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Kerrie
Registered User
(8/22/01 2:51:35 pm)
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Myth in film
I was recently reading (okay obsessing) about the film Moulin Rouge and how it's part of Baz Luhrmann's Red Curtain series. The first was Strictly Ballroom (Ugly Duckling), and the second was William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (young love vs. society). Moulin Rouge was supposedly based upon the Orphean myth. Luhrmann believes that modern filmmaking, even the simplest stories, are based upon myths. Thoughts on this? On the film? Here's the link to the site, go to Behind the Scenes for the synopsis re: this topic.
www.moulinrougemovie.com/mr.htm
Dandelion dreams,
Kerrie
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Charles Vess
Unregistered User
(8/24/01 6:34:16 am)
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Interesting film
Moulin Rouge was an interesting film with some stunning visuals but it would have worked better for me with someone other than Nicol Kidman as the supposed voluptuos temptress that all men wanted. She is a wonderful actress (anybody see THE OTHERS? Wow!) but thin and wirey (as well as attractive) do not equal voluptuos. And in a movie as visually astute as this one it was a major fault which I could not find my way past.
As to all films being based in myth, I suppose you could stretch your definition of myth and make that work most of the time.
But as to some VERY myth based films how about
THE SHOUT (with Alan Bates, Suzanna York, John Hurt and Tim Curry) based on a Robert Graves short story about a wanderer who returns to England after spending years in the outback of Australia learning from their shamans the secret of the "death shout". A strange and compelling film.
Or perhaps Dennis Potter's THE DREAMCHILD relating the events surrounding an elderly rather aristocratic English woman's first trip to America to attend the centenary of Lewis Carroll's birth at Columbia University. The elderly woman was, in her youth the young girl that Carroll wrote ALICE for. The characters from THE LOOKING GLASS step from the pages of his book and come to inhabit her dreams slowly revealing events that she had long ago tried to forget. Wonderful.
Then there's THE COMPANY OF WOLVES, FAIRY TALE(a True Story), THE MAGIC TOY SHOP (a BBC teleplay adapted by Angela Carter from her book),SIEGFRIED and KRIMHELD'S REVENGE (both silent films directed by Fritz Lang),SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTERS (a Russian film filmed entirely in the Ural Mountains retelling a folktale filled with ghosts and shamans with gorgeous color and costumes), and many, many more.
Just something to think about.
Charles
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isthmus
nekoi
Registered User
(8/25/01 8:59:47 am)
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Re: Interesting film
As to all films being based in myth, I suppose you could stretch your definition of myth and make that work most of the time.
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Agreed! Any story can have mythic dynamics, even actions movies and the like. However, many of those films may not have elements we normally associate w/myth (ie. supernatural)....
An author that might interest you Kerrie, is Joseph Campbell who writes extensively about myth and archetype. In one book, he writes about a 'monomyth' that underlies all narratives - I think it's called Hero of a Thousand Faces...?
And thanks for the link! I quite enjoyed the lush visuals of MR, and I was pretty impressed w/Kidman's singing. However, I didn't like how they over-simplified the duke (oops, forgot his name!). He had absolutely *no* redeeming qualities. I've always resented that type of portrayal.
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Kerrie
Registered User
(9/2/01 3:15:54 pm)
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Re: Interesting film
Sorry! I didn't mean to ignore this post- I just moved and my computer isn't set up yet, so I have to squeeze time in on my sweetie's computer and my computer at work.
Charles: Thanks for the film list! I've been looking for new films to see- sadly, video stores around here tend to have about one out of five of the movies recommended.
isthmus nekoi: Thanks for the reminder about Campbell- my reading list is growing faster than my finances will allow (there's just something about owning it yourself). But I'll see if I can get to my new libary and check there too!
And yes, I guess if you stretch anything, it will eventually fit the mold, lumps and holes and all.
Dandelion wishes,
Kerrie
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Kate
Unregistered User
(9/2/01 5:17:17 pm)
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Myth
Quick thoughts on a rich subject, sorry for haste! If you're still looking for films, there are Pasolini's "Oedipus Rex" and "Medea." I teach the film "Oedipus Rex"--which shifts back and forth in time quite compellingly, imagistically--along with the play, and Freud's writings on the Oedipus complex. Sometimes, if time allows, I also use Louis Malle's "A Murmur of the Heart," about mother-son intimacy (and, if I'm not teaching where restrictions as to rating apply, "Spanking the Monkey"). These are all related by visual motif and story to Oedipus.
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