t know that either.
So this idea that the Indians might have been better off if the Westerners, Christians and slavers had never come is not explored. The moral decision step comes before the battle in this film. The bishop decides to lose the missions. He’s forced to do that because of larger forces.
But because those forces have not really been portrayed in detail and shown in clear opposition between a main character and an opponent, it’s very muddled. We don’t really know the basis of his decision. It just happens. You think after seeing all this wonderfulness how could he possibly make a decision like that? But he does.
Battle: The battle is between the Jesuits, in particular the De Niro character, and the slavers and the soldiers. Notice we have two approaches: the violent opposition and the nonviolent opposition. Very interesting possibility. That could have been a nice story right there, the story between the De Niro character and the Jeremy Irons character. But again, that is not the opposition we get.
The main problem with the battle is the fact that it’s not the right one. It’s not between the hero and the opponent. Both approaches are shown to be heroic in this story: the fighters and the people who walk out in the face of the people with guns.
I would contend that neither of them is heroic. They’re both intensely stupid. This is the kind of false heroism I find very offensive in this kind of movie, because who gets killed? The Indians get killed. The idea of how these Jesuits, using both violent and non-violent methods, might have caused the death of all these people is not portrayed as an incredibly stupid, wasteful act, but as inspiring. Wasn’t that heroic how they walked out there and really gave it their all in spite of the huge odds. The difference between nobility and stupidity is subtle but important.
Self-Revelation: And so we get back to that self-revelation step. What’s the quality of the self-revelation, based not only on the actions of the story but on this battle in particular? The statement that the Indians’ spirit lives on in death comes out incredibly hollow, because who’s living on here? Nobody is living on. The Indians are dead. The guy spewing this silly platitude is still alive.
This concept of the spirit living on, a classic of old Hollywood, is simply replayed here. It’s the old Gunga Din approach: “Good ole Gunga Din is dead, but boy we really have fond memories of him.” To me the hero strikes a very poor chord here.
What I would have liked to see in this story is how the values of the Jesuits and the secular forces are really the same. How is the Western system in opposition to the values of these Indians and the life that they have? The deepest truth here is that you don’t get one without the other: you don’t get the Jesuits without the boys with the guns. Both of them say “I know what’s best for you.” And that’s really the moral need here.
But none of the Jesuits in this story, including the bishop, the first priest or the De Niro character, ever have any sense of this. Since every story, no matter when it’s set, is a present-tense story, this is still the problem that Indians in that part of the world are dealing with today. They’re still dealing with “how are you guys going to tell me how to live my life, and somehow it always ends up that I’m dead.”
This is an example of the difficulty of using an advanced structure and finding a clean line. The key point is this: in spite of all the fancy stuff that you might want to use – the storyteller, the socio-political forces, the special worlds – you’ve got to make the main line work. You’ve got to find the right hero and the right opponent. You’ve got to find the basic values in opposition, and you’ve got to get down to the core values, not just the superficial differences.
Another lesson of this film is: use the storyteller for the right reason. Often a storyteller is not part of the original construction. It’s as if the writers are saying, “People aren’t going to understand this thing, so we better give them a storyteller.” That is the absolute worst reason for using a storyteller.
There are good advanced structure stories. There are great uses of the storyteller. But just because somebody has a big name and they’ve won some Academy Awards, doesn’t mean they did it right. I don’t care how many Oscars they give him, this is not a good script.
I think this is one of the website’s most interesting reviews I’ve read so far. While I was busy zooming in on the hero and his structure beats, I had missed the importance of the story’s bigger frame, which is viewable only by zooming right out.
As described, this whole story was framed by a forced dichotomy, giving us the audience the two heroic options although both of whom are actually imposing themselves on an otherwise harmless, self-sufficient culture.
This frame seems to be a matter of misdirection, whether or not intentional by the filmmaker – if the audience can be invited to invest enough sympathy and support in the main character(s), regardless of the larger moral implications, we can be made biased judges. With enough bias, the suffering of the sub-characters who are neglected of screen time may be downplayed. One innocent Indian’s death is given a fleeting second of screen time, but the culture-invading main characters get minutes.
