Myth & the Movies: Discovering the Myth Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films

Riffing off ideas articulated in Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey, Myth and the Movies serves both as a sequel to that book and a series of examples attempting to demonstrate its validity. In his book, Vogler, borrowing ideas from Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, argues that every story follows certain patterns--which he collectively characterizes as a mythic "hero's journey." In Myth and the Movies, Voytilla breaks this journey up into stages, using 50 famous films to illustrate the universality of Vogler's method. During the course of the book, he unpacks the mythic structure of horror, war, drama, romance, comedy, science fiction, action-adventure, the western, and the thriller, drawing on films as diverse as Seven Samurai, The Silence of the Lambs, Annie Hall, and Boyz N the Hood. His charts, maps, and consideration of various archetypal characters ("the shadow," "the trickster," "the herald," "the shapeshifter") and narrative devices ("the elixir," "the adventure," "the threshold," "the road back") provide a clear picture of how Campbell's archetypes can be used for film analysis. And who knows? Perhaps as you follow Voytilla's descriptions, you will be inspired to create some myths of your own. --Raphael Shargel

• The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition
• Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell)
• Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting
• The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives
• Memo from the Story Department: Secrets of Structure and Character
• The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller
• Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure (Helping Writers Become Authors) (Volume 7)
• The Artist's Journey: The Wake of the Hero's Journey and the Lifelong Pursuit of Meaning
• Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen