The Journey of a Dead Hero. Death in the film "Lucky Number Slevin" (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2021 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 1,0, University of Mannheim (Philosophische Fakultät), course: Narration im Film/Narration in Film, language: English, abstract: This term paper analyzes the importance of death in the film "Lucky Number Slevin" (McGuigan, 2006). While an initial killing is the trigger for the story itself, the film also features a complex main character who is already dead or, more specifically, never existed. It will be argued that the trinity of Henry's systemic death, the symbolic death/nonexistence of Slevin, and Nick's literal death, who are all unified as one person in the body of Henry, affect and represent the archetype of the hero and the hero's journey. Through the non-existence of the hero himself, the story deviates from a traditional hero's journey and functions as the introduction to a tale of a hero that needs to be created and freed of his past first to be able to set out on his own journey.

The traditional hero's journey, according to Vogler, follows a relatively strict pattern. The characters met during the story can be classified as different archetypes and play a specific role in guiding the hero towards their goal. However, while the principle can be applied to almost every story, some criteria must always be fulfilled for the concept to work. One of the main aspects is that the hero of the story must be alive. Death plays a crucial role in many cultures and hence in many films and other forms of media. When death is presented in a film, it always plays a vital role in the narrative.