I've often heard it said that all stories participate in the grand narrative in some way. That they all have similar themes and elements. Whether it be the traditional Hero's Journey made popular by mythologist Joseph Campbell and George Lucas's use of the narrative in crafting the first Star Wars segment or some other scheme makes little difference. Leland Ryken makes the argument, and others have as well, that all good stories borrow from the grand narrative of the biblical narrative, the meta-narrative as my pastor calls it: Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation, or some variation on that.
My family has watched Moana about fifteen times thanks to my 2.5 year old who has almost all the songs memorized. This is her "Frozen" as that craze died out a couple of years ago. Since I've watched it so many times, I've had opportunity to muse on it. It definitely bears out, though with Polynesian twists, the Christian narrative.
The beginning of the story has Moana's grandmother telling the "Creation" and "Fall" elements of the story, although these get reframed later in the story (which I though was an interesting twist and acknowledgement to how oral tradition works). Now there is no divine fiat creation account, merely a narrative about how the demi-god Maui stole the heart from the creation goddess Te Fiti and plunged the world into chaos. It is up to Moana, we learn, to rescue Maui from imprisonment and restore the heart to Te Fiti in order to "Redeem" the world and bring about the "Consummation" of Moana's people returning to their voyaging ways instead of being scared of the unknown on the ocean.
It is a fun story and well done. The cast have good voices and the songs are instant hits. And it goes to show that good stories are universal. We have been telling them for years. As Douglas Wilson and George Grant both have said before, "The Devil has no stories."
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
Friday, April 16, 2010
The Death of Books and the Continuity of Stories in Modernity
I have been turning something over in my mind recently. From creation until around 400 BC (different date for different regions) stories took the form of oral tradition. Think about the Epic of Gilgamesh or The Iliad. I know that oral tradition left the culture earlier in some places (Babylon) and later in others (Britain), but the gist is sound I think. There is always overlap in a paradigm shift. Thomas Kuhn and Neil Postman have discussed this in science and technology. I am combining their discussions in a cultural way.
From 400 BC until AD 1940, stories took the form of written documents. From scrolls to books, written stories were the way people got their stories. From Herodotus to Rudyard Kipling, the written narrative was the place to find stories. But another paradigm shift took place around the 1940's that unseated the written narrative as the dominant means of story communication. I mean film, of course, the visual narrative.
From the 1940's onward, we have been increasingly getting our cultural stories from visual narratives. It is no longer the norm for people to rush to the bookstore when a new novel is published, unless that new novel is a J.K. Rowling fantasy narrative or a Stephanie Meyer vampire bit. But it is quickly becoming the norm for the season premier of Lost to unseat even the President's State of the Union Address. The competition is over. Visual narratives have won.
We are still in the vast overlap of this shift, so you can still get written narratives of stories. You can even get written forms of movies and television programs. But this will eventually happen less and less, I think. The more dominant trend is for written narratives to be transformed into visual narratives.
So what does this mean for those of us who want to know the stories of our generation? Well, it depends on whether those stories are worth knowing. I found the overall story of the X-Files to be very good. thoroughly enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. I have liked most of the stories of the Star Trek manifestations. I was captivated by Alias, until it self-destructed (same problem with the Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean movies). I am currently following Lost and sometimes the Mentalist.
Like literature, we go with what intrigues us and we pick up trivia about the rest. The commercials and previews are about all I need to know about Desperate Housewives, probably more than I need to know. Just like you pick up a book and read its dust jacket, or over time get to have a feel for certain genres, we determine what we watch as well. Just because it is a book, doesn't mean you have to read it. Just because it in the theaters doesn't mean you have to watch it.
From 400 BC until AD 1940, stories took the form of written documents. From scrolls to books, written stories were the way people got their stories. From Herodotus to Rudyard Kipling, the written narrative was the place to find stories. But another paradigm shift took place around the 1940's that unseated the written narrative as the dominant means of story communication. I mean film, of course, the visual narrative.
