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Riffing off ideas articulated in Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey, Myth and the Movies serves both as a sequel to that book and a series of examples attempting to demonstrate its validity. In his book, Vogler, borrowing ideas from Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, argues that every story follows certain patterns--which he collectively characterizes as a mythic "hero's journey." In Myth and the Movies, Voytilla breaks this journey up into stages, using 50 famous films to illustrate the universality of Vogler's method. During the course of the book, he unpacks the mythic structure of horror, war, drama, romance, comedy, science fiction, action-adventure, the western, and the thriller, drawing on films as diverse as Seven Samurai, The Silence of the Lambs, Annie Hall, and Boyz N the Hood. His charts, maps, and consideration of various archetypal characters ("the shadow," "the trickster," "the herald," "the shapeshifter") and narrative devices ("the elixir," "the adventure," "the threshold," "the road back") provide a clear picture of how Campbell's archetypes can be used for film analysis. And who knows? Perhaps as you follow Voytilla's descriptions, you will be inspired to create some myths of your own. --Raphael Shargel
Book Description
Designed as a companion to The Writer's Journey, Myth & the Movies analyzes 50 U.S. and foreign films in every cinematic genre.
Customer Reviews:
Nothing new here.......2007-10-04
I had to read this book for a class taught by the author. There are not really any new ideas here. A person who has never been exposed to genre, character type and a three-act structure might find it useful. I found the dissection and analyses dry and un-insightful. Serious and seasoned screenwriters may be disappointed.
A Phenomenal Guide for Screenwriters.......2005-04-27
I am a huge fan of this book. It invites you into a secret club of those special people who can read a script or watch a film and and decipher all of its great qualities and not-so-great qualities. It gives you a complete template of how to write a succesful story so that it commits the audience to the film through emotion. A superb book!
Interesting Genre analysis, Nominal story analysis, .......2005-03-21
After reading Vogler I was interested in how an expert might wholisticly apply his structure to actual movies.
Unfortunately, Voytilla's analysis of individual movies is rather shallow and nominal. i.e. He basically rehashes movie plots using keywords for Voglers book to name them. There is no introspection into how these elements provide drama, work with the theme of the movie, or highten an audience's investment in the hero.
The only parts of the book that I found interesting were Voytilla's analysis of Genres. Here he writes about similar structures, themes, and purposes found within genres such as comedy, adventure, action etc.
If you are at a loss to apply Vogler's works, this book will be helpful. If you are interested in breif and somewhat interesting Genre analysis and don't mind dropping a few bucks then you might pick up a couple of interesting tidbits here and there.
However, if you're looking for an analysis that truly enlightens the dynamics behind the dramatic excellence of a movie, skip this book, rent a bunch of movies and apply Vogler's ideas for yourself. (Disney movies such as the Little Mermaid are a great place to start.)
EXCELLENT GUIDE TO STORY SCTRUCTURE.......2004-02-18
As Advertised, this book is a guide to the story structure of 50 great movies. "Myth and the Movies" uses the Heroes Journey model which is illustrated in "The Writers Journey" but Christopher Volger." I'd recommend getting books and using them as companions to one another.
Enlightening and entertaining.......2003-05-28
This spring along side the adventurous movie block-busters, I experienced an excellent guide to movie aesthetics and structure. The book 'Myth and the Movies' by Stuart Voytilla; Sheridan Books 1999, is an exquisite taste of film memorabilia.
From its opening paragraphs on the mythical hero's journey, to the archetypes and breakdown of over 50 block-buster movies; this book really focuses on film structure and paradigm.
All genres are covered, from the Western to the Action Adventure (the Action Adventure being the one with a golbal appeal), its all in the book.
I strongly recommend this book as a learning tool or guide to every serious film student.
Respectfully,
Mikey Jay / film student 'San Diego State University'
May 28, 2003
Book Description
This highly acclaimed study analyzes the various trends in English criticism during the first four decades of this century.
