The Enneagram Movie & Video Guide-
Eights

Eights

FAMOUS REAL-LIFE EIGHTS
Lawyer Leslie Abramson, Gloria Allred, Edward Asner, F. Lee Bailey, Actor Joe Don Baker, Lucille Ball, Charles Barkley, Richard Belzer, Humphrey Bogart, Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Bronson, James Brown, Football's Jim Brown, Pat Buchanan, Richard Burton, Johnny Cash, John Cassavetes, Fidel Castro, Eldridge Cleaver, Ty Cobb, Sean Connery, Jimmy Connors, Robert Conrad, Brian Dennehy, Alan Dershowitz, Danny DeVito, Football's Mike Ditka, Bob Dole, Sam Donaldson, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Morton Downey Jr., Fred Dryer, Boxer Roberto Duran, Author Harlan Ellison, Hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, Moshe Feldenkrais,

Actress Linda Fiorentino, Indira Gandhi, Apache warrior Geronimo, John Gotti, George Gurdjieff, the Hell's Angels, Ernest Hemingway, Jimmy Hoffa, Opera singer Marilyn Horne, Saddam Hussein, Director John Huston, Joan Jett, Lyndon Johnson, Carlos Casteneda's Don Juan, Brian Keith, Nikita Khrushchev, Evel Knievel, Michael Landon,

Rush Limbaugh, John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), the culture of the Mafia, Norman Mailer, Mao Tse-tung, Wynton Marsalis, Lee Marvin, Tycoon Robert Maxwell, Malcolm McDowell, John McEnroe, Golda Meir, Comedian Dennis Miller, Robert Mitchum, Actor Judd Nelson, George Patton, Director Sam Peckinpah, Sean Penn, Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls, Julia Phillips, Actress Julianne Phillips, Suzanne Pleshette,

Dixy Lee Ray, Ann Richards, Geraldo Rivera, Axl Rose, Mickey Rourke, Telly Savalas, Baseball's Marge Schott, George C. Scott, Maurice Sendak, the cultural aura of Serbia, Tupac Shakur, Frank Sinatra, Grace Slick, Guardian Angel Curtis Sliwa, Joseph Stalin, John Sununu, Tamerlane, Rip Torn, Donald Trump, Pancho Villa, Actor Ken Wahl, George Wallace, Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters, Denzel Washington, John Wayne, Zorba the Greek.

INTRODUCTION
Eights, Nines and Ones share a general undercurrent of anger and form another emotional trio. Remember Twos, Threes, and Fours are confused about who they are and how they feel. Fives, Sixes and Sevens react fearfully and are confused around taking action. Eights, Nines and Ones react from a baseline anger and have the most confusion in the realm of clearheaded thought. It may affect their feelings and actions but the area of disturbance is in the head. This difficulty is often described as a condition of mental sleep.

Eights, Nines, and Ones all have trouble with accurate mental conception, that is to say, thinking clearly. An Eight's thinking will tend to be distorted by narcissism and the need to be strong. Nines lose focus and get absorbed in the irrelevant. Ones distort their thinking when they reduce multidimensional reality down into simple moral catagories.

The anger in Eights is related to the desire to seem and feel strong. Most Eights mobilize their will to this end and are keenly aware of power. Nines tend to bury their anger or express it indirectly while Ones route their anger through judgment and disapproval.

Healthy Eights are often dynamic, strong and independent. When awakened, they can demonstrate the virtue of power, how to wield influence for constructive purposes. Many Eights are natural leaders who inspire others, protect the weak, and strive for justice. They may use their power to shake things up and have the courage and will to implement new ideas. They are generally honest, direct, and bring an energetic, lusty gusto to whatever they try.

Healthy Eights are often generous, loyal friends who protect what is soft and vulnerable in others. This is also a metaphor for how Eights relate to themselves; beneath their strong outer armor is a younger, more vulnerable part of them that they protect. This part is related to an innocence of perception that awakened Eights can have. They are sometimes able to see the world as if for the first time, with the eyes of a child. They may have a related love of nature that is a source of spirituality and evokes this innocent quality. Unguarded Eights often demonstrate the strength of gentleness - they are strong enough to be kind, open enough to be touched, secure enough to be wrong, rich enough to be giving.

When more entranced or defensive, an Eight's preoccupation with power begins to be tainted with self-interest. While still fairly free of self-doubt, entranced Eights cover up their vulnerabilities with aggressive displays of strength. They overidentify with being powerful as a way to deny their softness and survive in a world that they think is full of dangers. They may also have a tendency to excess - staying up late, doing too much, driving too hard, indulging in addictions. This partly has the function of numbing their more vulnerable feelings.

Entranced Eights enjoy confrontation and try to make contact with others primarily through fighting. They push to measure others' motives and assess external threats. Eights may narcissistically inflate their presence and try to take up more than their share of space in a room. To protect the child within, they can act overbearing, arrogant, and insensitive. Underneath this intimidating shell the Eight may feel sensitive to betrayal, vulnerable to ridicule, or weak in a way that they are ashamed of.

