There are moments in the morning or evening when the worker gets on the commuter train to go to or from work when he is strikingly conscious of his existence. He rides in one direction on the train, though he knows that he will later have to ride back in the opposite direction, and that this perpetual circle is essentially absurd. The train, like Sisyphus’s rock, keeps rolling back and forth, yet the passenger is going nowhere. But in the ceaseless coming and going, he can still find meaning.
Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks…. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Office Space
The dilemma of futile labor has not been depicted in many films, as it is a difficult conflict to portray. The dramatic elements that play well on screen are action, passion, exciting adventures, clear goals, fantastic people and extraordinary circumstances. The futile labor dilemma is about the lack of action, passion or excitement. The hero is not fantastic, his circumstances are painfully ordinary, and his clear problem is that he has no meaningful goals. Hence, though Sisyphus is a particularly relevant myth for the modern age, it is almost never depicted in the modern mythological medium of film. Nevertheless, there are exceptions. In Office Space (1999), Ron (Peter Gibbons) is a computer programmer for a large software company. His daily grind is uninspiring, futile and mind-numbingly boring. Ron spends his day in a cubicle going through endless lines of data making date corrections for the Y2K bug.
The long and tedious commute to and from work, the sterile office space, the claustrophobic cubicle he works in, the incessant and pointless progress reports, the perpetual administrative evaluations, the innumerable layers of bureaucracy and the vacuous labor leave Ron feeling insignificant and hollow. In desperation, Ron sees a “career hypnotherapist.” But when the hypnotist dies of a heart attack in the middle of his session, Ron is stuck in a hypnotically induced state of heightened consciousness. He no longer sees the point in rolling the rock up the hill, so he simply stops. He doesn’t quit his job, he just stops working. He doesn’t lie to his bosses, he tells them the truth about the futility of his job and his complete lack of motivation. The dry humor in Office Space perfectly captures the absurdity in Ron’s situation, because Ron’s absurd solution to the dilemma his job presents him with is no more absurd than the job itself.
The Personal Myth
The “cry for myth” is a cry for guiding narratives that provide meaningful values for contemporary existence. May’s notion of the guiding narrative was clearly inspired by Adler’s concept of the “guiding fiction,” while his emphasis on myth as a primary psychological force obviously owes much to Jungian theory. Like Jung, May asserted that the cry for myth is a desperate search for a transcendental experience—an experience in which a collective truth or value is encountered on a personal level and integrated into the self. The transcendental experience is an epiphany. Like Sisyphus’s hour of heightened consciousness on the top of the hill, it is a moment of existential awareness. A moment in which the meaning of life ceases to be a mystery, as the mystery of existence is felt as being inherently meaningful in and of itself.
In his private practice, May invented the techniques of “existential therapy” and “narrative therapy” as ways of helping his patients to see their life stories as personal myths. In envisioning their lives as personal myths, the patients also become the heroes and authors of their own life stories. May found that this new perspective helped his patients understand that their lives were connected in significant ways to the lives of all people everywhere. All people share a common human experience, and all lives share common archetypal themes such as birth, death, rebirth, love, etc. By getting in touch with our own personal myths, we are connecting with the universal myth, and we are opening ourselves to the possibility of a transcendental experience.
The Fisher King
In Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King (1991), two characters must overcome their respective identity crises. Jack (Jeff Bridges) is a radio “shock jock” plagued by narcissism. He is completely obsessed with his own success and fame, and he despises everyone around him. Jack’s career is destroyed when his vitriolic radio persona inspires a psychotic to commit a murderous shooting spree in a crowded Manhattan club. After losing his career, Jack loses his sense of self and his meaning in life. He is on the verge of suicide, in a pit of existential despair, when he encounters Parry (Robin Williams). Parry was a history professor whose wife was killed in the shooting that Jack inspired. They are linked through the tragedy, and their different needs and strengths are complementary. The two wounded heroes must join together in order to heal each other and rediscover their purposes in life.
A Mythic Journey for Modern Man
Parry suffered a psychotic break after losing his wife. He becomes completely immersed in his personal myth, in which he is a noble knight in search of the Holy Grail. Jack, on the other hand, has no personal myth. He is completely immersed in his absurd reality, lacking any meaning, value or purpose in life. Parry can offer Jack a meaningful myth for existence, while Jack can offer Parry a way to reconnect to the world of reality. The central myth for both characters is the myth of “The Fisher King,” which Parry had once defined in an academic paper as “a mythic journey for modern man.” Like Perceval in the Fisher King myth, Parry seeks the Grail because it is the “symbol of God’s divine grace … that heals the hearts of men.” Jack does not believe in the mythological power of the Grail, but he does believe that if he can somehow help Parry, the man whose life he indirectly destroyed, that he can lift the “curse” of guilt that is plaguing him and consequently heal himself.
The Personal Myth. Jack and Parry, the two wounded heroes, have the power to heal each other. Parry (Robin Williams), left, and Jack (Jeff Bridges). The Fisher King (1991), Columbia Tristar.
