Usless Science Forum
Image and Symbol => Film => Topic started by: Matt Koeske on March 14, 2007, 01:22:30 PM
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Please nominate and tell us about some of the films you have found most "Jungian".
Of course, we all might define "Jungian" in this context differently. What makes a film "Jungian" to you?
For me, a "Jungian" film not only portrays a distinctly archetypal story, but portrays one that follows the individuation process (transformation of consciousness). They tend to be very symbolic and maybe dreamlike, fairytale-like, or surreal (as these forms of expression tend to rely on the most purely archetypal foundations).
Of course, there are many films that have archetypes in them (or in which we can recognize archetypes) . . . but not all that many that portray the archetypal process of individuation.
Here are three nominations off the top of my head. They all have in common a female ego-character . . . which is to say, they can be seen as animus stories. One, I'm sure you're familiar with. Another is a more recent film that has a very complex shadow/coniunctio theme. The last is one I'm willing to bet many of you haven't set your Jungian spyglasses on (but probably saw).
Labyrinth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_%28film%29): 1986 film directed by Jim Henson and starring a young Jennifer Connelly as the heroine, Sarah Williams. A fairytale about the adolescent awakenings of sexuality, selfhood, and responsibility. A "kid's movie", but one with an archetypal theme that ends in a, shall we say, valuation of the New Birth. Hardly an issue for kids only. We should never underestimate the psychic importance of adolescent themes (even when we like to sit back and stroke our mid-life, Jungian senex personae and feel wise in our ways (-)pont(-)). What is a midlife crisis if not a second attempt to solve the mysteries of adolescence?
Here's a link to a page that talks about the psychological symbolism of the movie (I haven't read this yet).
V for Vendetta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_%28film%29): 2006 dystopian terrorism thriller directed by James McTeigue and starring Natalie Portman as heroine, Evey Hammond. The film is based on the graphic novel of the same name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_vendetta) written and drawn by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, respectively, and published in installments from 1982-1988. A very complex portrayal of the shadow-animus/ego relationship with many rich layers of symbolism that scores extra points in my book for being honest about how much shadow work/integration is involved in the individuation process. Guy Fawkes masked V (played by never seen Hugo Weaving) is no Prince Charming. Probably the best-developed animus figure I've seen in a film, ever.
Highly recommended to anyone interested in understanding the animus better. Check out this movie and Leonard Cohen's corpus and you will learn more about the animus than you could from any Jungian psychology book.
The English Patient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_English_Patient_%28film%29): My pick for the "most sophisticatedly Jungian text to address modern consciousness". The film was directed by Anthony Minghella and released in 1996. Billed as a romantic but tragic love story, the film turns the attention of the viewer away somewhat from the archetypal fabric of the book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Patient), written by Michael Ondaatje in 1992. Yes, the book is far richer . . . and makes clear that the tragic love affair between the English Patient, László de Almásy, and the "happily married" anima-woman, Katherine Clifton is really only the "ancient history" (you'll get the pun if you've read the book) that facilitates the individuation transformation of traumatized war nurse, Hana. But the film subtly hits the visual symbolism that (in its original poetic form) also held the book together.
Also worth noting (in regard to the symbolism in the film) is that Anthony Minghella oversaw the script writing of all of Jim Henson's Storyteller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Storyteller) series (recently mentioned here on another thread) . . . so perhaps he has a keener eye for archetypal symbolism than many of us who watched his film of The English Patient.
Although Hana is the protagonist here, I believe the book is mostly a meditation on archetypal masculinity . . . as channeled through the many faces of the animus. Hands down, this is the most complex "Jungian" novel . . . which may have something to do with why Jungian writers have not really delved into it.
Yes, I wrote a thesis on this book, so yes, you will hear me blowing the horn for it again and again (-)horn(-). I hope we will be able to have an in-depth discussion about it here someday.
There is also a symbolic thread in the book that delves into the nature of patriarchal consciousness . . . by placing the four key Judeo-Christian players of Genesis (God, Satan, Adam, and Eve) back into a new kind of war-torn, modernist Eden.
It's worth noting that all three of these creations were brought to life largely or entirely by men. Perhaps men have a lot more to say about the animus than they've been led to believe. I fear that the animus in general has been a fairly squandered concept in the Jungian mindset. What an enormous loss this has been to women seeking answers through Jungian ideas.
