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Joseph Campbell’s Journey

At Cabinet of Wonders, Emps has posted a great video series on the life and work of Joseph Campbell:

Joseph Campbell’s work on myth was some of the most influential ever done, not only for our understanding of the power and nature of such tales, but also because he broke the structure down to core elements, which could then be used as a template by writers and film makers – cropping up everywhere from Star Wars to The matrix (see The Writer’s Journey for both a how-to and an analysis of a number of films, including The Fully Monty – who knew?).

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth is an epic 6 hour documentary, which explores this topic through long interviews with Campbell and others (conducted over 2 years at George Lucas’ ranch). It is not just one of best documentaries on this topic, but is truly a tour de force of the medium which you’d struggle to find these days.

I don’t think I have 6 free hours in the next year, but I’ll be trying to fit as much of this in as I can!

Editor
  1. Campbell
    I was fortunate enough to study with him a few times during the early 80s, whenever he’d come through town (Chicago) to give weekend seminars at a university library on the City’s north side. The groups were fairly small at the time, so it was not hard to get him on the side and talk with him. He was full of great throwaway comments during talks or conversations, like “Hitler set out to create the Third Reich, but created the State of Israel instead.”

    Or the time he said that Bob Dylan “saved” the Bollingen Foundation (the Jungian-oriented publishing house Campbell was associated with at the time). When I asked him what he meant, he said the house was on the verge of going under at one point, when Dylan happened to mention, during an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, about his interest in the I Ching. The most prominent translation on the market at the time happened to be the Wilhelm version, published by Bollingen–and soon copies were flying off the shelves. It instantly made Bollingen a huge amount of money, and they were up and running again. Great stuff.

    -R. Grasse

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