From the 1940's onward, we have been increasingly getting our cultural stories from visual narratives. It is no longer the norm for people to rush to the bookstore when a new novel is published, unless that new novel is a J.K. Rowling fantasy narrative or a Stephanie Meyer vampire bit. But it is quickly becoming the norm for the season premier of Lost to unseat even the President's State of the Union Address. The competition is over. Visual narratives have won.
We are still in the vast overlap of this shift, so you can still get written narratives of stories. You can even get written forms of movies and television programs. But this will eventually happen less and less, I think. The more dominant trend is for written narratives to be transformed into visual narratives.
So what does this mean for those of us who want to know the stories of our generation? Well, it depends on whether those stories are worth knowing. I found the overall story of the X-Files to be very good. thoroughly enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. I have liked most of the stories of the Star Trek manifestations. I was captivated by Alias, until it self-destructed (same problem with the Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean movies). I am currently following Lost and sometimes the Mentalist.
Like literature, we go with what intrigues us and we pick up trivia about the rest. The commercials and previews are about all I need to know about Desperate Housewives, probably more than I need to know. Just like you pick up a book and read its dust jacket, or over time get to have a feel for certain genres, we determine what we watch as well. Just because it is a book, doesn't mean you have to read it. Just because it in the theaters doesn't mean you have to watch it.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Star Trek
I have the feeling that nostalgia is going to get the best of me...again. I am planning on going to see the new Star Trek movie when it comes out. I have hopes for it, but they are mediated by similar situations in recent years. I am a little excited and very concerned to see what J.J. Abrams will do with Star Trek. I liked Alias for a little while, then it got weird and imploded. We didn't even bother watching the last season or two. I am still watching Lost, but know that it has gotten past the possibility of making sense. I want to see what he does with it, not much more.
He has a habit of beginning something on a really clever idea and then letting it roll. I get no indication that he knows where his plots need to end up. I am hoping he can do better with a simple 2 hour timeframe, but we'll see.
The other thing that concerns me is his very postmodern worldview. I have seen it writ large on both Alias and Lost, very Matrix-esque with lots of symbolism borrowed or stolen from other contexts, and am a little concerned about how it will affect something as modernist as Star Trek. I watched Quantum of Solace recently and was amazed at how postmodern Bond has become. Gone are the modernist toys of Q as well as other basic Bond standbys. It was eerie to watch it.
I half-expect the new Star Trek to be this way as well, to some extent. It is sci-fi after all, a typically modernist genre anyway.
He has a habit of beginning something on a really clever idea and then letting it roll. I get no indication that he knows where his plots need to end up. I am hoping he can do better with a simple 2 hour timeframe, but we'll see.
The other thing that concerns me is his very postmodern worldview. I have seen it writ large on both Alias and Lost, very Matrix-esque with lots of symbolism borrowed or stolen from other contexts, and am a little concerned about how it will affect something as modernist as Star Trek. I watched Quantum of Solace recently and was amazed at how postmodern Bond has become. Gone are the modernist toys of Q as well as other basic Bond standbys. It was eerie to watch it.
I half-expect the new Star Trek to be this way as well, to some extent. It is sci-fi after all, a typically modernist genre anyway.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Another video from Requiem for a Dream
OK. The other day I blogged about NarrowGate Studios overlaying Requiem for a Tower on top of The Stupids. Messing around on YouTube can be hilarious at times. While playing around today, I found another guy who has done the same thing with Ferris Beuller's Day Off. This guy has done a fantastic job with this. It is a real joy to watch.
So, without further ado, have a peek at Requiem for a Day Off.
So, without further ado, have a peek at Requiem for a Day Off.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
How important is music to movies?