If anyone would like to talk about these or any other films, please feel free to start a new thread here in the film section. And please, also post your nominations for "most Jungian films" here.
-Matt
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Well, I’ll add 3 movies which I see as being Jungian:
The first is A Passage to India.
Two women, Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore, travel from England to India, where they encounter a British society that has walled itself off from India and Indian culture to avoid facing its unconscious projections. The movie is rich in unconscious symbolism. The water, the night, the moon, the elephants, even the country itself, is beautifully portrayed, one could even say emphasized, by the movie’s director, David Lean, as if he understood their symbolic relevance. Especially important are the Marabar Caves, where the two women face their own unconscious material: Adela, her sexuality, and Mrs. Moore, her pending death.
Next would be the 1980 film The Earthling.
It’s about a child, Shawn Daley, who finds himself in a desperate situation due to the sudden and tragic death of his parents in the Australian Outback. But a Wise Old Man figure, Patrick Foley, appears and teaches young Shawn to survive in the unconscious. Together they journey to the place of Foley’s up-bringing, the Self. It’s a place far away from civilization. It’s a place of nourishment and renewal. Here Shawn takes responsibility for his own survival, and the Wise Old Man fades away.
And finally Out of Africa.
I say this film because of the puer aspect shown by Robert Redford’s character, Denys Finch Hatton. He appears to be deeply connected to the land and nature, in other words, to the chthonic Great Mother. So much so, in fact, that his reaction to the adult world, with its civilized rules of behavior, is exceptionally adverse. And, according to M-L von Franz, he, like many puers, is devoured in an airplane crash.
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V for Vendetta rocked, I loved that movie. Thinking on that, I own it.. I never buy movies...
R, I never thought about Out of Africa in terms of symbolism. I've always loved that movie (much different from Karen Blixen's book btw, I don't know if you've read it or not... Denys was suspected to be in the closet...) I actually prefer the changes in the film that create more of a tragic fairy tale of it, now that you mention it. I must have seen it 25 times in my life, but next time I'll look at it with different eyes. Especially Karen's journey to find Bror.
There is a film called "The Luzhin Defense," that I would add here.
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Can I add the obvious one?
Jim Henson's: The Dark Crystal.
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Can I add the obvious one?
Jim Henson's: The Dark Crystal.
I just bought the Jim Henson trilogy on DVD: Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, and Mirrormask. Good stuff. Mirrormask would also qualify . . . although my recollection is that there is a distinct Freudian dimension as well. Haven't had the chance to re-watch it yet.
Another obvious one is the original Star Wars trilogy.
I haven't seen it in a long time, but Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King is another one.
I'm determined to some day write up an analysis/interpretation of the Coen brothers' absurdist homage to Raymond Chandler, The Big Lebowski (perhaps titling it "The Dude Individuates"). It's kind of an individuation myth . . . along the lines of The Maltese Falcon with elements of The Big Sleep thrown in. But with the rug ("that really ties the room together") as the precious sought after object. One of my favorites of all time. My wife and I can go on endlessly "Lebowski-izing".
Now that I'm on a role, another unlikely suspect for archetypal themes is the Howard Hawks screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby. It's an anima story mostly, but there are some interesting "alchemical" twists like a scene in which Cary Grant loses his clothes and is forced to wear Kathrine Hepburn's frilly robe. Very silly, but extremely well done movie.
-Matt
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How ‘bout King Kong for an animus movie?
I recently saw the latest version:
Ann Darrow journeys into the depths of the unconscious, accompanied by an undifferentiated animus, represented by the director, the captain, the writer, and other male figures. Together they travel beyond the primitive and confront the power of the animal, even reptilian, unconscious, where Ann would have been devoured if not for Kong, yet another animus figure. Though he is more representative of the great power of the unconscious, Kong betrays his relationship to animus in his ability to relate to Ann in a human way. And so a connection is made.
In the end, it wasn’t beauty that killed the beast. It was Ann’s fascination with such a powerful, undifferentiated figure from the unconscious. As such, Kong could not survive the light of day. And so he perished, falling back into the depths. But in his place emerges a single animus: The writer becomes her spiritual guide and conscious companion.
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How ‘bout King Kong for an animus movie?
I recently saw the latest version:
Ann Darrow journeys into the depths of the unconscious, accompanied by an undifferentiated animus, represented by the director, the captain, the writer, and other male figures. Together they travel beyond the primitive and confront the power of the animal, even reptilian, unconscious, where Ann would have been devoured if not for Kong, yet another animus figure. Though he is more representative of the great power of the unconscious, Kong betrays his relationship to animus in his ability to relate to Ann in a human way. And so a connection is made.
