The Day of the Jackal (1973): a case study of the focus on P in a motion picture

 

The Day of the Jackal is a 1973 political thriller film based on the novel by Frederick Forsyth of the same name, published just a couple of years earlier. It was directed by Fred Zinnemann, who already had prestigious films such as High Noon and From Here To Eternity among his credits. The book's plot follows a professional assassin - known simply as "the Jackal" - as he prepares to carry out a contract for killing French President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. The screenplay follows the book pretty closely: it simplified rather than modified the book; it cut some pieces of dialogue; it moved the city where the Jackal's forger and gunsmith are based, from Brussels to Genova; and it eliminated one of the Jackal's fake identities. Other changes are minor. 

This film is unique and worthy of analysis, in my opinion, for using mainly P on the audience, with a little bit of R, and I as to the structure of the narrative, and very few concessions to other elements.

For background:

How socionics information elements are used in films: Movies, as well as tv shows, stage plays, etc, combine socionics elements in different ways to get the audience to understand the point, or "message", the movie - or the individual scene - is trying to make, so that they will in the end appreciate the movie as a whole. As (non-exhaustive) examples:

- P: the conveying of a straightforward, matter of fact information, either from scenes shown or lines of dialogue, to advance the plot or the overall point: this is what is happening, where, and why. Most crudely used when characters, or a voice-over narration, or titles, describe events factually.

- E: the use of indirect means of generating the desired emotional response in the audience. One of the most obvious forms of E use in film is in the musical soundtrack: it tells the audience when they are supposed to feel sad, happy, excited, scared, etc. "Comic relief" is another example (comedies are in a whole different category as far as that goes).
 
- R: when movies focus on developing characters to the point where the audience feels that they know them as people, whether in a positive or negative way. Those who have a need to have someone on screen that they can "root for" are particularly receptive to this. Movies with a focus on personal relationships, such as romantic comedies or dramas, need to get their use of R right, otherwise they fail.

- S: one of the most common cinematic uses of this element is in "scenery porn", as in Avatar, The Lord of the Rings, Lawrence of Arabia, most James Bond movies, etc. Another example is Marie Antoinette, 2006, which flooded the screen not only with scenery porn but also with shots of colourful clothes, cakes, etc, in order to transmit to the audience the protagonist's own escape into S sensations. 

- T: this element is being used, at a basic level, when the filmmaker expects the audience to infer the meaning, the "message" of a scene, which is not made explicit. In more extreme (or pretentious) ways, the scenes (or even the whole movie!) may not even make apparent sense to the viewer. Some of David Lynch's works are good examples.

- F: the use of this element is most obvious in intense action scenes which seem to be there just for their own sake, rather than to advance the plot - fighting scenes that seem inserted for their own sake; car chases, etc.

- I: One frequent use of this element is when several perspectives and versions are given of the same events, and not always making clear which ones are more "true". Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon and Ridley Scott's The Last Duel are examples.

The Jackal negotiates his contract

- L: the most common use of this element in movies is in the use of clichés or stereotypes - the viewer is expected to reach an "obvious" conclusion about a character or a scene based on supposed shared assumptions, political or social. Often this is done precisely to subvert the stereotype and create a plot twist; or for humorous effect.

The original Star Wars film of 1977, later known as "A New Hope" or "Episode IV", is a good example of how most of those elements are masterfully used together to maximise the film's impact on the audience.

Use of some information elements in The Day of the Jackal:

The Day of the Jackal is the most obvious major, non-documentary movie that I can think of that is focused almost entirely on P (and actually, many documentaries also use the other elements more than P):

- E: most obviously, it has almost no musical soundtrack. There is some during the opening and end credits, and sometimes it has a "typical" local music being played by someone in the background - like "Volare" played in someone's radio when the Jackal arrives in Genova, to make sure the audience understands that he's in Italy, so not really an use of E. Arguably that is also P via a L connection.