Most entranced Eights don't quite realize how belligerent they seem. This is because they defensively deny feedback, especially about ways they might have been hurtful to others. Eights often specifically deny their guilt, covering it up with more aggression and pretending that they have nothing to apologize for.

In the movie White Hunter, Black Heart, Clint Eastwood's Eight character deliberately offends a number of people in a way that is very telling about this style. He doesn't just call them names, he sucks them into a dialogue or story that ultimately is insulting. Each time he does this, he takes out a sketch pad and draws the person as a caricature. This is very much a reflection of what Eights do in their minds when they are cruel to people - they make others into cartoons, two-dimensional objects that can then be skewered without conscience.

As with Twos, the healthy versus unhealthy expressions of the Eight style are unusually extreme. Their benign awakened use of power is corrupted drastically when Eights are deeply entranced. They can do immense damage - mostly to others - in the service of maintaining their grandiose image of an invulnerable self. A "get them before they get me" attitude thoroughly rules the Eight's behavior. To this end, they can be suspicious, bullying, vengeful, ruthless, psychopathic or murderous. Many of the world's bloody dictators have been very entranced Eights, and their brutal excesses reflect how unhealthy people with this style may ultimately murder their own humanity.

EIGHTS IN THE MOVIES
Not surprisingly, unhealthy Eights make effective movie villains. The open aggression of the style photographs well and creates enough tension to drive many a story line. Eight movie villains are almost exclusively male. I found only a single outright female example, Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction.
These types of roles start with the Bad-Bad Guy - a character who makes trouble just to throw his weight around or because he's obsessed with vengeance. Some are career criminals or mafiosos; others are avenging warrior figures, sociopaths or horror movie antagonists, especially Satan.

Then there are Bad-But-Appealing-Bad Guys, characters who still do evil things but have a sense of humor. They make trouble with gusto and are generally so pleased with themselves that the audience partly forgives them.

Up another notch are tragic, blindly destructive characters who don't intend to behave badly but do. These include deluded megalomaniacs, authoritarian bullies, tycoons, bad parents, angry kings, and male louts who are sexy but uncouth.

At the border of Good and Bad we find overzealous crusaders who are seeking justice. Also there are flawed cops who try to do the right thing but screw up because their rage gets in the way. Here's where the female Eights start to show up, often as tough independent women with hidden-away hearts. They're Good even though they act Bad.

Eight protagonists are generally dynamic and adult in the sense that they take charge of situations and solve problems. Many are tough-but-tender and have an edge of narcissism or a lovable flaw.

The films reviewed in this chapter generally show Eights in a deeper light. Most are character studies and are surprisingly revealing of the strengths and sensitivities of the style.

MOVIE REVIEWS
Andromeda Strain
Tense, terrific documentary-style thriller about a deadly virus that wipes out a small town in Arizona. A team of microbiologists goes to work in a top secret facility and discovers that the virus, dropped from space on a meteor, is like nothing they know.

The team is three men and a woman. The male characters are more faintly drawn, but the woman, Kate Reid, is a fleshed-out Eight and she provides most of the human interest and dynamism. She's rebellious, sarcastic and outspoken. Her first response to any procedure is to argue with it, then she complies. Close beneath the surface of this abrasiveness, Reid is vulnerable and rather sweet. Arthur Hill plays the by-the-book team leader, a One ("Our best hope is to be grindingly thorough"). James Olson is the psychiatrist, an irritable, introverted Five. David Wayne is the other, older man and a Nine.

The Doctor
Well-crafted, fact-based story about an arrogant and impersonal doctor who gets a taste of his own medicine when he becomes a cancer patient. William Hurt is the doctor, an Eight, and the film charts his journey from callousness to kindness as he learns to identify with his patients' suffering.

There are two striking contrasts relevant to the Enneagram. The first is the difference between Hurt's early bedside manner and that of his doctor, a Three. Both are insensitive and depersonalized but express it quite differently.

Hurt as an Eight is a subtle bully. He uses rough humor and caricature to stay disidentified with the pain of his patients. When a woman worries about her husband's reaction to her new surgery scar, Hurt jokes that she'll look just like a Playboy Playmate, complete with staple marks. She winces at his remark but he doesn't notice, thinking he's funny. Hurt then lectures his medical students on the professional virtue of not caring about the people you are cutting open. Denial of vulnerable feeling and the tendency to see others as caricatures are both specific defense mechanisms for Eights.

Hurt's Three doctor, by contrast, is crisp, efficient and mechanistic. She depersonalizes by seeing her patients as information. She deals with data and procedure and displays a technical fascination with Hurt's "case." She doesn't see him as a caricature but rather two-dimensionally, as a problem to be solved, a challenge to be met.

The other thing to recognize is that the change Hurt goes through reflects an Eight's progression towards 2. Whereas a defensive Eight disidentifies, Twos have an exact opposite strategy of joining with others. When Eights change and grow, they sometimes develop Twoish strategies for identifying with others. Hurt gradually moves towards his wife (Christine Lahti) and declares his need of her. He also gets more thoughtful and introspective (connection to 5).

The film is low-key and naturalistic with bursts of melodrama. It presents an especially accurate picture of how an Eight might change and grow. Elizabeth Perkins is something of a counterphobic Six, but it's hard to tell because she's defined by the context of her illness and also a little romanticized.

The Fabulous Baker Boys
Precisely acted, near-perfect little character study of a two brother piano lounge act. Real-life brothers Jeff and Beau Bridges play respectively a nasty Five (4 wing) and a dutiful Seven (6 wing, social subtype). The brothers decide to spice up their piano routines by hiring a singer and into their lives comes Eight Michelle Pfeiffer.

She is one tough cookie. Almost everything she says is a pre-emptive strike, her best defense being a good offense. Her hardness is offset by an edgy insecurity which Pfeiffer shows is just beneath the surface. It's not fear, like a counterphobic Six would have. Rather, she's in a stand-off with the world and has somewhere vowed to never be hurt again. When she and Jeff Bridges get involved, she starts by saying, "You're not going to wake up from dreaming about me and look at me like I'm a princess when I burp, are you?"

Bridges has his own problems with intimacy and has steel trap defenses for letting anyone into his solitude. He's essentially a Scrooge, so he and Pfeiffer keep triggering one another's hardness. Neither will take the risk of the first step. The story ends on a hopeful note, but both of them would have a long way to go. Nobody really grows much, but the film tartly evokes the lonely gulfs that can exist between over- defended people.

Gloria
Gena Rowlands gives a great performance in a mostly coherent John Cassavetes film. She's a retired Mafia gun moll who winds up protecting an orphaned ten-year-old whom the Mafia wants to kill. Her blunt Eightish hostility gradually softens into a gruff protectiveness of the boy. She is simple, rough-edged and will not back down. In the shocking action scenes she's a snarling, feral force of nature.
Rowlands is playing a self-preservation subtype, a woman who wants nothing more than to enjoy the modest pleasures of her retirement and have a little control over her environment. She initially resists the boy's plight and is decidedly unmaternal in her manner. She wants to be alone (connection to 5).

The connection to 2, however, gets the better of her; we see it in how she surrenders to taking care of the boy and also in a scene where she pleads his case before her mobster friends. She goes placating and seductive, like a weak wolf offering her throat. When this strategy fails, she turns rugged again and fearlessly shoots her way out of Mafia headquarters.

Rowlands was nominated for an Academy Award. The boy (Juan Adames) is meant to be lovably precocious, but at times he's just odd. It's as if he's playing some adult's warped memory of being a child.

I'm Almost Not Crazy
Take a break from all those fictional Eights and meet a real one in action. This documentary of the late actor/director John Cassavetes captures him at work making what was to be his last film. He's a bale full of contradictions - warm, impatient, humble, narcissistic, loving, bossy, funny. He also has passion without rage, which is a pleasure to watch.

Cassavetes has Eight-like problems with clear conception, as evidenced by his eccentric, rambling philosophy of moviemaking. If you've never seen his films, they are famous for their improvisational style and arrhythmic editing. Some are really good, some are just peculiar. A friend of Cassavetes tells a story of a film the director previewed that received a huge popular response. Cassavetes was so disturbed by the excited reaction that he reedited the film to his own inscrutable specifications. It later opened to bad reviews and flopped.

It's obvious that Cassavetes has gusto for what he's doing. He talks at length about wanting to make movies with authentic feeling ("All my work is about love"). He has an ethos of spontaneity and he shows an Eightish underdog sympathy for actors, advocating anarchy and freedom for them. What's not so clear is how this ethos relates to the finished product. You can see the film Cassavetes thinks he's making, but the result was a weird dud no one liked called Love Streams. With Eights, narcissism can compete with the best of intentions.

All in af by another One, fundamentalist Chll, though, he's a sweetie, like a teddy bear with real claws. He would be a social subtype for his emphasis on love and responsibility as well as his enjoyment of the group process of filmmaking. Cassavetes involves everybody, and has genuine enthusiasm for the social chemistry of creating something with others. This also reflects an Eight's connection to 2.

The sad part of the film is related to Cassavetes's 7 wing. On the high side he shows excitement, great good cheer and abundant, if jumbled, imagination. The low side of a 7 wing for an Eight can include an almost virulent tendency to addiction, and unfortunately Cassavetes smokes and drinks his way through the film. He died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 59. Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes's wife, appears briefly and she's a Nine with an 8 wing.

Cassavetes, the actor, is showcased in Paul Mazursky's Tempest, a sometimes slow but surprisingly entertaining update of the Shake-speare play. The actor plays an architect who has a mid-life crisis and retires with his daughter to a Greek island. There he slips into a Fiveish self-absorption that is both crazy and sane. Worth a look for how his Eight character changes and grows. He's lovably eccentric and again a social subtype. Raul Julia plays a Seven and Susan Sarandon shows her usual persona which rides the border of Seven and Six.

