THE RELIGIOUS HERO'S JOURNEY IN SELECTED CINEMA ____________ A Thesis Presented to the faculty of California State University Dominguez Hills ____________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of Arts in Humanities ____________ by Dale S. Hull Summer 2019 Copyright by DALE S. HULL 2019 All Rights Reserved Dedicated to my wife Kimberly and my mom Sandy. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Professor Lyle Smith for his guidance and patience, to my friend Steve Barbone for his encouragement, Matt Slater and Kimberly Sherman for their help, Fran Joselyn for getting me started, and the entire Humanities External Degree Program staff and faculty at California State University, Dominguez Hills. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE COPYRIGHT PAGE .......................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .....................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 2. THE HERO’S JOURNEY OF THE DEITY .................................................................11 3. THE HERO’S JOURNEY OF THE HEROIC MAN ....................................................27 4. THE HERO’S JOURNEY OF THE ORDINARY MAN ..............................................40 5. FILM AS CREATIVE MYTHOLOGY ........................................................................54 WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................65 v ABSTRACT Campbell’s monomyth or hero’s journey provides a template for many artists, including filmmakers. In this thesis, the hero’s journey as portrayed in seven religiously themed films is examined. It is shown that the structure of the journey is the same in both Christian and Buddhist traditions, but the special knowledge gained by the hero is derived from the film’s cultural milieu. Going beyond the stereotypical monomyth, creative mythology allows filmmakers and their audiences to generate new mythologies that help to give their lives meaning in the modern, pluralistic world. 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The theory of the monomyth, or the hero’s journey, as presented by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, attempts to show the transcultural nature of the hero’s journey across time and place. It is the claim of this author that the nature of the metaphysical knowledge acquired in the hero’s journey is dependent upon the mythological (religious) underpinnings of that culture. Campbell says, “All over the world and at different times of human history, these archetypes, or elementary ideas, have appeared in different costumes. The differences in the costumes are the results of environment and historical conditions” (Power 61). In this thesis, seven Buddhist and Christian-themed films will be analyzed using the framework of Campbell’s monomyth to illustrate the interplay between metaphysical knowledge and the creation of mythology by artists in modern culture. To begin, one could ask the question, “What is myth” The word “myth” is derived from the Greek mythos, which is defined as a word or story. Traditionally, human beings have used these myths or stories to explain the world in which they live (Leeming 3). It is often assumed by the modern mind that these myths are primitive ways of understanding the universe, and that they therefore don’t have a place in modern thinking. However, this point of view has changed as “psychologists, linguists, and anthropologists have taken us beyond an appreciation of myths as primitive literature” (Leeming 5). Instead, it is possible to view myths and the psychological meanings they convey as of utmost importance to human beings and the lives they live. Joseph Campbell says the following: 2 Mythology has been interpreted by the modern intellect as a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world of nature (Frazier); as a production of poetical fantasy from prehistoric times, misunderstood by succeeding ages (Muller); as a repository of allegorical instruction, to shape the individual to his group (Durkheim); as a group dream, symptomatic of archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche (Jung); as the traditional vehicle of man's profoundest metaphysical insights (Coomaraswamy); and as God's Revelation to His children (the Church). Mythology is all of these. The various judgments are determined by the viewpoints of the judges. (Hero 382) Myth and mythology are, therefore, infinitely flexible. Myth contains the meaning one seeks. One can embrace myth and mythology as a way to bring meaning to one's life. “Mythology shows itself to be as amenable as life itself to the obsessions and requirements of the individual, the race, the age” (Hero 382). The modern person can feel existential angst when he or she lacks a sense of connectedness. And such angst can lead to alienation and a sense of life’s meaninglessness. One way to imbue life with meaning is through interacting with myth. The understanding that a person is a part of the whole will give meaning to the lives of humans and humankind. Richard E. Hughes writes, . myth is the detector of the long, slow rhythms of human behavior that drum beneath the staccato beats of temporality. Myth sees history not as a series of isolated events, but as a continuum, a pulse that moves beneath the episodic janglings. Myth catches the constants on human actions . Mythic awareness begins with believing in what James Joyce called “the grave and constant” in life. (3) 3 Myth is the constant, while individual human lives are the variable. Modern man has lost that understanding about the constant and the individual. As Campbell argues, in order to put meaning back into people’s lives, myth needs to be understood. One way to understand myths is to use Campbell’s masterwork The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this book, Campbell uses comparative mythology to illustrate what he calls the “hero’s journey,” also called the monomyth. “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man” (Hero 30). The hero’s journey occurs when a hero ventures forth on an adventure, overcomes obstacles, and then returns to bring special knowledge to the community. According to Campbell, this journey is one underlying story, which can give our lives meaning, if we only can understand it, and according to Hughes, also understand our place in the journey. A preliminary discussion of the monomyth is presented here. Later chapters will analyze the monomyth in more detail and will show that the Eastern religion of Buddhism along with the Western religion of Christianity can both be found in films using the monomyth as the overarching story. Although there are different versions of the monomyth, Campbell divides the hero’s journey into three stages which are then divided into the seventeen sub-parts. The three main stages are: departure, initiation, and return.1 1 The monomyth has been divided into a number of different stages by different scholars. In Schechter and Semeiks Discoveries: Fifty Stories of the Quest, the hero’s journey has six parts: the Call, the Other, the Journey, Helpers and Guides, the Treasure, and Transformation. David 4 The departure begins with the hero living in the ordinary world. Through blind chance the hero is exposed to an “unexpected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood” (Hero 51). Typically, the hero refuses the call, although the hero sometimes undertakes the adventure without a refusal. Either way, the hero is helped to begin the adventure by supernatural aid, perhaps a wise man or wise woman. The hero begins the journey and crosses what Campbell calls the first threshold. Here the hero leaves the mortal realm and enters the “belly of the whale.”2 Campbell says, The idea that the passage of the magical threshold is a transit into a sphere of rebirth is symbolized in the worldwide womb image of the belly of the whale. The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died . This popular motif gives emphasis to the lesson that the passage to the threshold is a form of self-annihilation. Instead of passing outward, beyond the confines of the visible world, the hero goes inward to be born again. (Hero 90-1) The hero has now moved beyond the ordinary world and entered what Campbell calls the initiation. Adams Leeming, in his 1988 book Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero, divides the journey into eight stages. Phil Cousineau also divides the hero’s journey into eight stages in his book, The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on his Life and Work. Finally, Christopher Vogel uses the stages as a way to write screen plays. His book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriter, divides