My Textual Analysis On Will Smith Within 'I Am Legend'

I have begun my research by analysing how Will Smith’s characteristic has made his character appearance in films today interesting and astonishing within many of his films. ‘I Am Legend’, directed by Francis Lawrence released on December 14, 2007 to me brings the most out of Will Smith’s character. Will has used his past experience in his successful famous films, the award winning sitcom ‘Fresh Prince Of Bel Air’ and has used his Rapping experience which made him rise to fame as a Rapper under the name of ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’. In ‘I am Legend’ I feel that Will has used his experience to bring out his powerful character within this film.



Will Smith (Robert Neville) stars as a lonely person who survived the spread of a lethal virus in the New York City, the film follows Will as a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and his closet friend (his Dog) roaming around the abandon city searching for life when Will discovers that he and his friend are not alone in the city as there is others which have also survived the virus, he losses his friend and has nothing else to loose, as a Heroic act he sacrifices his life to save the others from the mutated.


Will’s Introduction to his character shows himself and his friend roaming through an empty City in a mustang doing unusual activates which would not be done in a city which has people in. immediately his character is identified as the protagonist and is seen as a strong character as he is introduced to the film he is the only person to focus on and is seen to have a muscular figure which adds to his Heroic character within the film. Will Smith's character in the film gives the audience a reason to be emotionally effected from his lonely character which losses everything that is important to him. I am amazed to how Will Smith adapts to different moods in films, and can jump from an emotional character to a superhero.

This is a short look on Will Smith’s character in ‘I Am Legend’, I have written this brief essay to express my views on Will Smith’s great character in ‘I Am Legend’ and also in his previous films.

I will continue my research also including more evidence of his characteristics in this film and how he uses his experience to bring out the best in his character.

Introduction To MY Project

Welcome to my Blog, I will be using this to share updated information on my recent project on Auteur. I will be including and sharing the progress in my project, my Blog would be updated at least once a week so make sure you keep up to date.

I have researched many characters which would fit the Auteur and I have finally found one; Will smith, he has starred in many films which have been very successful, he is no stranger to the camera, from his young age he has always been a successful character and as he has grown older his characteristic has made him be seen as a serious and emotional character. I have not just only chosen this character because of his successful times in front of the camera but because he is one of my best characters and I believe that all the films he has starred in have been successful.

My hypothesis is,
‘To what extent does Will Smith as a performer shape his films content and style’

My research will begin by researching Will Smith’s characteristics in some of the films he has starred in such as ‘I am Legend’, ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’, ‘Independence Day’, ‘Men In Black’ and I will also be researching on how he has emerged from his early television scenes such as ‘French Price Of Bel Air’.

Don’t worry I am going to carry on sharing information from my project with you, more information will be added on in the following week.