Donnie Darko – The Scale of Fear and Love
25 Tuesday Nov 2008
Written by Josh Lipovetsky in Film Analysis
Share it
Donnie Darko. An extremely unique movie character. Plagued by emotional problems, he is labeled as a schizophrenic. However, in reality, he is suffering from a severe case of fear. The fear to die alone. He believes that crime and disorder will solve his fear, but the only true way to solve fears is to confront them. In Donnie’s case, it was a true act of love that freed him of his greatest fear.
Donnie was a very smart teenager: Academically, philosophically, and theologically. However, he severely lagged behind socially. Donnie often insulted others whom he disliked publicly. This led him to be suspended from school, and often scolded by his superiors. The reason for his emotional ‘imperfections’ was a great suffering from fear. Donnie was a lonely person, and he even greater feared dying alone. He spends time listening to Frank, who tries to convince Donnie that committing crimes will solve his emotional problems. But in Donnie’s case, hatred won’t remove his fears, only love.
Donnie had visions of the future. Visions of crimes that he was going to commit. These crimes would ultimately end the lives of many of Donnie’s loved ones. Had he actually committed the crimes, his fears would have escalated. Love, the strongest positive human emotion, was able to save Donnie’s spirit. If he had chosen to save his own life, many of his loved ones would perish. Because he chose to end his own life, instead of those around him, he committed an act of true love. Donnie did not die lonely, knowing that he was saving the lives of those he loved. Fear no longer had control of Donnie Darko.
More Articles!:
6 comments
January 28, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Okay. This has GOT to be the SHORTEST movie analysis EVER! C’mon, man… I’m beginning to wonder if you have even SEEN the movie… |-(
January 28, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Sorry about that. Yes, it is pretty short. I didn’t get much from this movie, so I don’t want to add unwanted and meanless text to the analysis. Some of the more deep movies like Forrest Gump, K-Pax, Bucket List, Reign Over Me, etc.. have more content to analyze. As you can see, I also enjoy positive/motivational movies more, and am able to interpret more information. For negative movies like this one, The Condemned, Persepolis, and Pans Labyrinth, you will notice the short length of the analysis. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, and I will try to improve the length/content of my film analysis in the future. I just saw “Igor” today, and it had a lot of content that I can write about. Thanks again, Josh.
September 13, 2010 at 10:46 pm
1. How is Forrest Gump deep?
2. How is Donnie Darko negative?
3. How is there less to be learned from ‘negative’ art?
September 21, 2010 at 9:27 pm
1. Forrest Gump is deep because it has many life messages, such as perseverance, honesty, integrity, and compassion. It has various themes throughout (running, ping pong, brace, etc.).
2. Donnie Darko isn’t the most optimistic movie out there. That’s what I meant by the term ‘neagative’. Frank is a dark and scary character too!
3. Actually, there might be more to be learned from ‘negative’ art. It all depends on the way you think, and analyze things. Left brain, right brain, etc. Everyone has their preferred genres.
Thank you for the comment, Enfer!
Josh Lipovetsky.
March 8, 2012 at 1:21 am
Are you 10?
April 22, 2012 at 5:49 pm
The whole Fear and Love concept goes along with the whole idea of false prophets such as Jim Cunningham, and religion dividing life into simple answers such as Fear or Love, God or Satan (Donnie being agnostic not being a coincidence) in which the individual cannot find truth. Such as the scene in his confrontation with his P.E. teacher and Cunningham, Donnie proclaims how the world isn’t as simple as the answers they attempt to provide because unlike your analysis, life is complex and there are numerous other factors that need to be taken into consideration. Donnie, receiving the knowledge of the worlds’ imminent collapse commits these crimes in order to fight back towards the corrupt establishments of society in which he previously could not without fear of social persecution (He lost his drivers’ license privileges and in in therapy due to his previous mishaps). His crimes’ were NOT a byproduct of fear, and the fact that you found it necessary to lump your analysis into the two categories shows that you are a prime example of an individual that follows “prescribed nonsense” blindly. This is an unacceptable analysis of such a movie concerning fate, god, society’s corruption, humanity’s Promethean qualities, and the Scientology that is apparent in every scene, back to back. Every scene in this movie has meaning, and your inability to find it is disturbing.