Moana and the Christian narrative

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."

Listening

Ludovico Einaudi - Nightbook












Sumner McKane - Night Blooming Cereus

On iTunes

Andy McKee
The Gates of Gnomeria









Michael Halaas
The Lucidity Project

On iTunes recently

Morgan Doctor - Other Life (esp. Silver City)













H.U.V.A. Network - Ephemeris (esp. Something Heavens)

Christmas lights

I love taking the kids out to look at Christmas lights. I remember doing thsi as a child and enjoying it very much. The internet and especially YouTube has made doing this a lot of fun as well. You can see Christmas displays from all over the country. A new trend is to use electronic control modules to time lights to a piece of music. The passerby can tune to a particular FM frequency and hear the song while seeing the lights timed to it. YouTube has some interesting displays of this, but a favorite for a couple of years now has been this one. The song is by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. TSO has become very popular in recent years for their Christmas albums mixing progressive metal and traditional Christmas tunes. I have followed them since they began as a progressive metal band called Savatage. Savatage began their transformation as early as 1991 with their self-proclaimed rock opera Streets. There is an interesting review of Streets here. Savatage was famous for recycling lyrics from one song into other albums songs and making it work because the theme was similar or the sentiment was the same.
For example, on their 1991 album Streets, the final song "Believe" declares:
I am the way
I am the light
I am the dark inside the night
I hear your hopes
I feel your dreams
And in the dark I hear your screams
Don't turn away
Just take my hand
And when you make your final stand
I'll be right there
I'll never leave
And all I ask of you
Believe

Savatage recycled this sequence in their 1994 release, Handful of Rain, on the final track "Alone You Breathe," written for Christopher Oliva, brother of band member Jon Oliva. Shortly after Handful of Rain, Dead Winter Dead (1995) became the second rock opera released by Savatage and contained the now popular "Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24." The band released another album of two after this, but mostly began the transition into the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The song, "Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24" was re-released on their first album Christmas Eve and other Stories.
Besides an amazing sound, one of the things that interests me about TSO and the predecessor Savatage is their emphasis on storytelling. In a 2003 interview with Christianity Today (found here) producer, Paul O'Neill stated, "I'm a strong believer in the power of storytelling. I grew up in a large Irish Catholic home, and my parents wouldn't allow us to watch TV. That forced us to learn to read. Also, before we went to bed, my father would weave these incredibly intricate fairy tales and stories from the top of his head. Even as I got older, I'd hang around him telling stories to my little siblings. And Irish music tends to have strong storytelling."
The guys of TSO have some very interesting stories to tell, even if they aren't the most theologically accurate, they can still spin an interesting yarn. For some of us, it might be better to hear a story that is a little lacking in the theology department but makes us think in theological terms. TSO's music and stories do just this.
Give them a listen if you are into Classical and Progressive Metal fusion.

What I'm listening to

Two musical styles I have grown to appreciate more over the past year or so are guitar and piano. To excellent examples of these instruments playing classical and not-so-classical music are Ludovici Einaudi and the California Guitar Trio.












I found both of these artists via Echoes, which I've mentioned before. If you get it on NPR, give it a listen. I have enjoyed a great deal of what I hear there.
The links above are to Amazon. I don't get anything if you buy them there. I like Amazon because they typically have lower prices and I can preview most music there (iTunes does this as well, but I don't know how to link to iTunes).
I hope you enjoy these musicians.

On iTunes Now...

The radio program Echoes tuned me into a great artist who distributes his work on the internet. General Fuzz has several albums worth of stuff that you can download. I enjoy his most recent compositions the most, but find all of it good.
Check him out.

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.

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.

Now Playing On iTunes...

On iTunes right now...