MYTHIC STORYTELLING AND CINEMA: Introduction

MYTHIC STORYTELLING AND CINEMA:

Introduction

What is mythic storytelling?

The Inklings have a very particular way of telling stories, which is quite unlike most of what we find in the modern age. People like Tolkien, Lewis, and Williams were telling stories in a very ancient way, in a very mythic way. They told stories that, like the great myths of old, intended to rebuild the bridge between man and the Divine. In other words, their tales were meant to re-enchant the world of men by showing the transcendent character of reality.

But in modernity, this is not at all the intended effect of storytelling. Modern writers are often more preoccupied with navigating the shallow darkness of a character's ego than with connecting the life of that character to some transcendence. This is a great chasm that separates one form of storytelling from the other: one is more theocentric (centered on the transcendent and the Divine) while the other is more anthropocentric (centered on the human ego and the self).

Therefore, for a story to be considered part of the Inklings tradition, it is not enough for it to include fantastical and preternatural elements. These are only superficial elements to the tradition. What is more important is that, through these elements, it manages to re-establish a relationship between man and the spiritual, transcendent realm.

So with all this said, how can cinema manifest this ancient, mythic form of storytelling that the Inklings were so fond of? Is it even possible for film, an auido-visual medium, to tell mythic stories? These are the questions that I shall attempt to answer in the following series of articles.

Can film do it?

The first question we might be troubled with when trying to solve these dilemmas is whether an audio-visual medium like film can, in principle, effectively communicate the essence of mythic storytelling. After all, myths and fairy tales have been traditionally expressed in oral and written forms, and there is certainly a reason for that: when telling a story in an oral and written way, the imagination is most free to play. If all you have are spoken or written words, then you can engage with the ideas that those words symbolize, and imagine them in whatever way you see fit. Hence, there is a power to the oral and written forms of storytelling that myths and fairy tales can take great advantage of.

Nevertheless, the history of art does show that, while myths and fairy tales have often had their origins in oral and written forms, it is not rare to express these mythic stories in other mediums. In the case of myth, one could point to the theater of the ancient Greeks, where myths were told in dramatic form. Likewise, one could also highlight the many examples of visual art made during antiquity and the middle ages to illustrate the stories of the great mythic heroes of old. Wagner's work (not just his adaptation of the Nibelung, but also operas like Percival and alike) is similar in this respect, except that instead of expressing myths in visual ways, he does it mostly in musical form. And in the case of fairy stories, one could remark about the great illustrators and engravers of the 19th century such as Arthur Gaskin and Gustave Doré. Thus, we see how even in mediums like painting, sculpture, illustration, music, and drama, mythic storytelling can be present.

That said, it is true that, in spite of being able to manifest myths and fairy tales in powerful ways, these mediums do lack the imaginative potency that oral and written forms of storytelling have. This is not something that can be ignored, and the responsible artist should be aware of it. The potential to use the imagination in these mediums is much more limited and restrained, and this is something that even Tolkien remarked in his essay On Fairy Stories when he criticized theater adaptations of fairy tales.

Still, although their effectiveness may be lesser, visual, musical, and dramatic mediums still have the capacity to communicate myths and fairy tales. Curiously enough, film is precisely a hybrid art form of all these mediums. It is a combination of the acting and scripting of drama, the melodies and harmonies of music, and the images and designs of the visual arts. Therefore, if it is possible to express mythic stories in all three of these afore-mentioned mediums, then it should be also possible to express them in the hybrid art form of cinema.

How can film do it?

Now that we have resolved the issue of whether or not it is possible to create films that tell mythic stories properly, let us examine how this is exactly accomplished. For this purpose, we shall look at how each of the three mediums I mentioned before (drama, visual arts, and music) has historically represented myth and fairy tales, and then we shall see how this can aid in sub-creating a complete representation of mythic storytelling in cinema.

First, let us look at drama. In our analysis, we will mainly examine the dimension of drama that deals with the script and not so much with the acting, given that the script is often more fundamental to the work of art. A good way in which scripts can properly tell mythic stories is by placing a lot of emphasis on how the spiritual and the theological affects the plot of the story. This was done par excellence by the ancient Greeks when they adapted their myths to the theatre. For example, in Sophocles' Oedipus King, when Oedipus realizes that he has committed a series of gravely immoral actions, it is stressed that this event is the consequence of Oedipus' arrogance towards the gods. Likewise, in Antigone, another play by Sophocles, when Antigone decides to defy the decrees of her uncle the king and give her late brother a proper ritual burial, it is also made clear how this decision relates back to her family's relationship with the gods. Admittedly, if one has read these plays, he will know that the first example is more explicit than the second, but both of these cases are valid illustrations of how the spiritual realm can become present in the script. 

