The Capturing of Myth

[Encaitare]

And I suppose that if you believe symbols and images cannot change meaning, you end up with this argument that a writer cannot use certain symbols and images, as they are beyond his power as a writer. Yet the Church regularly and frequently incorporated--some might say appropriated--pagan symbols into Christian iconography.

Yes, the pentacle, a popular pagan symbol, was used for a time by the Church. And (although the two symbols are hardly connected), the swastika was a symbol of peace, once used by the Hopi (I believe) until the Nazis inverted it and took it for their own, drastically changing its meaning.

For the sake of staying on topic, I'll shut up now.

[Bêthberry]

Thanks, Encaitare, for your example of a symbol with radically different, if not opposite meanings. The swastika has indeed a long tradition of postive worth among many cultures, not only the Hopi, but the Hindu and Buddhist as well. Here is a link to the Wikipedia entry on the swastika . I discovered this myself with surprise one day as I walked by a Buddhist meeting hall (not a temple), where the sign was worked into the features on the door and window.

davem wrote:
The difference for me between Tolkien's myth & Lucas' is that Tolkien's comes across to me as having its roots in the living earth, while Lucas' hovers in dead space. For me Lucas myth is not a conflict between good & evil so much as between machine & machine. It is a 'myth' for the machine age, where both sides use machines & 'machine' thinking, & so, not a 'true' myth at all. I know some will throw in the 'Force' as an example of the story's 'mythic' aspect, but for me it was simply a cop-out, a deus ex machina of the most blatant & unconvincing kind, or at best a clever trick which the hero performs to outsmart the baddies.

Or maybe I'm just a backward looking inhabitant of the Old World with an aversion to technology & its promise of 'salvation'.

There are two ways in which I think this argument is misguided. First, I don't think Lucas did produce a conflict between machine and machine. And, second, I don't think that cultures stop producing myths.

There is indeed a great deal of emphasis on technology and dashing light sabres and cool X-wing fighters in Star Wars. However, there is also a very strong element which rejects totalising, militaristic power and its machine-dependence. The end of the 'first' Star Wars movie, now called "A New Hope' (I think), is a case in point. All the imagery there of the scene where Luke and Han are awarded their honours by Leia suggests grandiose displays of power and propaganda. (To be honest, I am reminded of 'Triumph of the Will'.) Yet as I also recall the scene, there are shadows which call into question the Alliance's manner here. It is similar, to me, to the scene in the first Indiana Jones movie where Indy is ready to walk into the bar where he meets his ex-girlfriend in a drinking match: he looks at his shadow on the wall before he walks in. I don't think the suggestion in A New Hope is as strong as that, but I think it is there to suggest that the Alliance has not understood how much it is in thrall itself to false forms of power, and that includes a worship of machine. This movie ends with, to me, a pyrrhic victory. (To be honest here, I am indebted to Professor Anne Lancashire for this reading of ST:ANH. I cannot find any online articles by her, only this link to her course outline on SF and Fantasy films.

But secondly and more significantly, I don't think one can limit 'myth' to elements of the good green earth. (AndI don't think one need to class oneself as an inhabitant of the Old World to make this point. ) Cultures produce myths, as Fordim has argued, and there is no logical reason why cultures which are more divorced from their ancient roots will stop creating myths. It is true that one definition of 'mythology' is "a religion or religious explanation of the world which is no longer actively believed in", but that definition strikes me as severely limiting the role of myth in the cultural imagination. One need only think of 'urban legends' to be aware that the story-making faculty is a defining element of human beings.

[Lush]

Sorry to butt in and veer off topic (with my luck everyone willl just ignore this as they continue using big words), but am I developing selective blindness? Or am I turning into one of those "children who can't read good"?

Why does it appear as though nobody on this thread has mentioned the movies' soundtracks yet?

This is going to sound pretty pathetic coming from me (and I don't know as much about music as I ought to, and my snobby composer friends are going to flog me if they read this), but, as someone who has spent several nights crying over "A Journey in the Dark" off the FotR CD, I believe that at least the soundtracks capture the "mood" of myth almost perfectly, especially when related to the C.S. Lewis formula.

Often, I believe, the score in general tends to succeed where the screenplay sometimes falters. Things happen to break the spell, but the music always seems to hold the pieces together somehow. This is especially true for me at the end of the first movie. I am not particularly bothered by Gimli shouting "YEAH!" or Aragorn saying "let's hunt some Orc" in a typical gung-ho action hero fashion, but I could see how a few of our other members might get annoyed by that. And this is where I think the music kind of "steps in" and transforms the entire last scene; mournful and hopeful at the same time, it provies that last bit of oomph that kicks at my heart but still makes me giddy with wonder, like a kid. I think of lost kingdoms, and treasures, and brave studly rangers, and I believe in it all at that moment. And I have to put on my most nonchalant of faces to hide the embarrassment.

So yeah, the soundtracks definitely have that magic feeling. And at the very least, you don't get to hear Gimli belching.

[mark12_30]

Lush-- Yes. The sountrack definitely smooths over many bumps in the road which would otherwise bequite unsettling.

Aren't many (perhaps most) epics rythmic, poetic? When we popularize the the "lyrics" as a screenplay in the common tongue, without meter, then the tune and the orchestration must step in and make it stately and compelling and majestic again. And I think Shore does that *quite* well.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

I don't think one can limit 'myth' to elements of the good green earth. (AndI don't think one need to class oneself as an inhabitant of the Old World to make this point. ) Cultures produce myths, as Fordim has argued, and there is no logical reason why cultures which are more divorced from their ancient roots will stop creating myths.

Possibly - I suppose my own feeling is that a myth is a story that links you with something beyond yourself - it provides you with an experience of a 'deeper, more profound, 'reality' (or, to say the same thing in another way, it provides you with a deeper & more [profound experience of this 'reality').

Machines, by their nature, seperate us from reality, from the earth - at least that's the intent & desire that motivates their creation (or should I say their 'manufacture').

It seems to me that technological societies don't produce true myths, & the inhabitants of those societies either reject the religious dimension altogether, retreat into fundamentalism - which is the 'corpse' of a once living religion, or, as Chesterton said, stop believing in God & start believing in anything.

This, though, is even further off topic!

[drigel]

a facinating thread to read! there are many quotes from esteemed contributors that I could refer to, but I will just throw in my pence for what its worth:

To me, there are corollaries between film making and myths. Primarily, it involves storytelling. To weave a tale, ahh so. Where the medium fails is in the interpretation. PJ IMO used his medium as well as one could to capture some of the Truths that are in the heart of the myth, and still make money.

As referenced earlier, all Arts have this condition. Wasnt the literary device that JRRT used as his "reference" was Aelfwine's account and history, as told to him by immortal elves? How would Aelfwine critique LOTR? hehe would he say: "aaaah, but he missed the point of the story here.... and here..."?

Even spoken word has the same effect. What starts as a story turns into a fable, and eventually (if the stars are aligned just so) a myth. What JRRT accomplished to me was to bypass the millenia of cultural / political influence that molds, or reinvents myths to tools of use (which of course is one reason why the myth remains alive to a people in the first place). These same influences also discards them altogether, forgotten forever, which what JRRT sees with Englands mythology, and to a larger extent, the ushering in of the modern age of technology. Here, in his work, we see the Myth as it was, unaltered. A history, as it were.