Lean On Me
Morgan Freeman dominates every scene as school principal Joe Clark, a man who cleaned up and reformed a rough ghetto high school in New Jersey largely with the force of his personality. He wields a baseball bat, bellows through a megaphone, alienates teachers and superiors all in the name of tough love.

At first he seems like a One with an overriding sense of mission, willing to be abrasive for a good cause. Soon it becomes clear that he revels in his reformer role and can be egotistically unfair. This highlights the difference between Ones and Eights. Both styles can be overtly angry in manner, but a One does it in the name of principle while the Eight is glorifying the "strength" of the self. Clark can't openly admit he's wrong but can acknowledge the fact implicitly and indirectly, thus preserving his omnipotent self-image. His mission is opposed by Ones throughout the story. His saving grace is that he genuinely cares about the kids and they know it.

This movie is corny and overdone in places but Freeman is so good that it doesn't matter. For a more lethal variation of an Eight see Freeman's performance in the clever, underrated Street Smart.

Leaving Normal
As a film, Leaving Normal is a) crummy, b) stupid, c) phony, d) all of the above. For starters, there's too much music; it swells up sentimentally whenever the filmmakers think they have hit a Rueful Truth That Touches All of Our Lives. Usually the two lead actresses have just been shouting about philosophical sounding things and the music gets loud so that we know what they said was important. The actresses are traveling, so the film also has a lot of cute vignettes about things screenwriters imagine happen in rural places. You know: where wacky country people with lovable eccentricities live. Then there's the arty photography, the pretentious title, the ... oh, never mind.

The two reasons to see the film are Christine Lahti and Meg Tilly. They play an Eight and a Six respectively, and they do shout a lot, but they still ring true. And the dynamic between them is useful; Eights and Sixes can have trouble getting along because Eights tend to suppress their fears and act strong while Sixes sometimes fear strong, declarative people. In a highly unhealthy relationship an Eight could become sadistic and a Six masochistic.

Here Lahti's and Tilly's characters become good friends and we see the high side of such a union. Both share antiauthoritarian drives. Lahti extends a protective, loyal quality that includes challenges to Tilly's fears. Tilly is also loyal and is willing to confront Lahti on her denial, which Lahti first resents but finally appreciates.

At first they are more obvious in their styles. Lahti has a tough mouth and smokes, swaggers and swears. She's alcoholic, uneducated and has worked as a barmaid for too long. Tilly is breaking out of a short marriage with a man she barely knew but had romanticized (ie: gave him her power). She's apologetic, a little whiny and often beats up on herself. She has panic attacks and is superstitious, projecting lots of power onto outside forces. Lahti yells at Tilly for apologizing too much. Latter replies, "I'm sorry!"

Tilly's quite an active doubter: " I don't know if I should be doing this. How do I know I won't be making the same stupid choices again?" Later she loosens up enough for a romance with Lenny Von Dohlen, a shy, poetic truck driver, himself a self-doubting Six.

Malcolm X
Sweeping, seamless biography of black militant Malcolm X, splendidly played by Denzel Washington. He's an Eight and the film contrasts his grubby, rough, early life as "a junkie, a pimp, a convict" with his eventual religious conversion and career as a Muslim minister and firebrand.

The conversion occurs while Malcolm is in prison. His life is plainly not working and while he strikes defiant Eightish poses that get him harsh treatment, he's just about reached the limits of aggression for its own sake. He is repeatedly approached by a fellow prisoner Brother Bain (Albert Hall), an upright One, who asks Malcolm fierce, probing questions about his racial identity and what his life could count for. A slow unfolding of the spirit ensues, but what's also nice is the way Malcolm the Eight internalizes Brother Bain's Oneishness. It's as if the only cure for Malcolm's wild aggression is the absolute imposition of Oneish rules and precepts. Eights sometimes internalize ethical Oneishness and it can work well for them.

Malcolm eventually joins the Black Muslim Organization of Elijah Muhammad (Al Freeman Jr.). Latter is a Nine with a strong 1 wing and the film shows both his strength as a spiritual leader and then later his welter of flaws. Freeman is a little like Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, "a sweet, gentle man" who is empowered by piety.

Malcolm's eventual disillusionment with Muhammad is first preceded by Eightish denial - he refuses to believe that Muhammad fathers children out of wedlock and is politically ruthless. When Muhammad reveals that it's true and blithely rationalizes the facts, Malcolm goes from denial to crushing disillusionment and says, "I could conceive death but I couldn't conceive betrayal." Actually betrayal is something Eights often fear. For some, it is worse than death.

By this time, too, Malcolm is powerfully committed to his cause, and the combination of Eight and One forms the basis of his take-no-prisoners preaching style. He's fiery, a little vengeful, and absolutely unsparing in his descriptions of white America's treatment of blacks. He's so controversial that he unnerves both the white establishment and his own organization which finally marks him for death. The film shows very well how an Eight could assume a leadership role and pursue it with unyielding commitment and courage. The portrayal is powerful and not the least bit sentimental. The film's epilogue - essentially a lecture - is so different in tone that it should have come after the credits.

