Mr Hockey, # 9...Cameron!

My take is protagonist drive the story, main character is the perspective we see the story through. Most people assume the main character is the one who changes, but that's not always the case. If they don't change, then they're typically changing another character (or characters) in the story. I first stumbled across this a long time ago, debating the same question (more or less) with Shawshank Redemption; the two functions there being clearly separate with Andy as the protagonist and Red being the main character. Another example I picked up on was To Kill a Mockingbird: Atticus is the protagonist, chasing after the story's main problem, but it's really through Scout we view the story. In both cases, one of the leading indications is the use of narration. Narration provides a lens through which the action and drama are colored and subsequently interpreted through. Also evident in both films, the main characters really don't have any goals that they're actively pursuing, so it becomes necessary for someone to "carry" the story, so to speak. Both characters end up changing in their own ways, too, as a result of someone else's perspective in the story (Red adopts Andy's way of seeing things with hope and Scout reaches a level of self-awareness towards her own prejudices via Boo Radley). That being said, I haven't seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off in quite some time. From what I recall, Ferris definitely appears to be driving the events of the story and certainly Cameron has a personal problem unique to him (at least amongst others in the story), but I don't know how much of an actual perspective of the world we see through the character to experience the change vicariously as a member of the audience. One scene I do recall specifically is the "Let my Cameron Go" bit, which gives us something internal to grasp onto.

This is awesome. I've been struggling with the first draft of a story in which, I recently realized, I somehow moved the protagonist's hat from one character to another halfway through. Maybe there's a way to resolve that problem without downplaying either character ...

I thought the protagonist was free to not change, as long as he changed those around him. As in Our Idiot Brother. I just read an interview with Brad Pitt in EW. He said he was drawn to the protagonist of Moneyball because he doesn't change at all. "I love this character because it's reminiscent of 70's films. All the Presidents Men. Dog Day Afternoon. In the late 80's we got caught up in this idea that a character had to learn a lesson and be someone else in the end. In the 70's films I was weaned on, it's not the character that changed, it's the world around them." He's not a screenwriter, but it's still interesting to hear what he's drawn to in a script!

"Hud" (from 1963, starring Paul Newman) is another film in which all the marketing revolves around the title character but this character is not, in my view, the protagonist. Through most of the film we're waiting for Hud to learn his lesson but near the end it's his nephew Lon that emerges as the protagonist, so everything is turned on its head. I love this device, it makes things more complex and less predictable, closer to "real life" than a movie plot.