Secondly, there are the visual arts. Here, I could mention three principles. The first is an intent by the artist to distinguish in his visual depictions the spiritual from the worldly. That is, he will not illustrate a saint like Saint Mark or semi-Divine hero like Hercules in the same manner he will design a peasant or a common soldier. Saints will often have their iconic halos or some visual variation of the same (such as light radiating from them), and heroes will have body figures that are exaggeratedly strong and imposing. This is unlike the representations of common men and women, who have not yet been touched by the Divine in the story. The second principle is that the visual artists also put a lot of attention in making it visually clear what the relationship of a given thing is with the Divine. So if a forest is cursed, the forest will appear twisted, dying, and evil. Likewise, if a character is blessed, he will look fair, healthy, and heavenly. And lastly, there is also a lot of preoccupation with trying to highlight the spiritual nature of a creature whenever that creature has some special relationship to the spiritual realm. So if in an illustration of a fairy tale, a grey wolf is a symbol for the spiritual, that wolf will not look like any "realistic, normal" wolf; rather, his features will be exaggerated so that it is made clear that this creature is not of this world but of the next. Thus, the visual artists (whether they be the Greek and Roman sculptors, the medieval painters of manuscripts, or the 19th-century illustrators of fairy tales) can tell mythic stories through their mediums.

Thirdly, we have music. Music has one principal way in which it can manifest the presence of the spiritual in its art, which is by the use of what is often called a leitmotif. Leitmotifs are simply musical themes that accompany a certain moment, character, or place from the story that the music is telling. The most famous example of leit motifs is that of Wagner and his Ring Cycle. Each element of his adaptation of the myth of the Ring has a specific theme that accompanies it throughout the play. But even in something so solemn and so sacred as the Liturgy of the Holy Mass can leitmotifs be found. In the Latin Rite, each moment of the Holy Mass (whether it be the Kyrie, the Gloria, or the Agnus Dei) has a musical theme, a specific chant, that follows it. So when the musician wants to highlight some spiritual aspect of the story, he can resort to the use of leitmotifs to do it. Thus can musical themes be used to highlight the presence of some spiritual or Divine element.

The Mythic in Film:

Being a combination of drama, visual arts, and music, cinema can combine all three of these sorts of techniques to produce a cinematic story that manifests the mythic in powerful ways. By making the relationship between the Divine and the human the guiding light of the script, the plot, the theme, and the characters of the story are all infused with a spiritual dimension that transcends them and gives them a proper mythical trademark. Then, by using all the various visual techniques to distinguish and highlight the presence of the Divine and its relationship to the elements of the story, everything the audience sees will have a deep spiritual significance to it. And likewise, by using leitmotifs to heighten the spiritual elements of the story, the music will also give new layers of theological and metaphysical meaning to what happens in the film. That is how cinema can communicate mythical storytelling.

DEMOCRATIC ORCS: Tolkien's Critique of Democracies

DEMOCRATIC ORCS:

TOLKIEN'S CRITIQUE OF DEMOCRACIES

Election seasons are filled with hot takes. People on the left and the right are eager to express their thoughts on who should win, why they should win, and whether or not they will win. But in this storm of opinions and predictions, it is easy to lose sight of those insights which go beyond the superficial level of an election. It is easy to think that, just because we happen to live in a democratic state, that there is nothing wrong with democracy or that the critics of democracy are just ignorant fools. But this is precisely what we should avoid this year and, for that reason, I believe it would help us to remember the wise words of J. R. R. Tolkien with regards to democracy.
"Really? What can Tolkien tell us that is so important?"

Tolkien is best known for being the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but this is only the surface level of his achievements. He was also an excellent scholar and a profound thinker on many of the issues affecting the world to this day. Hence, I believe his insights to be immensely valuable, especially when the circumstances surrounding us at this moment are so turbulent and uncertain. So with all of that said, here are his words:

“I am not a 'democrat' only because 'humility' and equality are spiritual principles corrupted by the attempt to mechanize and formalize them, with the result that we get not universal smallness and humility, but universal greatness and pride, till some Orc gets hold of a ring of power--and then we get and are getting slavery.”