Malcolm is an introverted Eight with both wings. In interviews Denzel Washington is very much the same way, so this would be Enneatype casting. The portrayal also shows an Eight's connection to the high side of 2 in Malcolm's devoted relationship to Muhammad and in his mellowing towards white people near the end of his life. The high side of 5 is evident in the way Malcolm becomes both studious and introspectively self-searching.

Reversal Of Fortune
Ron Silver plays real-life lawyer Alan Dershowitz who defended Claus von Bulow (Jeremy Irons) against charges of attempted murder of his wife, Sunny von Bulow.

Silver plays Dershowitz as a relatively healthy Eight (social subtype). Motivated by justice, he champions underdogs and defends poor people for free while charging the wealthy von Bulow full fee. "I've got to feel like some constitutional or ethical issue is at stake," he says, and it takes him a while to decide to defend von Bulow. "You have only one thing in your favor - everybody hates you."

Many movie Eights are villains, so it's nice to watch a productive one. Dershowitz inspires his law students, takes risks, and pushily engages the world. He dislikes von Bulow and doesn't disguise the fact. He's honest, demanding and impatient. He also has a soft heart and a streak of insecurity. Silver gives a vivid, likable performance in a superb film.

Irons is most likely playing a Three with a 4 wing. He's subtly competitive, status-seeking and wears an enigmatic mask. His character is playing a role of himself. Glenn Close, though in a coma, is a Two.

September
Somber, whiny Woody Allen film about a group of depressed people spending an angst-filled weekend in a house in Vermont. Part of the problem is that everyone is in love with someone who's in love with someone else. Denholm Elliott loves Mia Farrow, a depressed, complaining Six, who loves Sam Waterston, a self-pitying Four. He thinks he loves the married, unavailable Dianne Wiest (Nine) who has gotten temporarily away from a life where she "was just going through the motions." Waterston the Four tells Wiest, "You haven't even left yet and I feel like I'm going to lose something that I'll never ever get back."

When Farrow's mother gusts into this stale atmosphere, things liven up considerably. She's an Eight, played by Elaine Strick, and she's loud, crass and delightful.

Strick would like to resolve her relationship with Farrow and this drives most of her behavior. She's secretly grieving her failings as a mother, but she covers her guilt with aggression, which is a defense for Eights. She offers Farrow unwanted opinions and simplistic homilies. She doles out criticism and then says, "Don't be so defensive!" when Farrow responds badly. Mom doesn't have a clue ...

She does try hard, though. She's basically good-natured, both well-meaning and gregarious. When she is unfair to Farrow late in the story, she apologizes and corrects her mistake. What she can't quite manage to do is switch places and identify with Farrow's feelings. Identification with others can sometimes be difficult for Eights, because of the tendency to caricature that I mentioned earlier. Eights avoid the weakness in others because it reminds them of their own.

By the way, the Strick/Farrow conflict in this film illustrates the different time orientations that Eights and Sixes can have. Strick lives very much in the present and the near future while Farrow is recycling the past. Strick is also keenly aware of aging and sums it up in this very Eightish way: "It's hell getting older. All the strengths that have sustained you all through your life start to disappear one by one."

Look for gruff Jack Warden, howlingly miscast as Strick's physicist husband. He almost always plays Nines and does here too.

The Shootist
Art imitated life in John Wayne's last movie. He plays an aging gunfighter who is dying of cancer, just as Wayne himself did a couple of years after the release of this film. Wayne was an Eight in real life and his gunfighter reflects a kind of mellowing that the actor himself publicly admitted just before dying.

"I won't be wronged, insulted or laid a hand on. I don't do these things to others and I require it from them." Vulnerable because of the medical diagnosis, Wayne's gunfighter is still tough, but he also reveals the tolerant, innocent goodwill that Eights can have when unguarded.

He has mixed feelings about what he has done for a living, but all in all says, "I've had a hell of a good life." He is without self-pity about his fate and genial beneath his crabby façade. He has enough conscience to put things right with the people he cares about and he decides on a death that is, to him, morally useful and dignified.

Wayne gives a fine performance in a movie that is more a character study than action western. James Stewart as his doctor and Lauren Bacall as his landlady are both Ones, and the Eight/One dynamic is really evident. Bacall partly disapproves of and partly admires Wayne's rough dealings. Wayne is rude and feisty towards her judgments but he also respects her.

Ron Howard plays Bacall's son, something of a Nine but it's not clear. He angrily stands up to Wayne's bossiness and, typical of an Eight, Wayne likes him for it. Hugh O'Brian has a cameo as a gambler-gunfighter and has a strong aura of a Three.

