![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. This article entitled The inbetweeners: life of the middle child by Sri Lankan writer Roshi Fernando -articulates well something that always bugged me about Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, and explains why I never could adapt my own stories to its structure or for that matter most of the stories that I've loved. (Thank you to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
oursin for the link and reference.)
It's that first sentence ..."As a writer, the singular journey of one hero goes against my nature." Then, why, "stories are not about single people". Human beings like are not are social animals. Even those of us who tend be a little bit like hermits in our lifestyle, need others and are affected by others. How we interact with others and how they view us - informs our character and who we are.
Joseph Campbell's somewhat narrow and overly simplistic view of the structures of the myths that he has analyzed always grated a bit. Having studied folklore and mythology, myself, and having analyzed it, I felt Campbell was missing something crucial to the story he was analyzing and applying such a simplistic structure to. As if he was placing the story into a tiny box, and cutting off all the corners and edges until it fit inside his tiny box.
For example if you attempt to apply The Heroes Journey to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as many fans online have - you will either ignore or reduce the journeys of Xander, Willow, Dawn, Spike, Giles, Angel, Anya, Joyce, Amy, Warren, Andrew, Robin Wood, Cordelia, Jonathan, Faith, Riley, Darla, Drusilla to small ancedotes that relate only to Buffy as the Hero, you also for that matter reduce the character of Buffy down to that essence - and the story along with all the characters you loved loses its resonance. For Buffy wasn't just a hero in the story, nor was she the only hero, nor were her antagonists just furthering her journey, she was also furthering theirs and in some cases they saved the world...not Buffy. Because of that - we remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It resonates with viewers long after it aired. When you cut away all those things to fit it into this narrow little box, it loses it's innovative appeal, it stops being about growing up or fighting one's demons.
Which by the way, all analysis from the narrow perspective of Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, often did. It's why I'm not a huge fan of Campbell and preferred Carl Jung and Neumann, and Robert Frazier.
This also happened with Star Wars - if you limit it to the structure of The Hero's Journey - you forget about Han and Leia and well Chewbecca, it just becomes about Luke Skywalker, who lets face it was not the most interesting or complex character in the tale, nor the only one.
Even Hollywood can't quite stick to the structure - because when it does, it doesn't get good box office. Look at the films that have done well - they tend to be about more than one person and do not fit neatly inside that box. Game of Thrones - is an ensemble, as are Grey's Anatomy, NCIS, Once Upon a Time, and Big Bang Theory on television. In film? The Avengers did very well and it was about an ensemble.
I can see why Campbell simplified, just as I understand why creative writing courses often teach this simple structure (to get students to focus) as do publishers - explaining how they want you to cut your story down to fit that narrow structure and write a synopsis showing you've done so. (I've never been able to do it - because my stories never have fit that structure, when I try, I lost 95% of my story.) The reason they do it, is because it is easier to teach someone how to write a story about one person. And it's easier to analyze one that is just about one hero. And it is by far easier for a publisher to figure out how to market a story told in one point of view with one protagonist.
Anyone who has read the Illiad, knows its not about one character nor for that matter is Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear. Nor is the myth of Orpheus - Eurydice and Hades are there as well, and there aren't just there for Orpheus, there's also all the people Orpheus affects when he journeys down to hell to find his wife. To examine a story in such a simplistic and narrow manner or worse to force it to fit one - I think, does the story an injustice.
2. Finished watching The Sound of Music - which is not as good as the movie, although that was pretty much a given going into it. But it's okay for a television production. Nothing to write home about or squee over, but okay. No mistakes are made. No pratfalls. Everyone was on key, more or less. IT was in short, an average production of an average adaptation of a beloved musical.
I'm not sure why they chose it (outside of the fact that is amongst the few musicals that works for the entire family) - it doesn't lend itself well to live a televised theatrical production. Yhere are bits of staging that felt awkward and the story just plods in places. While the film adaptation managed to liven it up with a puppet show - singing through the streets of Vienna, and a bit more conflict in the beginning with Maria and the children, and in the middle with Maria and Gaylord, the televised version doesn't appear to know what to do and spends a lot of time with people just awkwardly chatting. The Baroness - Eleanor and Max were less visible and more on the sidelines in the film version, also neither sang. When they did pop up - they provided conflict and a certain bit of energy on film, that even with the great performers cast is not brought to the staged presentation.
In the stage/televised version...Eleanor and Max both sing, and their songs...don't quite work. Laura Benanti and Christopher B. (From SMASH) are both adept singers and excellent stage actors - so that is not the problem. It's just...well you can see why the movie left these songs out.