In the end, it wasn’t beauty that killed the beast. It was Ann’s fascination with such a powerful, undifferentiated figure from the unconscious. As such, Kong could not survive the light of day. And so he perished, falling back into the depths. But in his place emerges a single animus: The writer becomes her spiritual guide and conscious companion.
Good one, Rohche. That good old Beauty and the Beast theme is classic animus stuff. I have a particular fondness for that theme. I like the way it suggests that the individuant needs to process the shadow attached to the animus first. Love the darkness before you love the light. There are innumerable fairytales with a similar motif: an enchanted prince who is part animal, but the curse of animalism (undifferentiated, as you say) can't be lifted until the princess learns to love the animus along with its animalism/instinctuality.
Typically in these stories, the princess fails to "love through the shadow" and the enchanted animus is exiled somehow. Then the princess must set out on a quest, a night-sea journey to find and redeem him.
The Grimm's story "Hans My Hedgehog (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm108.html)" is one of these (Ah, this version doesn't have the quest motif . . . I'll try to find one that does) . . . and it also happens to be one of the stories dramatized in Jim Henson's Storyteller series.
Yours,
Matt
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Here is a long "novelization" version of the Storyteller adaptation of Hans My Hedgehog (http://www.angelfire.com/me3/muppets/Story_Hans.html this site appears to have an adware virus. Make sure you have adware and virus protection before going here . . . I'll reproduce the text below to save you the trouble for this one).
I do like the part in the Grimm version where Hans, after shedding his quills, is pitch black and must be cleaned/whitened. Very alchemical.
Hans My Hedgehog
Men and women meet and marry and love, and from their joy children come. Kisses catch, hearts embrace, and all is happy: pearl after pearl until a necklace of happiness. Or so it can happen, so it is told in stories. Buy sometimes love can fill a house and still the house remains empty. The tears and laughter of children, the music of family-there is none of this. Silence casts a shadow on these childless couples and there are things they will not speak of, hopes that well up, then are choked back, because there is a space and nothing may fill it. Such a couple, good people, farm folk, lived a long time ago, far from where I sit, and for all their crops grew, for all their fine harvests, sorrow was their only child.
Imagine a warm night, a cold night, a night like this one or any one. Outside the wind singing it lament, inside the farmer and his wife sleeping, snuggled up for warmth. But when the farmer reaches out for his wife, he finds a foot where her head should be, and the murmer sighing from her is at his socks and not his ear. "Ho!" he starts up and calls to her. "Ho!" but she's not budging. She's there for a reason. "Just for tonight," she tells him. "It's worked for others, it might work for us." "Chucklehead!" muttered her husband. "Don't be daft. You're not going to get a child. You've gone past it and that's that. If you want company, have a widow come up from the village. Now come up this end. I'm proper froze."
But the farmer's wife didn't want an old widow for company; she wanted a baby, a little thing of honey and softness, to wrap up in a bundle and sing to and snoodle with and hug to bits. She'd wanted this child for what seemed a lifetime until she couldn't bear to watch the lambing of the calves come or the eggs hatch, it hurt her so. She bought books of remedies, went to women at fairs, paid a furtune in charms, rocked out the long summer evenings and shivered the long winter nights, slept upside down in her bed, but still, still, still no baby came. In the stables, at the table, in the barn, she would harangue her husband with the hows and whats and whens of fertility.
They say if you stay three days in a smoke pit...
They say if you bathe first in mud and then in blood and then in milk of nettle...
They say if you kiss a thrush, eat a worm, swallow a frog...
They say the embrace of a stoat, the dung of a weasel, powdered tassel of bull, spider's dew...
Any of these will get us a son.
The farmer could not listen. Off he would stomp to the fields. No one wanted a son more than he did. His bones were stiff in the wind and he couldn't bend as he once could bend. He chopped and scythed and bundled and milked and walked and cropped, and all the while he hoped for a little boy to sit on his shoulders, to push the hat down over his eyes and chase the sheep and worry the hens from their laying. Oh yes, he yearned. But he never liked to speak of it. After, he felt bad.