Twenty-One
This movie is luridly advertised as a frank, bold exposé of a sexually liberated young woman. Naaah - she's a blunt Eight (Patsy Kensit). Kind of a healthy one too, and the film is mainly a character study as Kensit finds her way through a difficult year and relocates from England to the U.S. Along the way, she talks into the camera about her life and her monologues are unvarnished and antiromantic ("For a while now in my life, sex and love have come in different packages ..." begins one). You can almost tell that she's an Eight from the assured way she walks and occupies space. But she also talks tough, has aggressive reactions and likes to play the Bad Girl.

Like our other Eights, she thinks in caricature and when she checks an aggressive response to someone in the film, she still says something judgmental to us. There's a lot of frank sexual content in what she talks about and this is related to the role lust plays in an Eight's life. It's also not unusual to find a female Eight who is outwardly mild-mannered but then has a profane, colorful mouth.

At bottom, Kensit's character is a genuinely nice person (high side of 2). She has a certain sense of propriety and a code of ethics that prevents her from acting out too harmfully. She loves her father in a tender, uncomplicated way. He is an amiable, befuddled Nine who is splitting from Kensit's Threeish mother. "I have a thing about pissing my father off," she says, "but if I were ever caught sexually molesting animals he'd defend me and there's no one in the world I trust more."

The family dynamics are consistent with the backgrounds of some Eights. Kensit's passive father and preoccupied, image-oriented mother make for a kind of power vacuum that an Eight child would tend to fill up with inflated demonstrations of strength.

Kensit's doomed affair with a drug addict (a dull passage since it's obvious what will happen) reflects the low side of the connection to 2, the tendency towards codependence. She triesmpany being raided. This personalize to rescue him loyally even though his fate is really out of her hands.

The other thing to note is that Kensit has a 7 wing. She has a cheerful outlook and rebounds well from difficulty. "I don't think you should abolish morals and guilt, but I do think there's only one life and you'd better work out a way to enjoy it."

She has a woman friend who is only ever seen eating Chinese food and the woman is a Seven.

White Hunter, Black Heart
Clint Eastwood in an unusual, more or less true character study of film director John Huston and his obsession to kill an elephant during the making of the film The African Queen.

Huston's Eightness is the actual subject of the film and he's textbook - bullying, obnoxious, protective, profane, funny and, finally, humbled. "It's not a crime to kill an elephant, it's a sin to kill an elephant and that's why I want to do it." The sociopathic, antipuritan tendencies of the Eight style are well displayed. He won't do anything anyone wants him to precisely because they do. He favors underdogs and minorities yet his affection for them is self-serving. He enjoys cruel practical jokes and, in one memorable lengthy scene, he ruthlessly insults an anti-Semitic English woman.

Jeff Fahey plays Eastwood's screenwriter sidekick and he's in the Nine/One range. He has bemused tolerance for the director at first. As it grows clear that Eastwood is pathologically destructive, Fahey gets more and more Oneish.

White Hunter is talky and forced at first and it's odd to see the taciturn Eastwood with so much dialogue. But once the story gets rolling it has surprising punch. A brave, compelling, anti-macho tract.

OTHER MOVIE EIGHTS
Claude Akins, Falling From Grace; Alan Alda, And The Band Played On, White Mile; Idi Amin, General Idi Amin Dada; Philip Anglim, Haunted Summer; Kathy Bates, White Palace; Wallace Beery, Dinner At Eight; Tom Berenger, Platoon; Humphrey Bogart, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon; Marlon Brando, Last Tango In Paris, A Streetcar Named Desire; Richard Burton, Anne Of A Thousand Days; James Caan, Honeymoon In Vegas; James Cagney, One, Two, Three; Cher, Mask; Lee J. Cobb, On The Waterfront, 12 Angry Men; Sean Connery, Family Business, The Offence; Barry Corbin ("Maurice"), Northern Exposure; Robert De Niro, This Boy's Life, The Mission, Midnight Run, New York, New York, Raging Bull, The Untouchables;

Danny DeVito, Other People's Money, Ruthless People; Melvyn Douglas, Being There; Michael Douglas, Black Rain; Robert Duvall, The Great Santini; Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry movies, Heartbreak Ridge, In The Line Of Fire, The Rookie; Lee Ermey (Drill Instructor), Full Metal Jacket; Peter Falk, A Woman Under The Influence; Peter Finch, The Nun's Story; Linda Fiorentino, Acting On Impulse, Vision Quest; Laurence Fishburne, What's Love Got To Do With It?; James Garner, Victor/Victoria; Richard Gere, Internal Affairs; John Goodman, Born Yesterday; Gene Hackman, Unforgiven; Rutger Hauer, Ladyhawke; Judd Hirsch, Ordinary People; Bob Hoskins, The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne; Joan Jett, Light Of Day; Alan King, Just Tell Me What You Want; Sue Lyon, Lolita;