The Mythic Quest
The central message of the Fisher King myth is the central message of The Fisher King film. In the myth, the wounded Fisher King has the Grail in his possession, but he cannot heal himself. Instead, he is healed when Perceval, a compassionate stranger, approaches and asks, “What ails thee?” The symbolic healing power of the Grail is unavailable to the man who desires only to heal himself. The power is only released when a man desires to help someone else. The healing power of selflessness and compassion is of primary significance to Jack. Though he lifts the curse upon himself by helping Parry, he is not truly healed because he helped Parry only in order to heal himself. At that point in his journey, though he is no longer cursed, Jack still suffers from his original flaw of narcissism. However, Jack experiences a true epiphany when he realizes his own narcissism. He understands that in order to transform himself, he must dedicate himself to the Quest of healing his friend, purely out of selfless compassion for Parry.
Rebirth
At the final stage of his journey, Jack aligns himself with the personal myth, the myth of the Fisher King. He accepts the Quest for the Grail, not because he believes in it, but because Parry believes in it. Jack’s intentions are pure—he is completely dedicated to the cause of healing Parry. Jack transforms himself, but not by finding the Grail. It is the Quest itself that transforms Jack and heals him of his narcissism. It his dedication to Parry that purifies his soul. Similarly, Parry is healed, but the Grail is only the symbol of the healing power. The ability for rebirth and redemption was within Parry all along. Like the Fisher King, Parry only needed the compassion of a pure man’s heart to awaken the healing power within himself. The archetypal themes of redemption and rebirth are the central symbol of Gilliam’s film. The spiritual rebirth of both characters is accomplished through a mutual identification with a personally meaningful myth.
The Message of Myth
While the Fisher King myth is not personal in the sense that the characters created the myth themselves, it is personal in the sense that it conveys personal meaning and value to both of them. Similarly, this film and
all films like it are depictions of personal myths. They are personally meaningful to the filmmakers who create them, but more importantly, they can convey personal meaning to the viewers who watch them. The myth is meaningful because it conveys a universal and timeless message. It is particularly meaningful to this generation because the message is communicated in a story about modern people in a modern age.
10
The Modern Myths
Joseph Campbell delineated four separate functions of myth in society. The first function is mystical—the myth is a metaphor of personal transcendence. The inner journey of the hero’s adventure represents the transcendent function of myth, the function that allows the audience to become one with the hero, while also relating to everyone else who is inspired by the same myth. The second function of myth is cosmological—myths provide answers to the riddles and mysteries of the universe. Creation myths such as the Genesis chapters in the Bible inform people where the universe came from, where it may be going, why it was created, and what our purpose in the universe is. The third function is sociological—myths provide rules for society to live by. The Ten Commandments section in Exodus is a prime example of sociological rules derived from a mythological source. And the fourth function is pedagogical—myths offer moral lessons and role models to carry us through the different stages of life. To these four functions, I would add a fifth—entertainment. Myths, after all, are stories. The more they entertain us, the more we listen to them. If a myth is not effective on the entertainment level, it will probably not become very popular. This notion is especially true for the modern myths—films—as they are created primarily for mass entertainment.
Filmmakers in Hollywood and other bastions of the movie industry are responsible for the images, stories and heroes that have become ingrained in the memories and minds of modern society. Some of these filmmakers have consistently created visions of such universal appeal that their movies and characters have become archetypal symbols of the contemporary collective unconscious. The modern mythmakers are visionary filmmakers whose personal visions and stories have influenced entire generations of filmgoers. The modern myths in this chapter are just a few of the great films that have flashed across the mythic landscape of the silver screen.
The Searchers
After starring in dozens of B-level serial westerns, John Wayne rose to big-time stardom as the cowboy hero in John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939). Wayne’s character “Ringo” is an outlaw; but ironically, he is more honorable than most of the other men around him. Though he broke the law, he did so to defend his family’s dignity. And while other men display cowardice, selfishness and snobbery, Ringo’s chivalrous code of honor determines that all of his acts are courageous, righteous and virtuous. In Stagecoach, Wayne’s character is simple and straightforward. But through his long career as the quintessential cowboy, Wayne portrayed the same Western archetype in far more dark and psychologically complex roles.
In Howard Hawks’s Red River (1948), Wayne’s “Dunson” is a rugged cattle baron leading a huge cattle drive across the Southwest. Dunson expects superhuman strength, drive and determination in himself. He generalizes this demand into unrealistic expectations for his men. His inability to compromise and his refusal to forgive weaknesses in his cowboys leads to a mutiny led by his adopted son (Montgomery Clift). In Red River, Wayne’s stubbornness, violence and unwavering independence backfires. His character traits of individuality, fierce independence and single-mindedness are depicted as being less heroic and more self destructive.
John Wayne’s cowboy characterization reached the epitome of complexity in John Ford’s The Searchers (1956). As viewers, the American audience had learned to know and love Wayne. Through his many journeys, we learned to respect his courage and admire his strength. Though we knew to be wary of his stubbornness and brass, we also knew that we could trust his judgment and take comfort in his basic sense of honor. Ford used these hard-earned associations that he and Wayne had made between the audience and their archetypal father figure as a launch pad for an unconventionally dark, enigmatic and psychologically disturbing character. Wayne’s “Ethan” is an outlaw loner who returns to his brother’s house to settle down. But when Ethan’s brother and family are killed in a Commanche raid, he goes off in search of the sole survivor, his young niece (Natalie Wood) who was kidnapped by the attacking tribe.
The search lasts for many years, and though we admire Ethan’s strength, courage and determination, we slowly realize that his purpose in searching is less than honorable. Ethan hates the Indians who killed everyone he loved, and he knows that after ten years among the Commanche, his niece is no longer a little white girl—she is an Indian squaw. Ethan cannot bear the thought of the little girl he loved living as the epitome of everything he hates. The purpose of his search is to find his niece and kill her.
Ford and Wayne bring their audience to the very edge, where all of our notions about the basic integrity and goodness of our beloved archetype are about to be shattered. But in the end, they let us off the hook. In the now infamous scene in which Ethan holds his niece high in the air, we are terrified that our cherished hero is going to commit the unthinkable. But, true to his character, the sight of the little girl he loves overcomes Wayne’s violent disposition. He embraces her instead of killing her. This intense manipulation of the viewer’s emotions could not have been achieved if Ford and Wayne had not spent thirty years establishing the icon of the archetypal Western Hero.
Shane
The archetypal plot of the lone crusader facing the villains has been played out in scores of westerns, most notably in the Wyatt Earp movies. The story of Wyatt Earp and his brothers shooting it out with the evil Clanton gang has been depicted in nearly thirty major motion pictures, most notably John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1946) with Henry Fonda, John Sturges’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) with Burt Lancaster, and Lawrence Kasdan’s Wyatt Earp (1994) with Kevin Costner. Nevertheless, the single most celebrated depiction of the classic lone crusader/western hero was not directed by John Ford, the role wasn’t played by John Wayne, and the character was not Wyatt Earp. Alan Ladd’s portrayal of the hero in George Stevens’s Shane (1953) stands out as the most memorable rendition of the lone crusader hero.
The plot in Shane is almost laughably simple. But like a Mozart composition, the basic and elemental story provides the structure for an intensely strong and atmospheric telling of the archetypal Western myth. Shane is a loner, a retired gunfighter who finds a new home with a family of homesteaders. The honest, hardworking community of homesteaders is being run off their land by an evil cattle baron (Emile Meyer) and his cowboys. Shane allies himself with the homesteaders, but it becomes clear that the only solution to the problem is to kill the evil baron and his black knight, a shadowy hired gun (Jack Palance). Though Shane had hoped to put gunfighting behind him, he puts the needs of the homesteaders first, and saves the community by exacting his own form of justice in a dramatic shootout. Shane’s story communicates so well because it is a simple plot about simple characters that eloquently expresses not only the hopes and dreams of a single American family, but the American dream itself.
Shane is the embodiment of the independent spirit, the willingness that Americans have always shown to work hard and fight even harder. The fact that the story is seen through the eyes of a boy is the hidden psychological force behind the film. Little Joey (Brandon de Wilde) sees Shane as a larger-than-life figure, a man who enters his life at a time of crisis, solves the crisis at great personal risk, then rides off into the sunset, never to be seen again. When Joey chases after Shane in the final scene, shouting “Come back, Shane!,” he’s calling out to a type of hero who doesn’t exist anymore, the archetypal American hero who can only live on the open frontier.
1969: The Mythological Revolution
Westerns had been produced as B-level pictures and short serials since the advent of film, but the genre finally made it to A-picture status in 1939 with films su
ch as Stagecoach, Drums Along the Mohawk and Jesse James. The genre developed in the 1940s with classics such as The Westerner (1940), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), My Darling Clementine (1946), Duel in the Sun (1947), Angel and the Badman (1947), Fort Apache (1948), Red River (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). The genre peaked in the 1950s with films such as Rio Grande (1950), The Gunfighter (1950), Shane (1953), High Noon (1952) and The Searchers (1956). Signs that the genre was getting a bit old and faded became evident in the 1960s. In films such as Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and How the West Was Won (1962), the archetypal stars themselves (John Wayne, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda) were showing their age, looking gray, tired and weary. But the same decade brought a younger generation into the theaters, the baby boomers, who soon outnumbered the older and middle-aged audiences. Hollywood needed to make a new kind of Western that could be embraced by a new generation of viewers.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was the smash hit of 1969, achieving box office dominance and winning four Oscars. The film almost single-handedly brought the dying western genre back to life, but it did not win the Best Picture or Best Director Oscars. These awards, ironically, went to John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, a non-western about a very untraditional “cowboy,” a would-be hustler who rides into town on a Greyhound to face the perils of New York City. This new kind of film signified the American audience’s desire for a more modern, sophisticated and complex type of hero. Another important film of 1969 was Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, a film about two modern outlaws who ride Harleys instead of horses and sell cocaine instead of robbing banks. Though the same spirit of freedom, independence and individualism existed in these cowboy heroes, their code of honor was much less distinct.
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