The other problem with this staged version - is there is too much reliance on dialogue, which in the theater with a live audience and no commercial breaks would have worked, here on tv with commercial breaks and no live audience present, just a camera - not so much. Also the camera zooms in on the awkward facial expressions and nervousness - which is par for the course when you are doing a presentation live without any retakes. On stage - there's less of that. A lot of this could have been smoothed over with broader performances or big musical numbers with dancing. But when you have two people awkwardly standing next to each other and chatting, all the while trying to keep eye contact with the camera - it feels a bit stilted. As a result, the lack of chemistry between the Captain and Maria was a wee bit telegraphed at times.
Add to this - that it clear that neither Moyer nor Underwood have much experience with stage or live acting. While Laura Benanti (who portrayed Maria on Broadway), Audra MacDonald (who portrays the Mother Superior and played Bess in Porgy and Bess on Broadway) and Chris B. (who portrayed Captain Hook on Broadway in Peter and the Starcatcher) are completely comfortable and relaxed in this setting.
So the musical, as a result, drug a bit, felt a little awkward in places and did not quite work the way it was intended. Through no fault of any of the actors involved. It was just the staging, direction and adaptation that did not work that well. No errors that I could see were made, and there were no flubs (sort of wish there were, would have livened things up.)
Overall rating? B-/C+
oursin for the link and reference.)
As a writer, the singular journey of one hero goes against my nature. I was trying to change the world with my first book, Homesick, which I wrote as interlinked short stories: each story was about an individual who belonged to a larger community that was affected and changed by each story. At least, I was trying to challenge one of the structures of the world: story structure. Creative writing classes teach the Joseph Campbell myth of The Hero's Journey. If you are new to it, it is a simple, circular structure: the hero is called to adventure, given the help of a mentor and an antagonist, crosses a number of thresholds and is challenged and tempted until he reaches an abyss of revelation, experiences rebirth where he is transformed, atonement is sought and he returns to his original life renewed. In Hollywood, this structure has often meant only one hero is followed. Story structure has been taken over by the single person's need to conquer the world, to take the selfie on the top of the mountain. I was trying to adapt this structure, as I told people, earnestly: look, stories are not about single people. I wanted to write about everyone.
It's that first sentence ..."As a writer, the singular journey of one hero goes against my nature." Then, why, "stories are not about single people". Human beings like are not are social animals. Even those of us who tend be a little bit like hermits in our lifestyle, need others and are affected by others. How we interact with others and how they view us - informs our character and who we are.
Joseph Campbell's somewhat narrow and overly simplistic view of the structures of the myths that he has analyzed always grated a bit. Having studied folklore and mythology, myself, and having analyzed it, I felt Campbell was missing something crucial to the story he was analyzing and applying such a simplistic structure to. As if he was placing the story into a tiny box, and cutting off all the corners and edges until it fit inside his tiny box.
For example if you attempt to apply The Heroes Journey to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as many fans online have - you will either ignore or reduce the journeys of Xander, Willow, Dawn, Spike, Giles, Angel, Anya, Joyce, Amy, Warren, Andrew, Robin Wood, Cordelia, Jonathan, Faith, Riley, Darla, Drusilla to small ancedotes that relate only to Buffy as the Hero, you also for that matter reduce the character of Buffy down to that essence - and the story along with all the characters you loved loses its resonance. For Buffy wasn't just a hero in the story, nor was she the only hero, nor were her antagonists just furthering her journey, she was also furthering theirs and in some cases they saved the world...not Buffy. Because of that - we remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It resonates with viewers long after it aired. When you cut away all those things to fit it into this narrow little box, it loses it's innovative appeal, it stops being about growing up or fighting one's demons.
Which by the way, all analysis from the narrow perspective of Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, often did. It's why I'm not a huge fan of Campbell and preferred Carl Jung and Neumann, and Robert Frazier.
This also happened with Star Wars - if you limit it to the structure of The Hero's Journey - you forget about Han and Leia and well Chewbecca, it just becomes about Luke Skywalker, who lets face it was not the most interesting or complex character in the tale, nor the only one.
Even Hollywood can't quite stick to the structure - because when it does, it doesn't get good box office. Look at the films that have done well - they tend to be about more than one person and do not fit neatly inside that box. Game of Thrones - is an ensemble, as are Grey's Anatomy, NCIS, Once Upon a Time, and Big Bang Theory on television. In film? The Avengers did very well and it was about an ensemble.
I can see why Campbell simplified, just as I understand why creative writing courses often teach this simple structure (to get students to focus) as do publishers - explaining how they want you to cut your story down to fit that narrow structure and write a synopsis showing you've done so. (I've never been able to do it - because my stories never have fit that structure, when I try, I lost 95% of my story.) The reason they do it, is because it is easier to teach someone how to write a story about one person. And it's easier to analyze one that is just about one hero. And it is by far easier for a publisher to figure out how to market a story told in one point of view with one protagonist.