Customer Reviews:
The Birth of the Visionary Poet.......2000-05-28
Our way of looking at art in the year 2000 is steeped in the Romantic mentality. The idea of the true poet as lone inspired genius, starving in a garret, creating to express his (and it generally was 'his' in those days) inner turmoil or vision is so ingrained that there almost seems no other possible standard. Yet as M.H. Abrahms points out in this scholarly, yet readable work on Romantic poetry and theory, this view of art and the artist is only as old as the age of Coleridge and Wordsworth. Up until 200 odd years ago, the artist's job had been to act as a mirror, reflecting the world as accurately as possible. The Romantics sought to reverse over 2000 years of previous art criticism by pushing the artist to the forefront and insisting that he be seen as a lamp, illuminating the world with his imagination and vision. Abrahms thoroughly examines the development of Romantic philosophy through the writings of the major English poets and thinkers of the age, drawing in discussions of continental Romanticism as well. Romantic views on Nature, God, Poets and Poetry, Truth, Vision and of course the Imagination are all thoroughly researched and meticulously compiled, making this one of the most comprehensive single volume books on the subject.
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American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)
Russell B. Goodman
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521394430 |
Book Description
Professional philosophers have tended either to shrug off American philosophy as negligible or derivative or to date American philosophy from the work of twentieth century analytical positivists such as Quine. Russell Goodman expands on the revisionist position developed by Stanley Cavell, that the most interesting strain of American thought proceeds not from Puritan theology or from empirical science but from a peculiarly American kind of Romanticism. This insight leads Goodman, through Cavell, back to Emerson and Thoreau and thence to William James and John Dewey, as they assimilated to American circumstances and intellectual habits the currents of European thought from Kant to Wittgenstein.
Customer Reviews:
Cracking The Romantic Code.......2004-03-13
M.H. Abrams takes his title from Carlyle's Sartor Resartus and though he shines his lamp on that work briefly, for the most part this is a critical study which focuses on the key German and English romantics (philosophers and poets)and certain formal attributes they all shared -- namely a penchant for circular structure (golden age of mans innocence/fall from innocence/redemptive return to the beginning). What is most surprising about this study is how pervasive this circular pattern was in the romantic period. Abrams finds it in virtually every major work of philosophy and poetry in the romantic period. In doing so Abrams does not want to suggest that the romantic movement was any less revolutionary than previously thought but that the movement was a complex one that issued forth great changes in philosophy and literature not so much by inventing new forms but by finding new validity in old forms and patterns.
Abrams argues that from the time of the reformation, literature and philosophy were becoming more and more secular and that the western conception of the universe was becoming more and more "mechanized". In his earlier book Mirror and the Lamp Abrams traced the origins of romantic aesthetic theory and in so doing explained how the romantics reinvigorated art and philosophy by offering an "organic" view of the universe to counter the mechanistic view which made man feel less and less at home and more and more alien in his world. In Natural Supenaturalism Abrams elaborates that argument and shows in more detail just how individual romantics sought to resituate man in his universe. The "revolution" initiated by the romantics was not a political one Abrams argues but a cognitive one. True freedom is attained not en masse according to Blake and Wordsworth but in solitude where one learns to see the world as it is. For Abrams Wordsworth is the penultimate romantic(other romantic scholars find Blake to be the more important figure) because his poems offer man a route to personal salvation through a private communion with nature via the imagination. Wordsworth intentionally weds his own story to the story of mans fall from and eventual recovery of grace-- what is revolutionary is that Wordsworth suggests that man must not wait for the apocaplypse to be redeemed but can find redemption in this world and all by way of the sympathetic imagination. In the Preludes Wordsworth offers his own life story (and his own aesthetic theory) which is the story of one mans attempt to wed himself to nature and thus recover the natural affinity he felt for nature as a child albeit in a higher way with greater awareness. For Abrams it is the central story of romanticism and one that has a continuing influence on literary output. Though each romantic made use of the circular pattern, each did so in his own unique way and for scholars the real interest of the book will be in tracing the genesis and studying the particularities of each cosmogony and there are many offered here(Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche......), (Blake, Coleridge, Shelley, Hazlitt....).
Wordsworth placed a great emphasis on "memory"--for this was the thing that connected him to that first grace he knew in childhood-- in recovering his own version of paradise and so Abrams finds Proust to be Wordsworth's most direct heir. More generally Abrams finds that the circular pattern first found in classic mythology and the bible as well as in that first western autobiography - -St. Augustine Confessions-- continues to be a powerful model for writers as diverse as TS Eliot(Four Quartets) and DH Lawrence to name just two. Abrams finds the romantic rediscovery and revitalization of this circular pattern to be a key aspect of romanticism and the romantic legacy.
English and German Romantic Criticism on a high order........2003-06-29
A book that takes no account of women writers, ignores Byron (for which NS was later taken to task), and one that simply predated the New Historicism, the mere fact of NS's academic survival is testament to Abrams' giftedness as a writer and the power of his understanding.
Abrams deals with a few very large concepts that were important to the Romantic poets in England and Germany (most especially Wordsworth--the concept of the life-cycle in the Prelude and the Prospectus to the Recluse, for instance). These concepts are close-read out of key passages from the poets, then backgrounded in contemporary philosophy and biblical study. Abrams' title, borrowed from Carlyle, with whom he also deals, suggests the largest thesis of his book: that Romanticism was an assimilative movement--one that incorporated, in secular form, Judaeo-Christian ideas and ideals. He extends this definition of Romanticism to Stevens and Proust, thereby redefining Romanticism's legacy as well. The Kunstleroman--the growth of the artist's mind--is, for Abrams, the great secularized Biblical "high argument" of the early 19th century, and one thinks almost immediately of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as the literary heir to this Romantic innovation.
Along the way there is much talk of circles and spirals and patterns, and the book's agenda is itself incorporated into its structure--a manipulative move, perhaps, and a critically antiquated one, but it does make for enjoyable and easy reading. The same cannot be said for many of the landmark works of Romantic criticism that followed--and while those works must be read, and NS must therefore be relegated to the category of "old school" criticism, this book will continue to withstand paradigm shifts in humanities research because it is one of those rare works of scholarship that's actually fun. Read with an eye to more recent trends in literary criticism, but do read.
Customer Reviews:
This book helped me become engaged!.......2007-04-29
Due to my past interactions with trying to get representation for my 5 non-fiction books from Sheree Bykofsky, I started reading some of her written work... and upon discovering this particular book after our initial interaction, I wrote many love poems and love letters to women to try and find "The Right One" - both women I met in person and using the internet personals. I don't think that I would have poured out my heart to so many women without Sheree Bykofsky's influence in my life six months ago.
Since then, I have fallen deeply in love and gotten engaged!
So in a sense, I guess that I have Sheree Bykofsky to thank!
I guess I should try and invite her to the wedding! ;-) However, we haven't set a date... but until then, just know that Sheree's personal attention and responses had a profound impact on my life!
Thank you so much Ms. Sheree Bykofsky!!!
inspiring and mindboggling.......2004-02-18
Amazing, what some people are willing to do in order to get their loved ones to agree to marry them these days. Do I really have to propose on board a sold out plane, on the flight attendant's intercom or rent both horse and armor in order to appear as my future wife's shining knight - in a public park? I guess so.
Long gone are the days when a simple bouquet, a nice dinner and a diamond ring managed to do the trick - we've entered the age of Survivor and The Bachelor. Better prepared and inspired, I figured, to convince my very own Bachelorette, that I'm no Average Joe after all, and Sheree Bykofsky and Laurie Viera deliver way enough material to prepare me for the day when I strike - but first, I've got to finish reading their stories and muster up the courage .
Insightful, Playful, Eccentric and oh so Romantic!.......2004-02-18
With another Valentine's Day 2004 just come and gone, I read these stories of romantic one-night-only real life performances and was inspired by the power of love. This artfully written collection of betrothal secrets is captivating, delight-filled and simply fun. Thank you Ms. Viera for giving us this well crafted gem of romantic exploits and endeavors.
Too Wordy.......2004-02-04
Most of the proposal stories went on and on. In reality I think there were about 30 or so stories in the book. I would also recommend The Romantic's Guide to Popping the Question. It has over 100 real life stories which are much shorter and quite creative.
Waste of time, money, paper.......2003-12-03
This book was a good concept that has failed in execution. The stories are not terribly exciting and provide less guidance and inspiration than an ordinary dose of common sense. Seems to reflect a distinct demographic in terms of the stories, the author himself contributes very little. Avoid, avoid, avoid.