The moral argument reminds me of a similar case I’d read about vigilantism in American cinema. The paper proposed that superhero films often imply a moral argument that says, “if the vigilante does it for the right reasons (not to mention if they are patriotically American), it can be justifiable to override the law”. And when audiences normalise this attitude of downplaying the legal system while uplaying heroism, they can be swayed toward casually justifying America’s invasion and crimes in other countries, especially if the ‘other’ country is framed as either evil or in need of saving.
Of course, Team America comically reframes this in its opening scene, where the all American ‘heroes’ rid a small number of baddies threatening a town, but destroy half of the town in the process. Naturally, the heroes are completely oblivious to the huge damage they’ve caused, because they’re too busy basking in their own glory.
Great explanation. I’ve watched this film yesterday and it was such a disappointment. What a waste of talented actors, wonderful music and breathtaking photography. I filled a few pages with notes on what I’d have done differently; few of them coincide with what Mr. Truby presents, and I realized I was looking at the story elements – structure, character, conflict – but not at the larger picture. So this was a very instructive read.
Please indulge me here, because this response in defense of the film will take some time. I’ll do my best to summarize my thoughts, but that won’t always be possible. So, if you want the short answer, the film works, albeit a different structure wholly unknown to your casual reader. Now, onto the long one.
John Truby wrote up an excellent piece on why the film doesn’t work… for him. That’s a fair assessment, but I think he truly missed some vital points, hence, leaving only a shadow of the film he meant to paint by his words.
Let’s begin with the very first appraisal. He says, “Let’s look at the storyteller. The storyteller should always be the main character.” Braveheart, anyone?
Truby’s next line of thought follows: “As the writer, we must ask ourselves this key question at the beginning of the script: who is going to affect this storyteller and how?”
Answer: everyone. No, really. There are no main characters. This narrative is a portrait of humanity. And there’s a good reason why Cardinal Altamirano wasn’t made the lead because we’d miss the context in which the mission takes place, its construction, and those willing to change themselves from the inside-out to serve it.
As far as real-world examples go, try Alien or Gettysburg. To be brief, I think Bolt, the writer, was making a point using the ensemble cast. In real life, let alone events of historic importance, there are no main characters, just… characters. Flawed, as we all are. In light of the cosmos, this is most definitely true, but that’s for another day.
Perhaps it’s just me, but I take no issues with the structure. First, we’re introduced to Father Gabriel, a man who willingly leaves his family and home to a people who might kill him. He does it out of pure love, as he understands it, and his actions set the tone and context of the film. Next, we jump to a troubled soul (Captain Rodrigo Mendoza) who’s inner-conflict is only heightened by the learning of an affair… and, as if things couldn’t be worse, the culprit is his brother!
Now, Truby calls attention to the lack of Father Gabriel’s “moral need.” I ask, does he need one? No, because we get that from Mendoza. Moreover, Father Gabriel’s sequence stands alone as a page-turner: imagine climbing a mountain where one wrong slip-up may turn off the lights? Now imagine coming across what could be a hostile tribe, and finally, an angry slave-trader? There’s enough conflict to last a good 15 minutes, and that’s exactly the time it takes before we get to Mendoza’s story. Overall, note that Father Gabriel serves as the yin in their yin-yang relationship, in other words, setting up the first act.
Truby brings to mind, however, that “we don’t really know what he’s [Mendoza] about.” Okay, perhaps the writer intended an air of mystery around this seemingly content guy? In all seriousness, though, we do get a sense of a very conflicted man – his body language does all the talking, and the point that he’s so distraught that he’d act out irrationally and kill a loved one proves it.
Truby then accuses Bolt of having poorly executed Mendoza’s penance. He calls it “heroic,” as if it didn’t mean a thing to him. I disagree. Imagine being morally bankrupt enough that you made a living off slave-trafficking and then killed your brother over a truly silly affair. In a world were the threat of eternal damnation was ever-present for the most insignificant of crimes, I find it ridiculous to suggest that this man wasn’t taking it “seriously enough.” Please, re-watch those scenes, you’ll note the pain in his eyes. The face reading, “Whatever I do, I’ll never be good enough.” This ain’t a mere trifle, and there’s nothing remotely “weird” about it unless you go about it with a 21st-century lens.