Nothing, however, would deter his wife. Once night, she brought him a glass of brackish liquid. A wee tonic, she told him, to be drunk night and morning. His face darkened, wretched and frustrated, but she clung to him. "I want a child. I wouldn't care if it were a strange thing made of marzipan or porridge, if it were as ugly as a hedgehog. I want a baby to wrap in a bundle and sing to and snoodle with and hug to bits."
Now to say you wouldn't care when you want something is a dangerous thing. That woman wanted a bairn so bad she wouldn't care what she got. If she got a hedgehog, she'd bring its snout to her breast. Ears twitched that shouldn't have listened. Evan as she spoke, the room went chill with mischief and the trees slapped the windows, leaves flying off like words to those who shouldn't know know such vows....No sooner said than done, she got her wish. No time at all, she has her boy, little ball as ugly as sin with a pointed nose and sprouting hair everywhere, a hedgehog baby with quills as soft as feathers.
You could not imagine a more curious sight than the farmer's wife taking this baby to her breast, a bundle of ticklish sweetness, perfect smile in a sea of silky quills, the brightest bluest eyes like afternoons in Arabia when there isn't a single cloud. No mother ever loved her babe more than this woman. She wrapped him in a soft warm shawl and sang him old lullabies and snoodled him and hugged him to bits. And she gave her little darling a name. Hans, she called him. Hans my hedgehog.
But the farmer could not look at Hans my hedgehog. He didn't see they eyes like sky, he only saw folks giggle. He didn't feel the softness, he only felt the pitying stars on him. He didn't hear the lullabies, only the gibes, the speculations, the tittle-tattle of small minds with much to murmer of. No, he wouldn't go out, would not be seen with the child, rage and humiliation boiling in him. And the farmer grew to hate his son, the hedgehog boy. Out in the fields he chopped and scythed and bundled and milked, and all the while the shame of what had befallen him turned a knot in his heart-one moment the rage swelling, the next tears, huge tears splashing his boots.
So the hedgehog boy grew up, day following day, week chasing week, and his coat grew thicker and his eyes grew bluer and his nose more pointy and he was the sweetest son to his mother; of yes, he was a jewel at throat and wrist for her. Elsewhere the sneers and curses curled him up into a ball, the spite hurt his coat into spikes, the insults teased his quills into sharp protective needles. And if he came into a room, his father would leave it. If he crept up to touch his hand, his father would shudder. This was hans's life, a world of light and dark. The farm, his home, full of animals who loved him, his mother's snoodling. The world of folk who loathed him, his father's brooding. Village boys would creep up to the farmyard and taunt him with their village-boy taunts, their safety-in-numbers taunts, their anything-strange-is-ugly taunts, with their terrifying normalness, their ordinary apple-red faces, their shirt-out, slow-witted, thick-tongued taunts.
"Hey, beastie!" they would yell, smug as bugs. "Hey, hairy! Hey, critterchops! Hey, prickleback!" And Hans would curl up into his ball and shiver. Then they found a name that stuck, a name they scratched on walls, whispered when he could not see them, a name to haunt him. "Grovelhog!" they called him. "Grovelhog!" And Hans my hedgehog learned he was strange and he learned he was ugly and he learned to be sad and he learned the name that was given him. Grovelhog.
He retreated to the farmyard, to the animals. For every quill on his body, Hans had an animal for a friend, as many friends as he had quills. He had a special way with these creatures and they loved him. He could talk to them. If his mother was looking for him, she would always to first to the yard or the stables or the pens or the sties or to the place where the rooster strutted, a proud soldier of the hens. Hans tended to this bird, combed his comb, polished his beak, and fed and fattened him, and it wasn't long before the rooster was the biggest rooster you could imagine, a hugeness, a vast red rooster all plump and flush-feathered. Whenever the sadness came, whenever he caught his reflection in a pool, saw his strange boybeast face, Hans would run to these friends and be among them, for they found him neither odd nor strange but magnificent.
His father would come home from the fields and see the boy sitting amongst them, pigs nudging his cheeks, the cows caressing him, the dogs licking his hands, and he was disgusted. And if Hans spoke like a boy, he ate like an animal, snout dipped into the plate, lap-lap-lapping, slurp-slurp-slurping, unable to use a knife or fork. Until one day his father snatched the plate from his lips and cast it out into the yard, dragging his son by the ear, then driving him into the trough. "That's enough!" he cried. "Get out! Get out! From now on you'll eat outside with the other beasts!" And with that he returned to the kitchen and slammed the door shut on his son.