The film makes almost no attempt to manipulate the viewer's emotions: there are no comic relief scenes, nor attempts at humour, in an almost exclusively serious, even grim movie. There are also almost no attempts to force emotions of fear or suspense - the suspense mostly flows naturally throughout the movie as a consequence of the plot. A few exceptions occur when it becomes clear to the viewer that the Jackal has just decided that someone in his presence needs to be eliminated, or when it appears that he might be caught by the police.

-  R: remarkably, The Day of the Jackal makes little attempt to imprint on the viewer a R connection with the main characters. The Jackal is portrayed by Edward Fox as a ruthlessly competent psychopath who works as a professional assassin, yet there is no indication that he enjoys killing for its own sake, nor that he enjoys the suffering of others. He kills when hired to do so and when he needs to protect himself. His goal is to make so much money with the de Gaulle contract so that he will never have to work again. It's dubious whether the audience is expected to "root for" him despite his charm and competence and having the entire apparatus of the French state against him: he's also shown calmly killing a sweet old lady with a chop to her head, from behind, even as she was getting him some water. 

The Jackal is the protagonist, but not the "hero" - his antagonist, Commissioner Lebel, in charge of the chase for the Jackal, is a more likely hero but then, he is played by Michael Lonsdale as an uncharismatic, even boring bureaucrat working with his assistant in a cramped office and dismayed at having to give daily "progress reports" to politicians, ie the Interior Minister and his aides. The strongest use of R in the movie is in a brief scene involving a female agent of the OAS (the terrorist organisation hiring the Jackal) when she needs to destroy the souvenirs of her dead fiancé.

(By contrast, the recent 2024 mini-series remake focuses a lot on R: it introduces a whole personal background, including a family, to the Jackal, which was totally absent from the book and the 1973 version).

Michael Lonsdale as Lebel

  S: the movie does has some scenery porn, as it was largely filmed on location in Genova and in the south of France, and it has lengthy scenes with the Jackal scouting locations in Paris, driving along the Mediterranean coast and through the French countryside. But it's not gratuitous scenery porn, as it is intrinsic to the plot for the Jackal to be in all of those locations. 

L: little obvious use, mainly in using stereotypes to hint to the audience the traits of some characters - for instance, the difference between the gunsmith and the forger: the gunsmith immediately makes the impression of a cool professional, and the forger, of a sleazy member of the Genova underworld.

I : it is used in the meta-structure of the film, which alternates between the points of view of the Jackal and Lebel, giving almost equal time to each.

T: the only focus on T is on how meaningful the story is given its historical setting: rather than being hired to assassinate a fictional character, the Jackal's target is Charles de Gaulle, giving the audiences of the time a clear sense of the stakes involved. 

F: there is no focus on F for its own sake. One subtle and ironic illustration of F in a political-bureaucratic environment is that Lebel - the man who actually does the work of tracking down the Jackal - is for the the duration of the investigation one of the most powerful individuals in France, able to mobilise vast resources with a phone call; and yet he is forced to present nightly updates on his progress to the Interior Minister and his many aides, a task he clearly dislikes. Lebel is shown as both hugely powerful and hapless.

Now coming to P. There are too many examples to list, but some of the most obvious ones are:

- the detailed way in which the film describes how the Jackal could order from the UK government a genuine passport for a fake identity, using the loopholes of the system as they existed in the 1960s;

- the same, for another, cruder method at obtaining a passport for yet another fake identity; 

- this scene, where the Jackal's examination, testing and calibration of the rifle that he has designed himself takes a considerable amount of time of the film;

- the focus given to the mechanical work in which the Jackal needs to engage in order to camouflage his rifle in his car.

The Jackal and the gunsmith

The focus given by The Day of the Jackal to all that nuts-and-bolts information is even more obvious when one looks at the 2024 remake, where he simply has tons of fake passports and alternative IDs, with no background given. This is also true of most movies of a similar genre, where apparently such information is considered as less interesting than fights, car chases, etc.

But apart from these more obvious examples, what is very clear when watching The Day of the Jackal it is uniqueness in relying mostly on P for its narrative.

If you are confused about our use of Socionics shorthand, click here.