Shirley MacLaine, Used People; Lee Marvin, The Dirty Dozen, Gorky Park; Mary McDonnell, Passion Fish; Viggo Mortensen, The Indian Runner; Craig T. Nelson, All The Right Moves; Paul Newman, Hud, Harry And Son; Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men; Nick Nolte, Q & A; Tatum O'Neal, Paper Moon; Peter O'Toole, Beckett; Al Pacino, Scent Of A Woman; Jack Palance, City Slickers; Chazz Palminteri, A Bronx Tale; Estelle Parsons, I Never Sang For My Father; River Phoenix, Dogfight; Anthony Quinn, Revenge; T. Rex, Jurassic Park; Burt Reynolds, Deliverance; Jason Robards, Parenthood; Kurt Russell, Backdraft;

Roy Scheider, The Russia House; George C. Scott, Patton, The Hospital; Martin Sheen, Cadence; Keifer Sutherland, Stand By Me, Flatliners; Kathleen Turner, V.I. Warshawski; Robert Urich, Endangered Species; Darth Vader, Star Wars; Diane Venora, Bird; John Wayne, any of his films; Peter Weller, First Born; Bruce Willis, Mortal Thoughts; James Woods, True Believer; Irene Worth, Lost In Yonkers; Robin Wright, The Playboys.

FINER DISTINCTION NOTES
Eight With a 7 Wing
Awakened Eights with a 7 wing are often expansive, and powerful. Gregarious and generous, they may display a cheerful bravado. Can be forceful but with a light touch, funny. Often have a sense of humor about themselves. Generally more extroverted, ambitious and materialistic. May talk loud and be sociable partygoers.

Sometimes driven to bring the new into being. Can be visionary, idealistic, enterprising. Willing to take risks. May think more clearly than Eights with a 9 wing; 7 wing brings an intellectual capacity.

When more entranced, aggression combines with gluttony to form an almost virulent tendency to addiction. Many entranced Eights with a 7 wing have had drug and alcohol problems or tensions around addiction. Prone to temperamental ups and downs - can be moody, egocentric, quick to anger. Tendency to court chaos, inflate themselves narcissistically. Some are ruthlessly materialistic. Can use people up, suck them dry. Maybe be explosive or violent, prone to distorted overreaction.

Real-Life Eights With a 7 Wing: Leslie Abramson, F. Lee Bailey, Lucille Ball, Sean Connery, Jimmy Connors, Robert Conrad, Brian Dennehy, Lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Danny DeVito, Kirk Douglas, Rush Limbaugh, Fritz Perls, Ann Richards, Geraldo Rivera, Telly Savalas, Frank Sinatra, Grace Slick, Donald Trump, Zorba the Greek.

Movie Eights With a 7 Wing: John Cassavetes, I'm Almost Not Crazy; Michael Douglas, Wall Street; Robert Duvall, The Great Santini; Gene Hackman, Class Action; Christine Lahti, Leaving Normal; Laura San Giacoma, sex, lies and videotape; Ron Silver, Reversal Of Fortune; Elaine Strick, September.

Eight With a 9 Wing
Healthy Eights with a 9 wing often have an aura of preternatural calm, like they haven't had a self-doubt in decades. Take their authority for granted - queen or king of all they survey. May be gentle, kind-hearted, quieter. Often nurturing, protective parents; steady, supportive friends. Informal and unpretentious, patient, laconic, generally somewhat introverted. Sometimes a dry or ironic sense of humor. May have an aura of implicit, simmering anger rather like a sleeping volcano. Slow to erupt but when they do it's sudden and explosive.

When entranced, the 9 wing brings an Eight a kind of callous numbness. They can be oblivious to the force of their anger until after they've hurt someone. Calmly dominating, colder; may have an indifference to softer emotions. If very unhealthy, they can be mean without remorse or aggressive in the service of stupid ends. Paranoid plotting, muddled thinking, moral laziness. Can be vengeful in ill-conceived ways, abuse those they love, don't know when to quit.

Real-Life Eights With a 9 Wing: Edward Asner, Johnny Cash, Fidel Castro, Ty Cobb, Michael Douglas, Milton Erickson, Linda Fiorentino, Geronimo, John Huston, Evel Knievel, Lee Marvin, Golda Meir, Robert Mitchum, Dixy Lee Ray, Mickey Rourke, Marge Schott.

Movie Eights With a 9 Wing: Robert De Niro, The Mission; Clint Eastwood, White Hunter, Black Heart; Rutger Hauer, Ladyhawke; Judd Hirsch, Ordinary People; William Hurt, The Doctor; Shirley MacLaine, Used People; Lee Marvin, Gorky Park; Jack Palance, City Slickers; Gena Rowlands, Gloria; John Wayne, The Shootist.

CONNECTING POINTS (Stress and Security)
Eight's Connection to 5
Healthy connection to 5 brings mental clarity. Begin to think coherently; Eights are more strategic and systematic when this connection is active. Develop an objective perspective that helps them depersonalize and pull back from narcissistic overreaction. Take the long view, think things through, pause before they react. Can grow philosophical. Sometimes studious and introspective. May develop an intellectual streak, especially with a 7 wing. Connection also helps take the edge off Eight's addictive tendencies. They consume less, keep their own counsel, grow more moderate in their behavior.