But I’ll give credit where it’s due, and Truby’s partially right about Cardinal Altamirano’s moral dilemma: do we hand the mission, and ultimately, the people, to death and a life in slavery, or do we allow them to live and thrive in peace? One could look at it as being his issue, but isn’t it also Father Gabriel’s? After all, who’s trying to do the convincing here? And let’s not forget to point out Mendoza as the active protagonist in shouting down the greedy representatives of Portugal and Spain, who demand the removal of the mission.
On a side-note, I think Bolt was smart enough to give us conflict throughout this sequence, not just between the representatives and the Jesuits, but also between the Jesuits themselves. The bond gluing Father Gabriel and Mendoza starts to break here, as they can’t decide on the right path to defeating a common enemy – this conflict threads throughout the entire narrative.
And I don’t know about you, but Cabeza and Hontar were worthy opponents, and I took no issue with them appearing a bit late in the film, as long as they were there for most of it. As far as Truby’s critique that the film should have been about Cabeza’s accusation that the Jesuits were the main slavers threatening hellfire for non-believers, I feel this to be a little misleading. The point of that was just a manner of defense from Cabeza, and Father Gabriel stands up to him in silence. By not giving it the time of day, he’s basically saying, “That’s rubbish.” Does that mean he’s right? Probably not, but the main point of the film was about the clash of worlds and ideas, not about the pros and cons which come with Christianity. The faith, in this story, serves as a sanctuary against evil, and I’d imagine the natives were fine with their new-found beliefs and doctrines. In any case, he’s got the wrong idea as to why such a premise wasn’t explored.
Here, Truby puts forward a great challenge. There’s a sequence in the movie where Cardinal Altamirano visits the mission set up by Father Gabriel, but Truby’s annoyance is with what he calls “specifics.” He says, “Whenever you show a utopian world, you have to show specifics. Why is this such a good world for these people? What are they learning from the Christians that is so wonderful, that’s making their lives so much better than it was before when they were just Indians?”
Um… perhaps some clothing, wooden structures, and bridges will do? Perhaps the spirit of their new faith, which everyone seems happy about? And of course there ae real-world consequences, as their world, and all in it, comes crashing down, so I again feel as if Truby misread the film when he stated, “So this idea that the Indians might have been better off if the Westerners, Christians, and slavers, had never come, is not explored.”
I hate to have to keep doing this, but there’s just mistake after mistake in failing to recognize the merits of this film. Truby would have you believe as if the film merely has Cardinal Altamirano decide that the mission must go, without any thought. He forgets that Cardinal Altamirano learns of higher powers at work, even if those powers are never shown (they serve the purpose of broadening the world outside the scope of the film). The moral dilemma is thus: save these people’s lives, or save the Jesuit order. Now, the thing is, is there a clear opposition to this? Again, let me remind you of the two representatives for colonial powers who are always manipulating the facts and law. And what about a lead in the sequence? Well, it’s obvious, it’s Cardinal Altamirano. I’m sorry if that was a little redundant, but those three were the dots connecting the chain of attack.
And it just gets worse from here. Each line from Truby’s articles makes me believe more and more that he didn’t watch the film. Of course, there’s conflict between Mendoza and Father Gabriel as to how to combat the opposing force. Could that alone make a whole movie? Probably not.
Then this: “The main problem with the battle is the fact that it’s not the right one. It’s not between the hero and the opponent. Both approaches are shown to be heroic in this story: the fighters and the people who walk out in the face of the people with guns.”
I feel as if Truby’s got an ax to grind with this film, because if it were any other movie, I bet Truby would have glamoured the ending with Oscars. The Mission has a purpose to its ending – Father Gabriel’s warning against violence, and how love can’t co-exist with it, is moving. The subtly is that he can’t imagine that God would allow violence to be His way, but Mendoza’s at odds with this interpretation, yes, he took a vow never again to slay a living creature, but he’s grown to love these people – they’re literally the symbol of his redemption, heck, they’re cause of it. How can he let them all die? He believes what Father Gabriel calls for is foolishness, and thus, prepares to fight. It’s a powerful moment. It defines his character, his arch. Even the Commander-in-Chief of the motley force feels bad for doing what he has to do, and so he pursues to wipe it out of existence before he has to deal with it. The sight of warriors and priests willing to give their lives won’t bring him down, nor the pace of innocent children in tune with heaven and earth. But please, for all things good in the world, please, don’t call these decisions of the characters rash and stupid. What would you have done? Gone home and let them die alone?