Now, I realize that this quote might be rather confusing for some, let's unpack it a bit.

First of all, we must recall what the promises of democracy are. Democracy promises a state where all men are equally free and powerful, where power resides not in one Divinely-appointed ruler but rather in the "will of the people". It is the people who, supposedly, hold power in a democracy, and that is its main promise. Eat this fruit and you shall have the power to determine what laws, customs and order your society will follow.

This is, however, only an illusion and facade that serves to attract people. The actual spiritual reality of democracy is much darker and sinister. Democracy promises the masses power, power to change at will anything. But this power, instead of being for our good, is for our ill because it is the start of a deep descent into the dark pits of pride. Hence, by promising us power, we increase in pride. We begin to be prideful precisely because we feel like we can rule the whole world based on the mere criteria of our whims. And thus, by increasing in pride (the first of the deadly sins), we ultimately arrive at the worst part of this affair: spiritual sickness.

But why? Why should pride lead us down the road of spiritual death? The answer to this objection is rather simple: because pride is the exaltation of the self over the exaltation of God. And that is a grave spiritual crime. God alone is worthy of all exaltation for He is King of all of us. But by engaging, we forget our rightful place as stewards and are snared into believing that we are actually our own petty little kings. We become egotists, and by extension, rebels of the Kingdom of God. That is why pride is so spiritually destructive. It makes us think we are gods when in fact we are not. Pride is the essence of the serpent's temptation at Eden: you shall be as gods.

Therefore, if democracy leads to pride and pride leads to spiritual sickness, it follows that democracy has a great tendency to makes us spiritually sick. But what exactly does this spiritual sickness constitute? That is an important question to ask because we can never forget what it means to be spiritually sick.

To be spiritually sick means that we are enslaved, enslaved specifically to sin. When we are spiritually sick, we are in such a state of depravity that we struggle to seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful and are instead attracted more by the false, the evil, and the ugly. In other words, unless we receive the Grace of Absolution, we tend to go not towards virtue and order but instead towards sin and chaos. And this tendency is slavish precisely because it does not want us to seek something better. This sin at the core of our sickness is so despotic that it will not allow us to do anything except sin, and that is how it enslaves us.

Having said all this, it is not hard to see why Tolkien used the motif of the orc to describe the dynamics of democracy. Orcs are essentially beings who have been so spiritually corrupted that they have become minions to evil. The state of their deathly sick souls is made manifest in their horrid appearance and savage behavior. They are no longer free; they are slaves to their sin. And that is precisely what democracy does to the soul. It turns it into an orc. The pride of the illusion of power is so great that it corrupts the soul to the core, and leaves it as slavish to sin as the soul of an orc

So what are we to do about this? Should those of us who by the Wisdom of Divine Providence ended up living in democratic states avoid voting altogether? Should we proceed to overthrow our governments and install a monarchy in their stead? Or is there an alternative way to deal with politics in democratic states?

I believe there is indeed an alternative that does not involve violence, the overthrow of governments, or abandonment of politics altogether. And that solution is rather simple: remember who you are. That's it. We only have to remember that we are servants of our King, Christ the King, not kings in our own right. Therefore, when we go into the ballot box and cast our vote, we should cast it not with our interests in mind, but with God's Interests in mind. Whatever it is that Our Lord wants is what we shall vote for. His Laws should be our laws, His desires should be our desires, His Order should be our order. In short, the best antidote to the corrupting evils of democracy is to not allow its temptations of power and pride to go over our heads. We merely have to remind ourselves we are subjects of the Kingdom, not its kings.

That is the insight that Tolkien can bring us for this election season. To remember what the orcish dangers of the democratic system are and how we can best avoid it by always serving Christ.

TOLKIEN, REALISM, AND MYTH

TOLKIEN, REALISM, AND MYTH

Introduction

One of the most common critiques against Tolkien's work is that it is "unrealistic". Critics of this kind will complain that Tolkien does not care for the use of subtlety when he portrays the reality of Good and evil in his work. Good characters will be fair, glimmering, brave, and noble, while evil characters will be crooked, ugly, dark, and wicked. In other words, there are no "gray areas", no moral ambiguity in the characters. And it is this lack of "grayness" that Tolkien's critics will take as "unrealistic" and proof that his work is nothing more than shallow tales of cheap fantasy.

