Movies, Myth & The Hero with a Thousand Faces

In this new series, The Power of Film, Robert Breedlove and I inspect the architecture of storytelling through the prism of modern film.
Robert is the host of the What is Money Show. As a financial adviser, Bitcoin educator and student of Austrian economics, his interests are in the relationship between human action and value. The Power of Film explores this relationship and this first episode looks at the Hero in cinema, exploring the timeless narratives of two iconic film franchises - "The Matrix" and "Star Wars" - through the profound lens of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth
See more of the What is Money Show: ‪@RobertBreedlove22‬
#josephcampbell #monomyth #matrix #mythology #movie #filmanalysis #videoessay #starwars

[@FamiliarEvils]

This video deserves a hundred times the views it's received

[@donnypresley5521]

thank you mike for keeping the spirit of Joe Campbell alive!!!

[@gabocavallaro]

This video and edit is so great! Golden content,! I would love to see more!

[@catdevereux1274]

Gives great meaning to the concept that "You create your own reality" if you just follow the White Rabbit (Synchronicities)

[@vlandanlaurusaitis639]

Chefs kiss on the finish. Just beautiful

[@Kwistoweeish]

Masterful analysis with brilliant editing to tie everything together! Thank you so much for this!

[@Anamnesis]

Missed you, Mike. These conversations of yours are so few and far between! When do we get to see your film analysis of Jim Cameron's Aliens and Avatar? ☺

[@mikehilldesignstudio]

Aliens is something I'd like to do - this episode was a prototype, but planning more

[@donsan6404]

@@mikehilldesignstudioi think lawrence of arabia or lord of the rings is a better choice, don't u say?

[@mikehilldesignstudio]

@@donsan6404 both have exceptional qualities

[@josh_from_xboxlive]

At first glance, this seems like a standard summary of Campbell, but this video is tightly woven with your own insight and observation. Amazing editing. Great video, as always Mike. Please keep uploading!

[@RodrigoGoncalves-ri5qk]

Thank you Mike!!!

[@joe957]

MIKE! I love your videos, your talks, designs, insights, great stuff all around. Thanks for your conent. 🤓😎

[@RodriguezTimothy]

Loved this episode!! thanks a lot for sharing Mike

[@RossDixonTeaching]

What a beautiful work. Thanks.

[@placidosalazar3428]

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@Dinkymod]

Great to see some new content from you, Mike. Been missing your stuff!

[@Incredible_Mister_J]

Love the video Mike. I look forward to more from you.

[@StefanNitzsche]

And the first tones of the “your father was a Jedi” theme from Episode IV 👏🏼

[@mikehilldesignstudio]

Change of pace - not original themes, but hopefully a good intro to Campbell :)

[@StefanNitzsche]

@@mikehilldesignstudio A perfect one!

[@snakedogman]

Modern Hollywood writers think they can just improvise their own story and character structures ("subverting expectations") and then are surprised when audiences don't connect in the same way.

[@HaploidCell]

