A Few Good Movies.

I haven't blogged at all for a while. Perhaps it has been a lack of content (which is nonsense) or a lack of will (which is far more truthful), but I would most likely chalk it up to the reality that I will be getting married before the week is out. (Or, since the wedding is on a Sunday, "at the beginning of next week" would be more appropriate.)

On a similar line of thought, I am writing this blog-post on WordPad, because my new house does not have WiFi, nor does my budget afford it quite yet. Hopefully before the summer is out, I will have rectified this problem. Until then, I will most likely use the format of writing blog-posts away from Blogger, come to McDonald's or St. Louis Bread Co. or IHOP, snag some WiFi at the cost of a coffee, and format and post. It is important for you (my readers) to know this; it naturally implies some time-dilation between the writing of a post and the posting of a post.

(For instance! I just mentioned that I will be getting married at the start of next week. But say that I don't finish writing this post by Friday, or that I do and I don't have the Internet-access necessary to post it, this post, complete with its statement about my wedding this Sunday, will likely be posted following the wedding, and, thus, have some natural anachronism to it.)

That behind us, I wanted to note two very distinct movies that I have seen recently. Miss Hannah (my fiance, soon to be my wife!) recently introduced me to two fine examples of brilliant cinema art: 3:10 to Yuma (the new one) and Chocolat. Not only are they brilliant movies, but they are great examples of mythopoetic thought, as I'll share in a moment.

3:10 to Yuma

I would claim (and John Eldredge claims with me) that the Western is perhaps one of the most phenomenal genres for writing American Myth. I've mentioned modern Westerns in this blog before -- such as Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. There's something about "the West," guns and blood that opens up the world of mythopoetic beauty.

Oftentimes, like it is in the newest iteration of 3:10 to Yuma, it is the story of Manhood. In it, a Civil War veteran rancher, Dan Evans, (played masterfully by Christian Bale) makes a pledge to himself to catch and bring in Ben Wade, the notorious criminal mastermind (played just as masterfully by Russell Crowe). The Myth of this movie is convoluted: Ben Wade is Enemy to Evans, but he is also Rival, and, most powerfully, Sage. He consults the Bible and the Book of Proverbs. He makes sketches of nature, and one of Evans holding his shotgun. It is clear that he has a deep appreciation for the rancher and for his family.
The story is one of Evans' quest for a True Manhood. Early in the movie his manhood is questioned by, of all people, his son, when he doesn't fight off men who come to burn his barns. Evans' son sees the dangerous Ben Wade as a more valiant father-figure. Dan Evans is the classic emasculated man: he wants his son to think him a war-hero; but he was given his peg-leg from a stray cannon, and he was given money so he'd walk away.

The hero's journey is from the place of walking away to the point of walking onward. At first, Ben Wade is an unintentional help for Evans in his journey; but at the end of the tale, he becomes the fundamental instigator for his Honor.

There's a strange sense of joy on Evans' son's face at the end of the movie when he holds his dying father. He is proud that his father is a hero -- even though the whole chase seems fairly meaningless by the end.
I find it immeasurably powerful, however. That sense of Honor that a Father has, that a Father gives his Son, that a Son inherits from his Father... When I discovered the joy of running, it gave me a deep sense of Honor and Pleasure knowing that I was carrying on a legacy from my father. Even though Evans dies, in a sense, he brings something more back to his son. In that sense, the story is a perfect Campbellian hero story, almost straight out of the pages of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Chocolat

Obviously, Chocolat is a wholly different sort of movie altogether. It is a little intrepid film concerning a French village with a religious Catholic community ruled by the horribly-controlling Count.

The stage is set perfectly for Myth, however, as the story opens with "Once upon a time..." and the North Wind blows. Vianne and her daughter, Anouk, come into the town in red riding cloaks in order to set up their confectionery... in the midst of the Catholic season of Lent.

The movie is quite endearing as we see a host of character's lives transformed by the forbidden chocolate... and then, of course, confessing their horrid sins of confectionery lust to the parish priest!

There seem to be two or three major Myths underlying the whole story: one if the North Wind of Vianne's mother; the next is the power of chocolate; and, finally, most importantly, the story of Woman (which makes the movie a nice contrast to 3:10 to Yuma and its Man-narrative).

Of course, chocolate is the way to a woman's heart, and it seems to be that every woman in the story who comes into contact with the chocolate is transformed. There's the wife whose husband needs more passion, the widow who has been mourning since the end of the World War I, the mother who is estranged from both son and grandmother following her husband's death, and that grandmother who is sick with (of all things!) diabetes and who feels the pain, more fundamentally, of her daughter's distance. And, of course, there's Josephine, who becomes Vianne's aide after she leaves her abusive husband.

Each of these women are facing some sort of direct conflict; and the answer to each of their conflicts is chocolate.

Best yet is Vianne's profound ability to read people's preferred chocolate. I would say that this translates to the power of discernment in Myth -- sort of like how Meg is a Namer in The Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle. Vianne has the ability to peer, in a sense, into another's soul and discover their need and their identity.


I won't go much further in my explication of Chocolat mainly because I have already written a lot here. But I would like to make a side-note on the interesting ways that stories of the Man and stories of the Woman differ. In 3:10 to Yuma, there's a lot of Evans gaining honor and doing brave actions to earn his son's heart. In Chocolat, Vianne is certainly honorable and brave, but it is in her compassion that she turns the hearts of the town.

One of the most intriguing characters in Chocolat is the Count himself, whose wound is that his wife has left him, and he dare not tell anyone. He is the only prominent male character to have some sort of redemption in the movie -- and substantively, it is through his recognition of lack and need, which occurs, of course, over chocolate. Actually, to be more frank, over a chocolate nude statue of a woman.

I love good movies, and I always appreciate sharing them with you. I hope to blog more following my honeymoon, so keep your eyes posted!