As far as self-revelation is concerned, I think it merits attention. Here is a certain specimen, Cardinal Altamirano. In theory, he’s full of devotion to God and is solely interested in the souls whom he’s been ordered to judge. At the end of the second act, he makes the mistake of ordering the extermination of the inhabitants, and deeply regrets it by the end of the film, reminding us that these people will live on after death, while their oppressors suffer the indignation rightly deserved. I ask you, what is it that’s so ignoble about those words? To use a more modern example, Holocaust survivors live on in the memory of their decedents and the collective consciousness. In the end, the victims, in a sense, win. The evil committed against them is cried out for what it is. You may call it an old Hollywood trope, Mr. Truby, but I think it to be self-reflection worth time spent.
When all is said and done, the missionaries wished to avoid conflict, death, and bloodshed. What they sought out to do was to bring a message of peace and hope, at least to their minds. What the colonists tried was another animal, so I think it disingenuous to conclude that one must inherently come out of the other. Chances are, the odds are against it, and the film showcases that beautifully. With that said, one can only by a knockout ignoramus if he or she dare believes for a moment… that the values of the Jesuits were the same as those of the colonists. Truby, you’ve got it wrong, buddy. Sure, it might have made for an interesting movie in some very idiosyncratic cases, but not the one Bolt worked hard to convey.
Perhaps an analogy will do. You’re a doctor entering a new town to see a new patient and you’ve got some new, unheard of medicine. When you arrive, your patient refuses your aide, but you admit, “Hey, this time around, I know what’s best for you.” Had the natives been more like the patient, guess what, I couldn’t agree with you more… BUT, as previously stated, the natives, at least in this story, felt pretty darn happy with the way things were going for them in the mission, and I never got the sense that they felt differently, save for the doubt by the head Chief at one point where he ponders if it would have been better had they never made contact with the Europeans. However, this contempt is reserved for the colonists, as the natives realize that the Jesuits will be on their side.
So, did Bolt give everything a viewer could ask for? Let’s review our findings…
1) There are a few leads in this story, think of them as separate manifestations of one persona, if you will, all vying for the same goal.
2) Throughout most of the film, we do get a central oppositional force: the boys with the guns. Remember, Mendoza’s sequence serves only to bring context to his character so that his final choice will pay off in the end.
3) There are core values: what is best for these people? Removing them, enslaving them, or sheltering them? This is where the socio-political force comes into play.
4) The storyteller is A character, who highlights the given circumstances as they come about. This is no different than the well-worn classic, Braveheart. Specifically, the character of Robert the Bruce.
5) We get two special worlds here, one of heaven, and one of hell. I leave it up to you to point them out for yourself.
In some final words, I just want readers to understand that this film is a little different than your average movie-going experience; that doesn’t make it any less powerful.
P.S., in response to the first reply, there’s a little known effect called the Heinz dilemma. If you’ve got no clue to what I’ talking about, look it up. The point being, sometimes things go south for a greater good. Look at wartime, or even cops out on a job. In the latter scenario, perhaps some property damage is done to “save the day.” I don’t think it’s so black-and-white as you presented.
The stigmatic reading that the Jesuits are “culture-invading characters” is false. If you think for a moment, you’ll realize that while they preached their gospel, they were also saving these defenseless natives from a doomed life at the whip. As far as “White people” getting minutes of screen time for their deaths, false. I just watched this film for the third time, the movie makes no distinction. In fact, the whole foundation rests on the sole genocide of this one tribe, and how a handful of priests decided to do what was right to try and protect them.
I want to add further that in the sequence dealing with Cardinal Altamirano having to make his “decision,” it’s Mendoza who changes. He shouts down Cabeza, then apologies. That’s a change in character.