Darkness fell ans the house was quite silent. Hans had not returned. In one chair the wife sat, her face caught by the firelight, the tears glistening. In the other was the farmer, thick brows knitten, face set, saying nothing, but sighing often, head bowed to the floor. At length, he stood up, took a coat and a lamp, and walked out into the thick black owl-hoot night. "Hans!" he called, swinging the lamp through the fields. "Hans!" he cried, picking his way through the woods. But his son did not answer. He lay all night among the animal in the wet grass, under the sky's black velvet, and he thought and thought until he thought a hole in the ground. He did not answer his father's cries, did not return to his mother's tears, just lay there silently counting the stars.
His father wandered the dark hours, a great needle in his heart, one moment the rage welling up in him, the next tears, huge tears splashing his boots as he tramped and tramped and called and called. Until, come the morning, wretched, the farmer returned, damp through and weary. There by the step, asleep, was his son, the Govelhog, who had never once answered back or complained or ever been anything other than the best son a man could wish for. And the farmer wanted to pick up his boy in his arms and hug him and snoodle him and love him to bits. But he couldn't. He looked down at his pointy nose and his short arms and his quills and hair and he couldn't.
"I've trudged all night for you," he barked, kicking the sleeping child awake. "And now you'll not eat for a week off my food." Hans stood up, quills rippling up and down his back. "Father," he said in his flute voice, "I want you to do some things for me." The farmer was outraged. "You what?" he barked. "I want you to go to the village and have a saddle made for my rooster so I can ride him," Hans said. "And I want some sheep and some cattle and some pigs." Furious came the farmer's reply. "Oh, do you now! Fancy fine!" Hans nodded, undeterred. "I know which ones I'd like. And they would be happy to come with me."
"Come with you where?" demanded his father. "To where I go," replied his son. "Which is away. Which is to somewhere. Where I can't hurt no one and no one can hurt me." Tears and anger fought in the farmer. "You can't go nowhere. What'll your mum say who dotes on you?" Hans did not reply but rubbed the tears from his blue blue eyes. Finally, he looked up and curled his mouth into a brave smile. "Father, all night I lay outside to understand why you don't love me. I've thought and thought until I've thought a hole in the ground. And now it's all right. When I have the saddle, I'll go."
And the farmer felt ashamed. He went to the saddleman and brought home a saddle for the rooster and he herded up the animals his son had asked for and he told his wife to pack a packed lunch, and all the while the Grovelhog sat on the stoop and waited until all was ready. Then he went to his mother and she hugged him and snoodled him and loved him to bits, then to his father, who wanted so much to but couldn't, and said goodbye and, before the farmer could stop him, hugged him with all his might, and his father knew for the first time how soft he was, all honey and sweetness.
Then he was away, the Grovelhog, flinging on the saddle and riding off, the strangest steed, the strangest rider, the strangest army of hens and sheep and pigs and cattle. His parents watched him until he was a faint smudge in the distance, the farmer stroking the quill he'd shed in goodbying, while his mother felt a crack faulting her heart, like a tiny pencil line. And with each hour line grew thicker and thicker until one day, not long after, her heart split in half and she died.
Twenty years later, a King got lost in a great forest. It was the kind of forest where the trees point down and the paths point in, and all you can be certain of is that you don't know where you are. And once the King was lost he got more lost, until he was well on his way to losing his mind. You could tell this by looking at him us he tugged away at his ear, which is a sure sign of that complaint. Oh yes, he was well on the way when he heard a sound that was a bitter sound and a sweet sound all at once, a music that began like hello and ended like goodbye. So, tugging his ear the billy-o, the King followed that sound through glade and thicket until he came at length to a clearing where animals roamed-sheep, cows, pigs, and hens. Huge, these creatures, and content, looking for all the world like what animals on holiday must look like. And behind them was a palace. A most extraordinary sight, a fabulous affair of glass and jewels and waterfalls. The King approached the great doors and knocked.
The tall creature who greeted him was neither man nor beast, but somewhere in between. He had the body of a warrior, the eyes of a Prince, but his nose was stretched into a snout, and sweeping back from is eyesbrows to his calves bristled a battalion of gleaming spikes. He looked nothing less to the astonished King than half a man and half a hedgehog, which is precisely was he was.