The guys over at NarrowGate Studios (students at Franklin Classical School, Franklin, TN) have done a great job of showing us how important music can be to movies. Neil Postman makes the comment that music in TV (and by extension movies) "helps to tell the audience what emotions are to be called forth." In this case they have taken the main track for Requiem for a Dream, Requiem for a Tower (composed by Clint Mansell and performed with Kronos Quartet) and set it against some odd footage from the 1996 Tom Arnold film, The Stupids. They are attempting to prove that this song can turn any piece of film into an epic. See if they are right.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Dark Knight Review-warning spoilers
A student from last year was kind enough to give me a movie theater gift card at the end of school. My wife and I have held onto it until a movie that would be theater-worthy (you know, lots effects and sound, something that won't be the same on the little screen) came out. There were two such picks out this last weekend when we had the opportunity to go. This will undoubtedly give readers a heads up about the kind of films a guy like me watches, but our choices were the Dark Knight and the new X-Files movie. Because of timing, etc. we ended up seeing the Dark Knight.
It was a great film. The cinematography, lighting, music, etc. were fantastic. And I enjoyed the story as well. But it was a very dark film, as I understand it was supposed to be. Heath Ledger did an amazing job as the Joker. I know people in that audience really believed he was the Joker and just a sadistic as he was acting. He made the character real, which is a hard thing to do in our culture. On to the review aspect of this.
My wife and I were talking it over after the film and trying to figure it out. We always begin by establishing the worldview of the film. Some of my students think that takes away from the enjoyment of the movie, "Just watch it and have fun," they say. I can assure you, I can no more "just watch" a movie (even if I have seen it several times) than I can stop breathing. And it doesn't take away from my enjoyment. I enjoy the film on two levels. At any rate, we begin by asking for the absolutes of the film.
In this case there is an absolute moral or ethical system in place. Murder is wrong, etc. The police force, the District Attorney, and Batman are all agreed that murder and its consorts are wrong. They may have different methods of handling that issue, but they are agreed. Batman, at one point, tells the Joker that murder is the one one rule he will not break.
Honesty and integrity, however, turn into situational issues in the film. By the end of the film, the truth about what Harvey Dent has done is too damaging to "hope" to be known. Batman agrees to assume responsibility for Harvey's crimes so that Harvey's reputation and the hope he brings to Gotham will remain in tact. There is a Christ-figure here folk, we'll come back to this later. With the idea that hope transcends truth there is a Kantian-Humean ideology going on here. Kant, of course, believed in a dualism of thought between the world of sense-perception (the noumenal) and the world that is actually there (the phenomemal). Our knowledge of truth was determined not by the phenomenal realm but by our mind's inherent ability to reconstruct sense-data in the noumenal realm. Combine that with a Humean way of considering habit and you get a world where we must have hope by habit because truth is beyond our mortal grasp. It is more important, in Gotham, to have hope than to have the truth. This is clearly against Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 that if Christ is not raised our hope is in vain. Hope is only hope if it has an objective basis to hope in. What are the people of Gotham supposed to be hoping in? They are left with an empty hope that Harvey Dent was a good man who never did anything wrong and yet was slain in the line of duty. All the while, Batman becomes a total fugitive, expressing that he can handle being chased.
Batman operates outside the law. He is the man who must step outside the legal and civil approach to justice because civil justice is ineffective and corrupt. This is a classic revolutionary mentality. The only way to fix this situation is to get outside it and impose order without process. This has been the revolutionary way of doing things for eons. Sulla did this in Rome of the 70's BC by marching on city, imposing his own totalitarian rule, rewriting the Roman constitution, and then turning power back over to the people when he was done. In his mind, the only way to save the state was to invade the state and control the state. This is the same method used by Cromwell in the 1640's and by Robespierre in the French Revolution.
Aside: This is one reason I object to calling the American War for Independence a revolution. We did not revolt, we declared independence.
On to Batman as a Christ-figure. I willl keep this short. It is obvious that Batman is a Christ-figure long before he takes Dent's sin into himself and becomes an outcast for the sake of the city. He is the substitute for Dent. Dent represents fallen humanity every bit as much as the Joker does, but the Joker is unredeemable (and not really seems to try either), while Dent can be redeemed. But what is redemption when the rest of Gotham (the universe) is shown a picture of a flawless man rather than the two-faced monster we all really are? What does it mean that Dent it redeemed? It really only means that our sins are not worthy of real justice, they are easily removed. Just photoshop a picture of our soul and it will look all pretty rather than ugly and debased.
