The Hero and the Perennial Journey Home in American Film

268 Pages·2001·2.55 MB·English

by  Susan Mackey-Kallis

The Hero and the Perennial Journey Home
in American Film
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The Hero and the
Perennial Journey
Home in American Film
SUSAN MACKEY-KALLIS
PENN
Universityof Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia
Copyright©2001UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Publishedby
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104–4011
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Mackey-Kallis,Susan.
TheheroandtheperennialjourneyhomeinAmericanfilm/
SusanMackey-Kallis.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-8122-3606-8(cloth:alk.paper)—
ISBN0-8122-1768-3(pbk.:alk.paper)
1.Homeinmotionpictures. 2.Heroesinmotionpictures.
3.Mythinmotionpictures. I.Title.
PN1995.9.H54M33 2001
791.43'652—dc21 00-069950
To Janice Rushing and Thomas Frentz, whose scholarship in the area of
mythiccriticismoffilmhasmademinepossible,andtomychildren,William
andAlexander,andtomyhusband,KyriakosKallis
Theproblemisnothingifnotthatofrenderingthemodernworldspiritually
significant—orrather...nothingifnotthatofmakingitpossibleformenand
womentocometofullhumanmaturitythroughtheconditionsofcontempo-
rarylife.—JosephCampbell,TheHerowithaThousandFaces,p.388
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Contents
1. Introduction 1
PARTI:MythologicalCriticism
2. ThePerennialJourneyHome 13
3. ReframingHomer’sOdyssey 34
4. TheSacredMarriageQuestinAmericanFilm 45
5. TheFatherQuestinAmericanFilm 91
PARTII:MythologicalCriticisminSociohistoricalContext
6. TheSearchforHomeDuringthe1930s 125
7. ModernChallengesintheHomeQuest:ReconcilingScience
andTechnologywithHumanityandSpirit 161
PARTIII:Synthesis
8. TheStarWarsTrilogy 202
9. Myth,theContemporaryMoment,andtheFuture 228
Notes 239
Index 255
Acknowledgments 261
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1
Introduction
Manyofthetop-grossingfilmsintheAmericancinemahave
beenbased,howeverloosely,ontheheroquest.Suchaquest
doesnotinvolvesimplythehero’sdiscoveryofsomeboonor
HolyGrail,however;italsoinvolvesfindinghim-orherself,
whichultimatelymeansfindingahomeintheuniverse.Home
isoftentheliteralhomefromwhichtheherosetsout,butmore
significantly,itisastateofmindorawayofseeingnotpossible
beforetheherodeparts.Thehero’sjourney,inJosephCamp-
bell’swords,‘‘isalabornotofattainmentbutofreattainment,
not discovery but rediscovery. The godly powers sought and
dangerouslywonarerevealedtohavebeenwithintheheartof
1
theheroallthetime.’’ Thehero’squest,then,isadoublequest
thatoftenrequiresajourneyhomenotonlytotheplacefrom
whencetheherodepartedbuttoastateofbeingorconscious-
nessthatwaswithinthehero’sheartallalong.Toputitsimply,
thehero’sjourneyoutwardintotheworldofactionandevents
eventuallyrequiresajourneyinward—iftheheroistogrow—
and ultimately necessitates a journey homeward—if the hero
istounderstandhisorhergrailorboonandistoshareitwith
thecultureatlarge.Thisbookisanattempttotracethestory
of this quest and its various permutations as it has been told
andretoldagainandagaininsomeofthemostpopularfilms
incontemporaryAmericancinema.
Someofthefilmsdiscussedinthisbooktracethecircu-
larpathtakenbyprotagonistsastheyjourneyfromhomeand
back.ThemostobviousexamplesareDorothyinTheWizard
of Oz, E.T. in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Roy Hobbs in The
Natural,RayKinsellainFieldofDreams,ScarlettO’Harain
GonewiththeWind,andSimbainTheLionKing.Otherfilms
take their protagonists to a transcendent home, a home often
not of this world, but a home, nevertheless, for which they
havebeensearchingandtowhichtheyhavebeenmovingall