Can anyone provide me with a small handful of cinematic examples of static characters? Preferably ones from films of great acclaim? I'm writing a story where the protagonist is a static character, but I'd like it to be seen as credible and I believe having some references to go off of will help.
Some examples I could think of at the top of my head for a cinematic static character would be Captain America from the MCU or John Wick from the John Wick tetralogy.
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Benoit Blanc in Knives Out and Glass Onion :)
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This article gives three examples, Michael Cole (Captain Hook, Sherlock Holmes, and Captain America): www.masterclass.com/articles/dynamic-characters-vs-static-characters
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Ryan Gosling's character in Drive
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James Bond movies before Daniel Craig
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Outside of franchise characters like action heroes, I'd say a lot of the time, a static character is a 'messiah' figure, like Forest Gump, whose wonderful existence causes change in everyone else around them.
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Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) from UP IN THE AIR. While in the end he's aware of his loneliness/isolation, he hasn't changed.
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David Fincher said "I like characters who don't change, who don't learn from their mistakes". Jesse Eisenberg's depiction of Zuckerberg goes through very little character change.
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Oh Dan. I never thought about the Connery Bond never ever changing. He was static, but the audience loved him. Craig does show pain, regret and change with each movie.
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Captain America doesn't change...? Really?
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I'm not sure if it's what you mean, but I think Rocky Balboa in the first Rocky movie is fairly static in that he's the same kind of person at the end of the movie as he was at the beginning. He doesn't change at all, but the situation around him does, and while he is tested, it just shows his resilience and his moral fortitude and the strength of his values overall. That's what I took away from it! I'm yet to see the others, but there's my two cents, for what they're worth! :)
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@Anthony In that MasterClass article, it says, "While there are a lot of different versions of the Captain America story with varying levels of staticism, overall the character remains the same: he begins and ends the story as a moral person who wants to help others and serve his country. Even though he undergoes significant external changes, his internal traits remain the same.."