However, even though it is true that Tolkien is rather explicit when it comes to his portrayal of Good and evil, these critiques fail to see what Tolkien was intending to do when he portrayed morality in this way. Indeed, once one understands what Tolkien's intention was, his portrayal not only makes sense but it also makes more sense than all those so-called "realistic" portrayals, filled with gray ambiguities. Therefore, if one wishes to reply to these critiques, it is crucial that we first understand Tolkien's motives.

Tolkien's Intention

Unlike most writers of his time, when Tolkien wrote his work, he was not intending to craft a modern series of novels. Rather, what he was trying to do was to sub-create a mythology, a web of mythic tales.

Myth, by definition, is quite distinct from the modern novel. Not only is myth much more ancient, but it is also operating on an entirely different framework of reality. The modern novel often assumes that reality is just the sensible world. In other words, according to the framework of reality under which the modern novel operates, only what can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted is real. All else is either a lie or figment of our imagination. As a result, the novels of the 20th century have a strictly materialistic and often-times nihilistic view of reality. There is no truth, no goodness, no beauty, according to this view, because, after all, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are all part of a worldview that directly contradicts the materialistic nihilism of modernity. Myth, on the other hand, does recognize the existence of a world beyond the sensible: an invisible, spiritual, and metaphysical world where Truth, Goodness, and Beauty can and do exist. And it is this more integral view (the view that integrates both the visible and invisible sides of reality) that Myth takes as its framework. Hence, Myth and the modern novel are not only different but one could go as far as to say that they are irreconcilably opposed.

As such, when we say that Tolkien's intention was to write a mythic story, we must understand that he was working under a drastically distinct framework from the one that the modern novel takes as its own. This realization, logically, has significant implications in the portrayal of Good and evil. Since the mythic framework acknowledges the reality of the spiritual, it also recognizes the fact that the origin of moral evil is not ambiguous but rather very concrete and defined. Moral evil originates from a disordered act of the will to not conform to the Will of God. Evil, in other words, is an act of spiritual rebellion that ultimately ends in chaos. And since the spiritual inevitably affects the material, it does not take long before this invisible evil is embodied by a visible evil.

Myth vs. Modern Novel

All of this is incomprehensible to the modern novelist. The modern novelist, in his materialistic nihilism, cannot understand that evil is spiritual rebellion because he does not acknowledge any kind of metaphysical and spiritual order at all. For him, reality is already chaotic and meaningless, so when he is confronted with manifestly evil acts, he has no way to rationally recognize them as such. Hence, all he can do is to see things in a perpetual mist of confusion where nothing is ever good or evil.

But when we hold both of these views up for scrutiny, it is evident which one makes more sense. After all, only someone who has totally lost his mind can fall into the pitfall of denying the objective reality of Good and evil. It is right there for us to see. For example, the gulags of Soviet Russia are clear manifestations of a spiritual evil that has taken over the whole political system of a nation. Likewise, on a more personal scale, the visible brokenness of addicts and criminals is clearly a symptom of a much deeper spiritual sickness in the souls of those persons. There is no ambiguity when evil is so manifest. Even the most depressed nihilist will have to admit that there is something wrong in these situations, even if he has no way of explaining why that is. Therefore, it is evidently true that the invisible, moral reality soon takes its form in the visible reality, thus proving that the mythic worldview is the right one.

This is why Tolkien chose to portray Good and evil the way he did. He knew that the spiritual realm is very much real and that its effect would soon find an echo in the material world. Hence, when we see the evil creatures of his mythology as these terrifying and disgusting beings, what we are really seeing are the repercussions of a spiritual state of cursedness, beings that are spiritually dead. On the other hand, when we see the heroes of this mythic world and notice how beautiful and noble they look, we are witnessing the effects that an orderly spiritual state has. That is the reason why Tolkien seems to be explicit in his portrayal of Good and evil.

A More Real Portrayal

And to be honest, this portrayal is ultimately much more realistic than all the gray ambiguity that the modern novel is so fond of. After all, since the spiritual realm is a reality that we ought to contend with, it is absolutely reasonable to portray Good and evil in a way that the spiritual effects on matter are starkly manifested. Therefore, when one hears critiques of Tolkien's work as being "unrealistic", we should remember that the spiritual is more real than the material, and as such, the mythic is more real than the modern.