The emotional elevator is a psychological manipulation technique that alternates between positive and negative moments to maintain control over the other person. This phenomenon, exploited by manipulators, can be used in screenwriting to explore human relationships or create a cathartic experience for the viewer. But let’s be careful not to lose our ethics in our relationship with the spectator.
Psychological Manipulation
Manipulative individuals, who are not necessarily the most intelligent, are skilled at playing with the emotional highs and lows of others—while feigning emotional stability themselves. They blow hot and cold. They reassure you, then humiliate you. They love you, then reject you. They swear loyalty, yet betray you. How do they maintain such a grip on us? Why don’t we leave?
We are manipulated because we hold onto the hope that the best will come even when the worst is happening. Here’s how the process works: when things are good, we do everything to maintain that state, fearing the return of the worst. We act responsibly, striving to preserve the best possible present moment for ourselves and others involved. Conversely, when the worst happens, we take it upon ourselves to restore the situation to its best, even if it means sacrificing our integrity. We are manipulated because we take responsibility! Our vulnerability lies in our sense of responsibility.
Manipulators gain power over others because they lack ethics. They choose manipulation where others choose respect. The only solution is to flee from such people, though this is far from easy, as they also offer us much during the good moments. We know what we stand to lose, and we tell ourselves that nothing is perfect and that perhaps we can tip the scales toward more good moments. When we think this way, we have already become prisoners of the manipulator. Understanding this human phenomenon can add nuance to screenwriting.
Characters Manipulating Each Other
In screenwriting, the first use of this dynamic is to depict such relational patterns between characters, to tell this type of story. This can have genuine intellectual value in understanding human behavior, and it allows for the creation of deeply profound films. This theme is endless, always unsettling, and endlessly fascinating.
Manipulating the Audience Ethically
We can also evoke a sense of emotional highs and lows in the audience itself. But beware—this is extremely difficult to handle, as it is an approach that, like that of manipulators, lacks ethics. At first glance, we might choose to avoid manipulating the audience in a screenplay. If our attitude toward the audience is to manipulate their emotions—to affect their freedom of judgment—we establish a manipulative relationship with them, which goes against all ethics. We cannot do just anything in a film, as in life. It may be fiction, but we have responsibilities, particularly in respecting human rights and dignity.
So, how can we harness this power without compromising our ethics? By being transparent with the audience: we announce that we are going to play the game of manipulation with them, allowing them to experience it while maintaining their critical thinking. The emotional impact may be slightly diminished, but it will still be present, paired with critical thought. Navigating these emotions and moments of obscured perception and self-respect can be cathartic for some viewers, even profoundly beneficial for their self-understanding.
How to Lay Your Cards on the Table
We lay our cards on the table by writing or stating it explicitly, perhaps through a voice-over or a character. Here’s an example: we might lie to the audience by telling them a character has died, presented as an omniscient truth. The character is dead. Depending on the narrative context, this could evoke sadness in the audience. Later, we reveal that the character was, in fact, alive. The film made us believe they were dead to play with our emotions, to take us on an emotional rollercoaster. In such moments, we feel betrayed. We sense that we’ve been manipulated, that the emotions we felt were based on falsehoods, even though we experienced them as real.
But if the narrative voice—whether the film itself or a character—warns us beforehand that the source of this information is unreliable (for example, by revealing that the character is a liar), we will follow the story as it unfolds but won’t fully believe it. We may feel sadness at the character’s supposed death, as the information is presented as true, but we’ll also retain a sense of skepticism, knowing we might be manipulated. This small voice, this intuition that the film has allowed us to have by signaling the character’s deceit, reassures us in the end. The cathartic effect is achieved.