The King sucked in his breath and introduced himself, telling of his plight and his pedigree, of his missing army and empty belly. The creature said nothing through all this, and the King, story told, looked nervously at the sharp spikes and waited...waited through a long threatening silence. Finally, in a voice of dark woodwind, the creature spoke. "You are welcome, sir, in my home," he said, and bowed before leading him into a magnificent hall, where huge fires leapt and sparkled. There, already laid for two, was a table groaning with food. Straightaway they sat down and ate of the greenest greens and the sweetest sweets and the juiciest juices. And after, with the embers glowing in the fires and the sun drawing in, Hans my hedgehog, for so it was, took up his bagpipes and began to play. What songs these were! Haunting and sinuous, threading through the evening air. Laments that were bitter and sweet all at once, that began in hello and ended in goodbye. And before he could think I'm full now and found, the King fell asleep.
How long the King slept, he did now know. Dreams came. Dreams in many colors that broke over him like waves, hugging his sleep, washing away his worries. He woke a new man, ready for anything, or so he felt, but my dears, what a sight greeted his bright eyes. For his pillow was transformed into a tree, his bed a mossy bank, and the view was not the creature's Great Hall, which was surely where he had fallen into sleep. No, ahead of him, sparkling in the sun's kiss, was his own palace! How he had come here, he knew not. All he knew was joy, joy in waterfalls, joy cascading over him. And he began to dance as only Kings once lost and then found can dance. A jig. A jiggle-joggle and a leap. Then bagpipes took up his rhythm in a merry reel and, looking round, the King saw the hero of his honor, Hans my hedgehog, astride his giant rooster.
"Anything!" cried the King. "Anything you wish for is yours, for you have saved and salvaged me, you have led me from the labyrinth." But Hans would have no reward. He was ready to ride off. "I insist," insisted the King. "Name anything, my dear friend." And a curious smile came to the creature's face, his blue eyes twinkling. "Very well," he said. "Then I ask for the first thing to greet you when you arrive in the palace, whatever that may be." The King thought on this request, imagining his first steps on reaching home. And he knew his first sight would be of faithful, flop-eared, worried-himself-sick-eared Wagger, the Royal dog. No mean gift, for this was a wonderful dog, long the King's boon companion. But the King agreed, nonetheless. His dog would have a merry life in the freedom of the forest, in a place where the animal was King. "It is yours," he told Hans. "The first thing to greet me." At this, Hans bowed in gratitude. "I'll collect my reward in a year and a day," he said, and without more ado turned the rooster and set off, a strut and a gallop into the distance.
The King watched him, hand held up in gratitude, then turned himself and hurried home, the delight of return engulfing him. Sure enough, he had no sooner set foot on the drawbridge then he heard a bark and a yelp of glee. Trumpets sounded a fanfare. The heavy doors of his palace swung open. And there before him, racing to embrace her long-lost father, was the Princess, his daughter.
He took her up in his arms, their tears blessing them as he swung her round and round and round. Then came Wagger, jumping up at them both, desperate for his master's attention. Bells sang out the King's return. Wonderful! they tolled. Hurrah! Harrah! Then, through his chorus of welcome, the King caught another sound on the breeze, a sound both bitter and sweet, beginning in hello and ending in goodbye. And looking up, still clutching his child, he scanned the horizon. There on the very edge of the hills, he caught the silhouette of his rescuer, pipes raised to the heavens. A chill panic gripped the King. He dropped his startled daughter and let out a sob of despair. It seemed to him as if a black cloud had fallen on him. For in his excitement, in his delight, he had forgotten his promise and now the weight of it crushed him. Not me dog, his heart cried bleakly. Not my dog, but my daughter. My daughter...
A lot can happen in a year. The King settled into the dance of days. The snow, when it came, covered everything. The sun stunned his inner being. Only the trees dried from green to russet and shed their summer dresses as the King lay awake through the nights, unable to sleep, listening as the leaves rustled, grazing the stone walls of the palace. Fear took him fretting along the battlements, his eyes squeezed to the distance, waiting, counting the days. And all the while suitors from far and wide pilgrimaged to his kingdom, seeking his daughter's hand. And all who saw her were beguiled. She was a Princess of Sweetness and Cherry Pie. The King's nightmare, of her delicate skin pierced and bleeding from the creature's terrible coat of quills, haunted him until he wished he had never been found, longed to be lost again in the forest. For he had spoken to no one of his rash promise. To no one.
