Musings on Culture

I am currently reading”The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, by Joseph Campbell. I had already read at uni other studies in comparative mythology and folk tales that I strongly recommend, such as “The Golden Bough”, by Scottish anthropologist Sir James G.Frazer, “Morphology of the Folktale” by Russian professor Vladimir Propp, and “La semilla inmortal: los argumentos inmortales en el cine”, by Xavier Pérez and Jordi Balló (the latter is the director of the Master Program in Creative Documentary-Pompeu Fabra University I did in Barcelona), and found the subject fascinating, and very useful to anybody interested in cinema or any other form of storytelling.

Campbell explores the theory that all stories are expressions of the same fundamental structure, which he named “the Hero’s Journey”, or the “monomyth”, and describes the stages along this journey.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but was very pleased to read this morning on Raindance newsletter a post about “the Hero’s Journey”, written by Christopher Vogler. Vogler is a Hollywood development executive best know for his guide for screenwriters, “The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers”, based on Campbell’s book. He is giving a Writer’s Journey Master Class in September (11/12 Sept.2010).

Read Vogler’s practical guide to “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” HERE.

OTHER INTERESTING LINKS:

Joseph Campbell Foundation

Chris Vogler’s Writer’s Journey Blog