John August: Charlie Not Protagonist

I criticized the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for losing sight of Charlie. The screenwriter, John August, doesn't see it that way:

[I]n some stories, the Hero, the Protagonist and the Main Character are not all the same person. One very current example is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

There’s no question that Charlie’s the Hero. You want to see him win that Golden Ticket, and for only good things to happen to him. Likewise, he’s also the Main Character – though Wonka’s a close second. While Charlie recedes into the background a bit during the factory tour, he’s still the main focus of the movie’s storytelling energies. When the Narrator talks, it’s mostly to fill in details about Charlie.

However, Charlie is not a classic Protagonist. Charlie doesn’t grow or change over the course of the story. He doesn’t need to. He starts out a really nice kid, and ends up a really nice kid.

In terms of Classical Dramatic Structure, that leaves us one Protagonist short, which leads to the biggest change in the screenplay versus the book (or the 1971 film). In our movie, Willy Wonka is the protagonist. He grows and changes. We see his rise and fall, along with his nervous breakdown during the tour. Charlie’s the one who’s always asking – ever so politely, in the Freddie Highmore Whisper™ – the questions that lead to Wonka’s flashbacks upon his rotten childhood. (In Classic Dramatic terms, that makes Charlie an Antagonist. Not to be confused with a Villain.

Confused? All the Jungian yumminess is parsed in his post.

I still think I'm right, by the way. Just because you know the rules you're breaking doesn't mean you've succeeded. Or, to put it another way, just because you can convince Tim Burton to go along with it, doesn't mean it is the right or best solution.