Oh yes, a lot can happen in a year; sometimes the minutes drift, marooned, and a single afternoon can seem a lifetime. But when you dread the future, days can make you dizzy with their dash. So it was with the King. It was upon him, the fatal day, before he caught his breath. A year had whizzed like a firework fizzing into the air. The evening had found him slumped glum on his throng. And when the bells dully thumped out the hour at six, he was still there, gray and dejected. At the last chime he heard another sound, a sound both bitter and sweet, beginning in hello and ending in goodbye. And the King stood up and moved stiffly to the balcony to observe the arrival of a strange creature, half-man, half-hedgehog, riding on a giant rooster and leading an army of animals. The King sighed and walked slowly down the drawbridge to greet them.
"Do you remember me?" asked Hans my hedgehog, his voice half-pipe, half-drum. The King nodded. "A year and a day have passed since we last met," continued the creature, his coat of quillls alert and dangerous. "Will you keep your promise to me?" The King's face set in a grim mask. "I will," he said. "I will."
Should I tell you of the Princess's tears, their torrents, her sighs, her lament? Should I tell you of the pain, how it hurt the King to say what had been unsaid, explain what was inexplicable? Let it suffice that for an hour, two, after Hans came to the palace, father and daughter were alone in her chamber, and that he finally emerged, the King could not raise his eyes but stared, bleak, at the ground beneath him. He led Hans my hedgehog to the chamber, then went himself-sorrow his crown sadness his septer-to his wife, the Queen, to tell all, to console and be consoled.
Hans found the Princess sitting at the window of her chamber, hair streaming down, coiling through the open shutters, as if her soul were contained in the auburn tresses and sought to escape. He walked into the room and she jumped up. Jumped up before her betrothed. Her father had not exaggerated. She was promised to a monster. And yet, when the creature spoke, his voice was the voice she had always imagined her husband would possess, a voice of woodwind, of dark notes, a true voice.
"Do you know me, Princess?" the voice asked. "I do, sir," she replied. "You saved my father and he owes you his life." Hans nodded. "But do you know of his promise to me?" he demanded. "He promised you the first thing to greet him on his return," she said, looking at the blue blue eyes, the pointy nose, the carpet of quills. "I am yours, sir, to do with what you will." The quills bristled, the blue eyes sparked and flinted. "Then I claim you for my bride," he said. "I want you to come and live with me in the forest. I want you for my Princess of Sweetness and Cherry Pie. I want to catch you up and sing to you and snoodle you and hug you to bits. I want you to love me." A single tear crept down the Princess's sweet cheek. "Then so be it," she whispered. "Do you find me very ugly?" asked her husband-to-be. "Not so ugly as going back on a promise," she declared, and felt the tear slide from her face to the floor.
They were married the next day. A wedding without bells. A funeral of a wedding, the guests in mourning. No words passed between the couple save the "I do"s and the "I will"s. After, the banquet was presided over in silences puntuated only by the occasional sob-from the Queen, from the King, from the Princess. Even the music threated its way into the room as a grave and plangent rain. It followed the couple as they left the banquet hall and made their way to the bridal chamber, all eyes on them, a confetti of pity and outrage filling the room.
The fierce glow of the fire caught the highlights of the Princess's hair has she crept into bed. Red light danced around her face. She lay quietly in the lace and linen of the sheets. Her husband stood at the fireplace, staring into the flames, then picked up his pipes and began to play. The Princess closed her eyes and through the closed lids, saw her miserable future unfolding. Along the corridor in her parents' room, King and Queen lay listening to the pipes, breath held. Abruptly the music stopped. The Princess shivered. Next moment she forced her eyes open to see a grotesque paw, half-hand, half-claw, appoach her cheek. His touch was so gentle, so careful. He brushed his hand tracing the perfect shape of her features. She shuddered and he withdrew his hand as if it were burning. His sigh left her as he retreated to the grate and lay down. And so, the air fragile with emotions, the bridegroom and his bride settled down to sleep on their wedding night.
What woke the Princess she could not say. A rustle, perhaps. Or perhaps the terror of her dreams, but when she opened her eyes she was astonished. For there, barely illuminated by the fire's farewell, was her Lord, the hedgehog man, peeling off his coat of quills, splended man, the quill settling like a rug on the ground. She watched, dumbfounded, as the man slipped quietly from the room and disappeared. And lying there, half-Sweetness, half-Cherry Pie, the Princess could hardly credit what she'd seen and couldn't have, saw and shouldn't have. But, creeping to the window, she looked down and there, sure enough, was a man, all shadows, moving among his friends, the animals, in the night's quiet rain. And she found herself going to the abandoned coat of hair and quills and touching it, soft and warm and remarkable.