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The Price of Assimilation: Felix Mendelssohn and the Nineteenth-Century Anti-Semitic Tradition
Jeffrey S. Sposato
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn (Cambridge Companions to Music)
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Mendelssohn: A Life in Music
ASIN: 0195149742 |
Book Description
Most scholars since World War Two have assumed that composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) maintained a strong attachment to Judaism throughout his lifetime. As these commentators have rightly noted, Mendelssohn was born Jewish and did not convert to Protestantism until age seven, his grandfather was the famous Jewish reformer and philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and his music was banned by the Nazis, who clearly viewed him as a Jew. Such facts tell only part of the story, however. Through a mix of cultural analysis, biographical study, and a close examination of the libretto drafts of Mendelssohn's sacred works, The Price of Assimilation provides dramatic new answers to the so-called "Mendelssohn Jewish question." Sposato demonstrates how Mendelssohn's father, Abraham, worked to distance the family from its Jewish past, and how Mendelssohn's reputation as a composer of Christian sacred music was threatened by the reverence with which German Jews viewed his family name. In order to prove the sincerity of his Christian faith to both his father and his audiences, Mendelssohn aligned his early sacred works with a nineteenth-century anti-Semitic musical tradition, and did so more fervently than even his Christian collaborators required. With the death of Mendelssohn's father and the near simultaneous establishment of the composer's career in Leipzig in 1835, however, Mendelssohn's fear of his background began to dissipate, and he began to explore ways in which he could prove the sincerity of his faith without having to publicly disparage his Jewish heritage.
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- A true acomplishment for images of the historic Hudson Valley
- INCREDIBLE!
- The Beard Of Earth
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The Romantic Landscape: Photographs in the Tradition of the New York Hudson Valley Painters
Stan Lichens
Manufacturer: Pomegranate Communications
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0764928899 |
Book Description
The Romantic Landscape journeys through the four seasons of the Hudson Valley, immortalized by the Hudson Valley Painters. Through color- and computer-enhanced photographs, photographer Stan Lichens has captured the mystique and spectacular scenery of this historic region.
Sun-dappled valleys, rugged river terrain, vast mountains and forests, and gorgeous homes abound throughout the historic Hudson Valley. Among the residential portraits are The Locusts, a nineteenth-century estate in Staatsburg; the Vanderbilt Estate in Hyde Park; and Montgomery Place, one of the country's most beautiful estates, in Red Hook. Equally dramatic are Lichens' nature portraits of Haines Falls, farmland in Clinton Corners, the Rosendale Caves, wheatfields in Ancramdale, and a host of other inviting, perfect images captured at the perfect moment of the season.
Of all the scenery of the Hudson, the Kaatskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish imagination. —Washington Irving
About the Author Stan Lichens teaches and works in graphic design, furniture, and architecture. Owner of the former Astor gatehouse in Rhinebeck, New York, he belongs to several historic preservation groups and is dedicated to documenting the architectural and natural environment of the Hudson Valley. He tints his ethereal photographs with pastels, watercolor pencils, and oil crayons and then enhances them with digital technology.
Customer Reviews:
A true acomplishment for images of the historic Hudson Valley.......2007-08-14
As the writer from Brooklyn has said the images are a little unrealistic but thats what makes the book so beautiful so enticing. I found the images inspiring and easy on the eyes. A true accomplishment in the world of photography.
A very beautiful introduction, by his spouse making you understand Lichens connection through the pictures he takes of the Hudson Valley.
INCREDIBLE!.......2006-08-17
The views in this book are breathtaking and stunning. The Hudson Valley is truly a stunning place!
The Beard Of Earth .......2005-03-07
Stan Lichens' The Romantic Landscape: Photographs In The Tradition of The New York Hudson Valley Painters (2004) presents a collection of seventy-five exceptional photographs of the New York State's Hudson River Valley. Grouped in accordance with the four seasons, the valley--a cradle of American history and folklore, and home to Ichabod Crane and Rip Van Winkle--is alternately revealed in all its lush beauty, majesty, and haunted, twilit power.
Originally taken in black and white, Lichens, inspired by the Hudson River School Painters, has hand tinted each with "French watercolor pencils, pastels, and oil crayons" and then further "digitally manipulated" the images.
The results would probably have been far more powerful had Lichens let the original photographs speak for themselves, since the enhancement process greatly reduces their overall power in every instance. Though the palate of the winter landscapes are suitably muted, the artifice is immediately and awkwardly apparent in most of the others. The overall effect is not one of subtle or studied romance, but of an easy-access pleasantness which reduces the images to the level of Sierra Club calendar art. Only tangentially do the colorized photographs, which fairly caricaturize the profound beauty of nature, have any genuine relation to the work of Thomas Cole, Fredric E. Church, and Robert Walter Weir.
Lichens has also allowed his spouse, Lois Guarino, to write the introduction, which suggests Guarino may have provided a less than objective appraisal and overview of the book's content.
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