Anyone who has read the Illiad, knows its not about one character nor for that matter is Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear. Nor is the myth of Orpheus - Eurydice and Hades are there as well, and there aren't just there for Orpheus, there's also all the people Orpheus affects when he journeys down to hell to find his wife. To examine a story in such a simplistic and narrow manner or worse to force it to fit one - I think, does the story an injustice.
2. Finished watching The Sound of Music - which is not as good as the movie, although that was pretty much a given going into it. But it's okay for a television production. Nothing to write home about or squee over, but okay. No mistakes are made. No pratfalls. Everyone was on key, more or less. IT was in short, an average production of an average adaptation of a beloved musical.
I'm not sure why they chose it (outside of the fact that is amongst the few musicals that works for the entire family) - it doesn't lend itself well to live a televised theatrical production. Yhere are bits of staging that felt awkward and the story just plods in places. While the film adaptation managed to liven it up with a puppet show - singing through the streets of Vienna, and a bit more conflict in the beginning with Maria and the children, and in the middle with Maria and Gaylord, the televised version doesn't appear to know what to do and spends a lot of time with people just awkwardly chatting. The Baroness - Eleanor and Max were less visible and more on the sidelines in the film version, also neither sang. When they did pop up - they provided conflict and a certain bit of energy on film, that even with the great performers cast is not brought to the staged presentation.
In the stage/televised version...Eleanor and Max both sing, and their songs...don't quite work. Laura Benanti and Christopher B. (From SMASH) are both adept singers and excellent stage actors - so that is not the problem. It's just...well you can see why the movie left these songs out.
The other problem with this staged version - is there is too much reliance on dialogue, which in the theater with a live audience and no commercial breaks would have worked, here on tv with commercial breaks and no live audience present, just a camera - not so much. Also the camera zooms in on the awkward facial expressions and nervousness - which is par for the course when you are doing a presentation live without any retakes. On stage - there's less of that. A lot of this could have been smoothed over with broader performances or big musical numbers with dancing. But when you have two people awkwardly standing next to each other and chatting, all the while trying to keep eye contact with the camera - it feels a bit stilted. As a result, the lack of chemistry between the Captain and Maria was a wee bit telegraphed at times.
Add to this - that it clear that neither Moyer nor Underwood have much experience with stage or live acting. While Laura Benanti (who portrayed Maria on Broadway), Audra MacDonald (who portrays the Mother Superior and played Bess in Porgy and Bess on Broadway) and Chris B. (who portrayed Captain Hook on Broadway in Peter and the Starcatcher) are completely comfortable and relaxed in this setting.
So the musical, as a result, drug a bit, felt a little awkward in places and did not quite work the way it was intended. Through no fault of any of the actors involved. It was just the staging, direction and adaptation that did not work that well. No errors that I could see were made, and there were no flubs (sort of wish there were, would have livened things up.)
Overall rating? B-/C+
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 03:59 pm (UTC)Agreed on the direction - I honestly think that was the problem as well. People spent too much time standing around or walking across big sets. The mistake was filming it on a sound stage as opposed to an actual theater with a live audience. Having just seen two taped broadcasts of live theater presentations - Company and Pippin (1970s version), I think it works better with a live audience and a stage.
There's more energy, the actors are getting instant feedback on what is working and what isn't, and the staging is more intimate and less spacious.
Instead they opted for the inbetween theater and film approach - which is no audience, a big soundstage (where everything looked fake and staged), and live. The live bit - obviously a gimmick to get people to watch that moment and make snarky comments as they watch it on Facebook and Twitter. Actually - that is exactly why they did it the way they did - to get you to watch it live and tweet about it on FB and Twitter - it means you are watching the commercials on the tv show, on FB, and on Twitter at the same time. Whoa. Brilliant marketing plan.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 05:29 pm (UTC)While it's true Carrie Underwood's acting wasn't as good as some high school musical Maria's you might see, I'd say Stephen Moyer's acting was more detrimental to the show and the love story. It looked like he was reading for Ebenezer Scrooge instead of playing Captain von Trapp. ;o)
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 10:40 pm (UTC)Granted it is a hard role to play, and Stephen Moyer isn't Christopher Plummer (who was cranky about the role and notorious for calling it the Sound of Mucus, yet still played it perfectly.). That said, I still agree with you. Wish they'd hired someone else - there are actors out there who could have pulled that role off - Craig Bierko (recently of Company and various over movies) comes to mind. Hell Stephen Colbert could have done it better.
(Small caveat? I am admittedly not a fan of Stephen Moyer's acting, having watched True Blood. I don't like the actor. Which is admittedly why I was less than enthused about the musical remake.)
no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-08 04:02 pm (UTC)