Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
March 30, 2014 at 11:09 pm #357Erica GeorgeParticipant
Created several years after the dissolution of the Hays Code, Witness reads as a commentary on the increasingly violent and sexual state of film. The film is set in two drastically different communities: the peaceful, pious country of the Amish and the violent, abrasive city of modern America. As such, the Amish perspective in the film works as a representative of the censored, generally tame films of the Hays Code period while the city perspective acts as a stand-in for the almost insensitively aggressive films of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Following Book, the film’s hero and delegate for the average American citizen, as he attempts to reconcile his own true nature through his ill-fitting placement in each radical world, Witness suggests that neither the films of the Hays period nor the violent films that responded to them provide a landscape that modern American audiences can use to understand the world and themselves.
Considering the connections between the film’s settings and the two drastically different periods in film history, I would argue that Witness is Peter Weir’s call for a new era of realistic and healthy representations of the world in film. Like fairy tales, film provides narrative lessons that audiences can use to interpret the world in which they live and how they should behave within that world. Unfortunately, the two major periods of film that Weir’s audience would recognize do not illustrate the world as it truly is or as it should be and, as such, offer no healthy, navigable space for audience members to map onto. As Book drives away from the Amish farm and the violent stand-off that has taken place there, he seems to be moving away from both the unrealistic standards of the Amish and the dangerously overt violence of the city, urging audience members and the film industry to follow their protagonist as he moves toward a prospective future of realistic heroism.February 16, 2014 at 7:47 pm #240Erica GeorgeParticipantI agree that we as viewers tend to sympathize with Edward’s son as he dismisses the validity of his father’s stories. I would argue, however, that this connection to Will is both an intentional and successful tactic used by the writers and director of Big Fish to call attention to what Campbell would say is evidence of our modern cynicism. In doing so, Big Fish displays the conflict between Campbell’s view of heroes and mythologies as a lost reality of our generation and the skeptical ideologies that Campbell claims modern society has adopted, presenting the struggle through a father-son relationship.
On one end of the conflict, we have Will. In many ways, Will is the modern American hero. He is a level-headed, successful husband and soon-to-be father who has strong moral character but appeals to reason. His resentment toward fantasy and his draw to logic leads to our connection with him as a modern audience. As the audience automatically connects with Will’s modern sensibility and accepts his status as the protagonist, we are introduced to his father.
Edward Bloom, a man who spends his last days actually reading a copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, acts as Will’s foil in many ways as he refuses to give in to his son’s quest for “the truth.” Instead, Edward stubbornly claims that the story of his life is nothing short of a fairytale that fits Campbell’s narrative outline perfectly. As Courtney asserted in her post, Edward has complete control over his narrative, allowing him to adapt his life story as he sees fit, leading both Will and the viewers to argue that Edward’s stories are all fiction, lies. As a result, tension grows between Will and the modern audience that he represents and Edward and his loyalty to the hero’s tale.
Through the growing conflict between Edward and Will, the directors and writers of Big Fish call attention to our skepticism. As a modern audience, we automatically connect with Will’s logical nature and accept his perception of fairytales and his father’s tales as our own. Like Will, we have grown to see myths as symbolic stories that simply guide our understanding of the “real” world. We watch and listen to Edward’s tales of Karl the giant and of the old witch in the swamp and then go on to pick apart the stories to find the truth, the hidden message. In essence, we dismiss the possibility of the stories being true, revealing what Campbell would say is our critical inclinations as a modern culture. In this call to self-reflection, the director asks us to address and overcome our cynical tendencies in order to revive the world of the hero.
Having struggled through the conflict between Will and Edward through Will’s perspective, we are at last called to sympathize with Edward as his last wish. As Will orates the final chapter of his father’s life story, he is not only fabricating a tall tale; he is narrating an alternate reality for how his father leaves the world. In developing and seeing the world into which is father has lived his whole life and finally passes into, Will accepts the call to his own adventure, and the last words of his father’s story become the catalyst for his own hero’s journey. As Will begins this journey, we, his ever-faithful companions, are presented with the very real opportunity to recreate the world of mythology and heroes. In the end, Big Fish is our call to adventure, beckoning us to embrace the possibilities and begin our quest. -
AuthorPosts