This is a good Campbell essay and I like it. Props on the make also, the video-craft is strong in this one. Having the movie clips play a little longer while you already start talking was a bit confusing to me, but that a nice style choice. I am sure there would be a ton of people complaining if you did it otherwise, as well. I would have loved to make something like this in college, but my professors all discouraged it. Or they said something like "of course you could do it. you could even do something unique, analyse something through campbell nobody has analysed before." But they were always hesitant and in the end recommended something else. And I didnt understand that until I watched a video about this by Lindsay Ellis, I think? Which was critical of campbell and the hero's journey. She explained that you cannot do comparative mythology on that scale without stripping the context of that culture out of those stories. So, thus, you're always going to find what you were looking for. An example would be if campbell asked "hey, this hero is just jesus with another face". Even if he got a "yes" to that, we still couldn't be sure his theory would be correct. He just sees, like "asian jesus hero type" in the story. But what if that culture told those kinds of stories for a different reason? Like, what if some other culture just tells that kind of story to teach us about something. Like, they have a thousand stories with the same basic setup and they use a version of the hero's journey for that. But, with context, we would understand that the hero and villain are pretty much unimportant. They only transport a lesson, like what mistake the hero is successfull in avoiding, or what the villain fails to account for. Or how about this: Campbell himself talks about the myth of St. George slaying the dragon. The interesting thing here is that this myth changed several times over the centuries. Campbell would "acquire" this myth by stipping out most of the context, and break it down to its fundamental aspects: A village in danger, a princess in distress, hero rides in, hero slays dragon, hero is celebrated by community. The story changed a bunch over time though. For example, in some versions he fights a "lindworm" which is a wingless lizard-looking dragon, in some versions he fights a flying dragon, sometimes he uses a lance, a spear, or a sword. Specifically the ending has changed. In earlier versions, St. George was a true saint and never accepted any rewards. This exemplified his noble motives. But in later ones he married the princess, became king, and gave away the dragon's hoard of gold amongst the people. Or he married the princess and kept the gold. Or there was no gold. These are all versions of the same story, but if you dropped by and took a snapshot of a culture like Campbell you might get any one of these and draw different conclusions. And even if you keep reading and try to take this context into account, which Campbell didn't, you *definitely* are not doing any "comparative" mythology when your approach is "this is a version of Hercules, this is another version of Jesus, these are all gods of the underworld like Hades" etc. What you're doing is breaking down foreign myths until they fit your narrative of a Western-centric mythos and replacing their culture and and history with your assumptions. Campbell is a great analytical tool - but for Western cultural mythos only. And I would say that, given that movies originated in the West and Hollywood has been hugely influential, movies are either the poorest or best place to use Campbell. And here it is important to point out that the heroes journey is designed to be correct, so you can easily fit anything in it. If some parts of a story don't fit, just chalk it up to "cultural context" and continue breaking off pieces until it fits. The hero's journey can only recognize itself in others and it can only replicate itself. This has become super-apparent when you've kept up with superhero movies over the past two decades. They all try to do a George Lucas and every single one has basically the same narrative structure. Sorry, Marvel. Thank you for reading. Man I realy would have loved to do an essay like this in college. Imma go watch the matrix now, I think, it's been a while. Thanks guys.

[@gavinfeng127]

welcome back, mike

[@migaeldannhauser]

Let's go 🙌

[@StefanNitzsche]

Yay!

[@bold810]

Wow. I had that book when I was a teenager. I wish I had never lent it to Gilgamesh #OhThatGilgamesh! 😊

[@mitter1997]

thz for yr great works. keep it up❤

[@thenellierose]

I clicked so fast!

[@MrJamesC]

The problem with the monomyth is that there are so many symbolic patterns in the world and in storytelling that people tend to forget. They always just think of this overarching structure as archetypal.

[@LukeTramps]

Algofood.

[@bobumbrella]

subtitles pleaZe

[@null0286]

I wanted to know, what are the dimensions of the Raven Dropship’s cargo/passenger bay in Infinite Warfare in Length Width and Height? kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJiVqKaNh5aDhdEm kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJiVqKaNh5aDhdEm15s

[@nicellisbrown]

It's a pity you went down the conspiracy right-wing rabbit hole... hope you left that proverbial matrix of illusions, yourself lol

[@mikehilldesignstudio]

you sound vaccinated

[@nicellisbrown]

@@mikehilldesignstudio LMAOOOO yea dude i'm a little sheep and you the big strong lion... careful the communist WEF will get ya!!

[@Anamnesis]

Funny you use the metaphor of him escaping the matrix, tacitly implying that you're still in it. Have you tried serving your blue pills in a bowl of soy milk? 🤡

[@mikehilldesignstudio]

@@nicellisbrown Time for a booster

[@3DSgeek]

What's the problem with questioning things? Why are you people so scared to have a discussion?