Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Monomyth
For all of the reviews of movies that I have seen before, it seems as though everyone took a very similar to the approach when analyzing them. My group watched Whiplash and we kept our analysis more simple and to the point. Some of the aspects were hard to find however most were very obvious. The elements from The Lego Movie, American Sniper, The Interview, and James Bond: Casino Royale were very similar. It seems that the writers of these movies almost followed Campbell's monomyth as they fit the chart very easily. I strongly agree with the observations made for American Sniper. Whiplash differed to American Sniper because of its topic, jazz. Many of the movies the rest of the class watched focused more on superheroes or people who are directly saving other peoples lives. I believe that some groups went into more detail about explaining the monomyth while others were more obvious so they did not need to explain themselves. I would not really reconsidered my own groups analysis after looking at others since it was pretty straightforward.
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We discussed in class, and Mr. Farrenkopf demonstrated how it is possible to create a story using the monomyth as a template. The movies listed are all recent and were designed to be high-grossing films. I think that the reason most of these movies fit the pattern so well is that they were made with or based on the pattern of the monomyth.
ReplyDeleteI think Ana raises an interesting point. Now that I think about it, it's obvious. Of course most popular movies nowadays follow the monomyth, because the goal is to bring in money, and for that reason producers and writers almost imitate other stories that were wildly successful. I can't stand it when people compare all YA dystopian novels to each other, constantly calling them 'The New Hunger Games', because they're different stories. But now that I think about it, they aren't. Most of them follow the monomyth to a T and that's why they're all so successful.
DeleteI feel like this makes sense. Many of the stories that Joseph Campbell analyzed while he was creating his idea of the monomyth were action stories, because those were the stories that were more widely told. Stories such as American Sniper and James bond will more easily fit the monomyth structure, because stories of battles and war and fighting were so commonplace. I feel as though stories of other Genres, such as comedies, have to work harder to fit this structure. My group did "Get Him To The Greek", and while the general story of Departure, Initiation, and Return can be seen, many of the smaller details were hard to find in the antics of the comedy's plot.
ReplyDeleteI agree Miriam, even though James Bond follows the Violent save the world type hero, other examples of heroes follow the same path as others. The characteristics of heroes who have different accomplishments can be very similar. Even if the genre of film is different, whether it is action or children's.
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