Unhealthy connection is characterized by morbid withdrawal and tendencies to paranoia, depression, and guilty brooding. Eights can isolate themselves and lapse into inaction. Often this comes after they have recognized their own cruelty or moral failures. Might experience crushing guilt, a feeling that they normally deny. Can then begin to cruelly self-punish, spiral into regret. Fears arise but not usefully. Go dead, feel powerless. Intellect is twisted in the service of self-hatred or heightened paranoia about betrayal by others. When deeply unhealthy there is a strong possibility of suicide.

Movie Eights who demonstrate this connection: Philip Anglim, Haunted Summer; John Cassavetes, Tempest; Robert De Niro, The Mission; William Hurt, The Doctor; Kate Reid, The Andromeda Strain; Gena Rowlands, Gloria; Denzel Washington, Malcolm X; John Wayne, The Shootist.

Eight's Connection to 2
Healthy connection to 2 helps Eights learn to change places with others. 2s are overidentified with others while Eights underidentify so this connection helps Eights learn how to empathize. Extend themselves, become better communicators, admit their interdependence. Can become more compassionate and thoughtful, more open and willingly vulnerable. Sometimes have an ethos of love, in touch with the child within. May have therapeutic personalities in that they want to heal others, make things better. Display the strength of true gentleness.

Unhealthy connection to 2 brings codependence. An Eight may get overidentified with their partner and be unable to disengage. May defend their partner's weaknesses, even those that hurt the relationship. Compensate for other's limitations, make excuses.

Also a stronger tendency to overreaction, display a kind of hair-trigger hysteria. Can take the whole world personally like an unhealthy 2. Won't let go of slights and injustices, their pride is offended extra easily. More vengeful, act entitled, episodes of megalomania. Eight's narcissism is intensified and reinforced.

Could also develop an obsession about their partner. Compulsive clutching and possessive demands. Sometimes prone to jealousy, associated with unhealthy intimate subtype.

Movie Eights who demonstrate this connection: John Cassavetes, I'm Almost Not Crazy; Robert De Niro, The Untouchables, New York, New York; Gene Hackman, Class Action; William Hurt, The Doctor; Patsy Kensit, Twenty-One; Christine Lahti, Leaving Normal; Gena Rowlands, Gloria; Denzel Washington, Malcom X.

SUBTYPE THEMES
Self-Preservation
Self-preservation Eights often grow up poor or struggling. Food, home, money may be crucial. Generally seek control over their immediate environment and may worry about survival. Tend to value things over people. Maintaining order and material security are important. Eights with this subtype have a stronger connection to 5. Can be materialistic and feel deserving about it; more often have a 7 wing. Could be collectors or have prized objects.

Sometimes domineering towards those within their sphere. Might preach an ethic of selfishness - justify their bullying of intimates as necessary to "toughen them up" for the hard world outside. Life is a jungle, only the strong survive. Survivalist mentality, territorial imperatives, angry at family members because they threaten household objects. Hiding in and presiding over their castle; sometimes extra Fiveish.

Good movie examples include: Barry Corbin ("Maurice"), Northern Exposure; Robert De Niro, This Boy's Life; Peter Falk, A Woman Under The Influence; Jackie Gleason, Nothing In Common; Gena Rowlands, Gloria; Denzel Washington, Malcolm X.

Intimate
Want stability, loyalty and predictability in close relationships. May feel easily betrayed, and are prone to suspicion. Can love deeply, have a genuine close-up interest in and concern for spouse. Since life is dangerous they want to choose close allies carefully. Attached to the idea of being able to trust completely. Lots of testing of their partner's motives. If they pass the tests then the Eight relaxes.

When entranced, this can lead to possessive obsession, and a need to dominate and control partner. Intimate Eights can get codependent, jealous, hooked into the other. Sometimes can't let go; their partner's every move is (over)reacted to. When very unhealthy, spousal abuse scenarios are possible. Stalking, vengeful vows to follow other to the ends of the earth, etc. Connected to the low side of 2. Intimate Eights sometimes play socially rebellious "bad kid" roles.

Social
Social Eights are often loyal to a group and conceive of friendship as a pact of mutual protection. Want everyone to benefit; group's cohesion and welfare is most important to them. Often oriented to family, honest, hold themselves accountable to others. May be the group's protector or provider. Emphasis on cooperation.

When healthy, they are aggressively blustery but will back down and apologize when they've been unfair. More able to say the Three Little Words -"I was wrong." Stronger connection to 2, can emotionally switch places with others in their chosen group. As friends they want to protect what's soft or young in you and appreciate the same in return. Hostility directed towards outside forces who threatens the group's welfare.

Movie examples include: Richard Gere, Internal Affairs; John Cassavetes, I'm Almost Not Crazy, Tempest; Gene Hackman, Class Action; Nick Nolte, Q & A; Ron Silver, Reversal Of Fortune; Elaine Strick, September.

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