I really enjoyed the movie and will likely own it when it comes out on DVD. It is a great picture of fallen humanity. Gary Demar's review is excellent as well. It reminds us that ideas have consequences, which is one of the best lessons we can really learn.
It was a great film. The cinematography, lighting, music, etc. were fantastic. And I enjoyed the story as well. But it was a very dark film, as I understand it was supposed to be. Heath Ledger did an amazing job as the Joker. I know people in that audience really believed he was the Joker and just a sadistic as he was acting. He made the character real, which is a hard thing to do in our culture. On to the review aspect of this.
My wife and I were talking it over after the film and trying to figure it out. We always begin by establishing the worldview of the film. Some of my students think that takes away from the enjoyment of the movie, "Just watch it and have fun," they say. I can assure you, I can no more "just watch" a movie (even if I have seen it several times) than I can stop breathing. And it doesn't take away from my enjoyment. I enjoy the film on two levels. At any rate, we begin by asking for the absolutes of the film.
In this case there is an absolute moral or ethical system in place. Murder is wrong, etc. The police force, the District Attorney, and Batman are all agreed that murder and its consorts are wrong. They may have different methods of handling that issue, but they are agreed. Batman, at one point, tells the Joker that murder is the one one rule he will not break.
Honesty and integrity, however, turn into situational issues in the film. By the end of the film, the truth about what Harvey Dent has done is too damaging to "hope" to be known. Batman agrees to assume responsibility for Harvey's crimes so that Harvey's reputation and the hope he brings to Gotham will remain in tact. There is a Christ-figure here folk, we'll come back to this later. With the idea that hope transcends truth there is a Kantian-Humean ideology going on here. Kant, of course, believed in a dualism of thought between the world of sense-perception (the noumenal) and the world that is actually there (the phenomemal). Our knowledge of truth was determined not by the phenomenal realm but by our mind's inherent ability to reconstruct sense-data in the noumenal realm. Combine that with a Humean way of considering habit and you get a world where we must have hope by habit because truth is beyond our mortal grasp. It is more important, in Gotham, to have hope than to have the truth. This is clearly against Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 that if Christ is not raised our hope is in vain. Hope is only hope if it has an objective basis to hope in. What are the people of Gotham supposed to be hoping in? They are left with an empty hope that Harvey Dent was a good man who never did anything wrong and yet was slain in the line of duty. All the while, Batman becomes a total fugitive, expressing that he can handle being chased.
Batman operates outside the law. He is the man who must step outside the legal and civil approach to justice because civil justice is ineffective and corrupt. This is a classic revolutionary mentality. The only way to fix this situation is to get outside it and impose order without process. This has been the revolutionary way of doing things for eons. Sulla did this in Rome of the 70's BC by marching on city, imposing his own totalitarian rule, rewriting the Roman constitution, and then turning power back over to the people when he was done. In his mind, the only way to save the state was to invade the state and control the state. This is the same method used by Cromwell in the 1640's and by Robespierre in the French Revolution.
Aside: This is one reason I object to calling the American War for Independence a revolution. We did not revolt, we declared independence.
On to Batman as a Christ-figure. I willl keep this short. It is obvious that Batman is a Christ-figure long before he takes Dent's sin into himself and becomes an outcast for the sake of the city. He is the substitute for Dent. Dent represents fallen humanity every bit as much as the Joker does, but the Joker is unredeemable (and not really seems to try either), while Dent can be redeemed. But what is redemption when the rest of Gotham (the universe) is shown a picture of a flawless man rather than the two-faced monster we all really are? What does it mean that Dent it redeemed? It really only means that our sins are not worthy of real justice, they are easily removed. Just photoshop a picture of our soul and it will look all pretty rather than ugly and debased.
I really enjoyed the movie and will likely own it when it comes out on DVD. It is a great picture of fallen humanity. Gary Demar's review is excellent as well. It reminds us that ideas have consequences, which is one of the best lessons we can really learn.
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