Oliver Stone's America: dreaming The Myth Outward

Humor & Entertainment

MacKey-Kallis, Susan

Kallis, Susan Mackey

Movies

Routledge

In contemporary America, myths find expression primarily in film. What's more, many of the highest-grossing American movies of the past several decades have been rooted in one of the most fundamental mythic narratives, the hero quest. Why is the hero quest so persistently renewed and retold? In what ways does this universal myth manifest itself in American cinema? And what is the significance of the popularity of these modern myths?
The Hero and the Perennial Journey Home in American Film by Susan Mackey-Kallis is an exploration of the appeal of films that recreate and reinterpret this mythic structure. She closely analyzes such films as E.T., the Star Wars trilogy, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, The Lion King, Field of Dreams, The Piano, Thelma and Louise, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Elements of the quest mythology made popular by Joseph Campbell, Homer's Odyssey, the perennial philosophy of Aldous Huxley, and Jungian psychology all contribute to the compelling interpretive framework in which Mackey-Kallis crafts her study. She argues that the purpose of the hero quest is not limited to the discovery of some boon or Holy Grail, but also involves finding oneself and finding a home in the universe. 
The home that is sought is simultaneously the literal home from which the hero sets out and the terminus of the personal growth he or she undergoes during the journey back. Thus the quest, Mackey-Kallis asserts, is an outward journey into the world of action and events which eventually requires a journey inward if the hero is to grow, and ultimately necessitates a journey homeward if the hero is to understand the grail and share it with the culture at large. Finally, she examines the value of mythic criticism and addresses questions about myth currently being debated in the field of communication studies.

The Hero and the Perennial Journey Home in American Film

University of Pennsylvania Press

In contemporary America, myths find expression primarily in film. What's more, many of the highest-grossing American movies of the past several decades have been rooted in one of the most fundamental mythic narratives, the hero quest. Why is the hero quest so persistently renewed and retold? In what ways does this universal myth manifest itself in American cinema? And what is the significance of the popularity of these modern myths?
The Hero and the Perennial Journey Home in American Film by Susan Mackey-Kallis is an exploration of the appeal of films that recreate and reinterpret this mythic structure. She closely analyzes such films as E.T., the Star Wars trilogy, It's a Wonderful Life, The Wizard of Oz, The Lion King, Field of Dreams, The Piano, Thelma and Louise, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Elements of the quest mythology made popular by Joseph Campbell, Homer's Odyssey, the perennial philosophy of Aldous Huxley, and Jungian psychology all contribute to the compelling interpretive framework in which Mackey-Kallis crafts her study. She argues that the purpose of the hero quest is not limited to the discovery of some boon or Holy Grail, but also involves finding oneself and finding a home in the universe. 
The home that is sought is simultaneously the literal home from which the hero sets out and the terminus of the personal growth he or she undergoes during the journey back. Thus the quest, Mackey-Kallis asserts, is an outward journey into the world of action and events which eventually requires a journey inward if the hero is to grow, and ultimately necessitates a journey homeward if the hero is to understand the grail and share it with the culture at large. Finally, she examines the value of mythic criticism and addresses questions about myth currently being debated in the field of communication studies.

Critiques Stone's films, discussing mythmaking in a postmodern world, self-portraits of the tortured artist-visionary, and the Vietnam nightmare

Oliver Stone's America: dreaming The Myth Outward (Film Studies)

Westview Press

Oliver Stone is one of America's most controversial film-makers. His films include "J.F.K.", "The Doors", "Natural Born Killers" and "Nixon". This book provides a rhetorical analysis of Stone's major films and examines American history through his powerful, partisan and controversial visions. It places him within the tradition of American film-making, revealing his use of mythological and rhetorical constructions to represent historical events and personae.

Oliver Stone's America: Dreaming the Myth Outward (Film Studies Series)

Westview Pr

U2’s ongoing popular appeal is constructed in the spaces between band and fan, commercialism and community, spirituality and nihilism; finding meaning in a surface-oriented popular culture and contradiction in the depths of political and faith-based institutions. The band’s long-term success and continued relevance is a result of their ability to hold these energies in tension without one subsuming the other—to live in the liminal space that such contradictions invite. U2’s mythic trajectory was born from a bygone electronic era, realized in our current digital era but with an eye on the forthcoming virtual era; it is a new myth for the whole world, found in the most unlikely of places, popular culture. This book approaches the band’s mythic trajectory through a combination of rhetorical analysis and autoethnographic explorations that unveil the more personal experiences most of us have with media. Drawing heavily upon the works of Marshal McLuhan, Joseph Campbell, Thomas S. Frentz, and Janice Hocker Rushing, Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2 unpacks U2’s popular appeal through the lenses of Agape (spiritual, communal love), Amor (romantic love), and Eros (erotic love). Check out the book's official website for additional information: https://bjohnston3k.wixsite.com/u2mythos

Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2: A Love Story (Communication Perspectives in Popular Culture)

Arts & Photography

Johnston, Brian

Music

Lexington Books

U2’s ongoing popular appeal is constructed in the spaces between band and fan, commercialism and community, spirituality and nihilism; finding meaning in a surface-oriented popular culture and contradiction in the depths of political and faith-based institutions. The band’s long-term success and continued relevance is a result of their ability to hold these energies in tension without one subsuming the other―to live in the liminal space that such contradictions invite. U2’s mythic trajectory was born from a bygone electronic era, realized in our current digital era but with an eye on the forthcoming virtual era; it is a new myth for the whole world, found in the most unlikely of places, popular culture. This book approaches the band’s mythic trajectory through a combination of rhetorical analysis and autoethnographic explorations that unveil the more personal experiences most of us have with media. Drawing heavily upon the works of Marshal McLuhan, Joseph Campbell, Thomas S. Frentz, and Janice Hocker Rushing, Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2 unpacks U2’s popular appeal through the lenses of Agape (spiritual, communal love), Amor (romantic love), and Eros (erotic love).\nCheck out the book's official website for additional information: https//:www.u2mythos.com

Drawing on texts and theorists of Greek myth, psychoanalysis, and masculinities, Susan Mackey-Kallis and Brian Johnston develop and offer a model of rhetorical and mythic criticism to analyze popular American film. In this book, Mackey-Kallis and Johnston focus their analysis on films that point to the need for father atonement, ego-decentering, and the resurrection of the lost feminine to heal our collective gendered cultural wounds. Many of these "mystic" films, they contend, affirm the role of meaningful suffering, compassion, integration of the feminine, self-sacrifice, and transcendence as antidotes to the inevitable woundedness of the human condition. Ultimately, the authors argue for the importance of digging into the substance of cultural wounds - rather than superficially suturing them over - to change the conversation about woundedness and provide a roadmap for healing gendered relations in contemporary American culture. The book concludes with a discussion of Joseph Campbell's interpretation of the metaphorical power of myth and its transcendent function to argue for a theory of "us", rather than a theory of "us versus them." Scholars of film, gender studies, American studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and psychology will find this book of particular interest.

Wounded Masculinity and the Search for (Father) Self in American Film

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Books by MacKey-Kallis, Susan

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Oliver Stone's America: dreaming The Myth Outward

Oliver Stone's America: dreaming The Myth Outward

The Hero and the Perennial Journey Home in American Film

The Hero and the Perennial Journey Home in American Film

Oliver Stone's America: dreaming The Myth Outward (Film Studies)

Oliver Stone's America: Dreaming the Myth Outward (Film Studies Series)

Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2: A Love Story (Communication Perspectives in Popular Culture)

Myth, Fan Culture, and the Popular Appeal of Liminality in the Music of U2: A Love Story (Communication Perspectives in Popular Culture)

Wounded Masculinity and the Search for (Father) Self in American Film