The first rays of morning woke her from dreams of waterfalls and ice cream and there she was in her bed, and by the ashes and dust in the grate lay her husband, back again, beast again. So had she dreamed this peeling off of skin? Surely she must have. But that night, the same scene: the creature standing over her as she pretended to sleep, the tender touch on her cheek, not prickly but so smooth she felt an ache when he left her, and then the magic of his transformation, the emergence of man beneath the skin. And she wanted so much for this fair youth, slender in the shadows cast by the fire, wanted so much for him to come to her. But no, he slipped away. Again she crept to the window to watch him as he moved among the animals, as they nudged and nuzzled and caressed him. Again she went to the coat of quills and lay down against it, and how comfortable she found it, how luxuriant! It made her drowsy, lying there by the fire; it made her eyelids heavy. She sighed, wrapping herself in her husband's skin, drifting off, drifting off. She knew she shouldn't, knew she mustn't, but really couldn't help herself, really couldn't stay awake another minute.
A shadow fell across her face and its dark touch woke her with a start. Standing in the doorway was her husband. "Sir," she cried nervously. "I woke and you had gone! And left behind you coat of quills." She could not see his features, his expression; he remained cloaked in darkness. "Which would you have as husband?" came his reply. "The man or the creature?" The Princess thought on this, swallowed, considered. "I have a husband," she said as length. "And he is what he is. No more. No less." She saw the stern shape relax, soften. "Then forgive him, madam, if he returns to his skin," said her husband as he stepped toward the quills and assumed them, restoring the beast's silhouette. "For I am enchanted," he continued, "and cannot leave it. But if you say nothing of this for one more night, then loyal love will break this spell forever." His blue eyes settled on her, yearning, imploring. Her heart reached out to him. "I promise," she whispered. "I promise."
But we all know about promises, don't we? And secrets. What use are they when no one knows about them? When they twist and turn and tickle out stomachs. When they are tickly little fish wriggling into our conversations. Now, you see, the Princess had a mother...and mothers have this way of catching secret-fish and promise-fish. They eye us with wise eyes and all our rivers are glass to them. They fish us. Just so with the Queen, who that morning at breakfast sees a daughter skip to the table, eat when for days no appetite, laugh when for days no laughter.
"Hungry?" she inquired, raising an eyebrow. "Very," replied her daughter, all Sweetness, all Cherry Pie. "Good," her mother said, smiling. "Sleep well?" The Princess ate heartily. "Yes, thank you." "Good," repeated her mother, eyebrow twitching, her voice casting its hook into the conversation. "Not troubled by the creature?" The Princess frowned. "No, mother," she said, defensive. "And please don't speak of him as a creature." Her mother looked at her carefully, the hook dangling. "Listen, daughter," she began. "Last night you father and I went to a wise woman and told her of you tragedy. She knows of these creatures, these Grovelhogs, and knows the remedy. He is enchanted, you see."
"I know," the Princess blurted out, the invisible hook snagged her lips. Her mother pulled sharply on the line. "Oh?" The Princess felt her face flush flustered. "I mean, I knew he must be," she cried wriggling away from the question. "Yes, I see," she pretended. "He's enchanted." The Queen reeled in, trumphant: "He's told you, hasn't he?" Her daughter denied it, all the while wriggling. "Does he take off his skin?" her mother demanded. "No!" she insisted. "No, he doesn't! He doesn't!" The Queen grasped her hand. "The only way to break the spell is to throw the skin into the fire. It he sleeps or leaves the room, cast the skin into the flames and he will be free of it." The Princess shook her head, confused, miserable. "That's not the way!" she cried, her betrayal exposed. The Queen settled back into her seat, the fish landed. "So he has told you!"
That night, the same story: the Princess settling to sleep, the creature stretched out by the fire. But when, at length, he stood and shed his skin and slipped from the room, the Princess rose from the sheets. Before she could stop herself, before the warring voices in her head could plead with her, she took up the skin and threw it into the fire's greedy flames. How it burned! A thousand colors, a brilliant firework! Suddenly, terribly, a cry of pain and rage curdled the air. There, below the window stood her husband, the Grovelhog, heast again, smoke and flames consuming him, his head thrown up roaring out his betrayal, screaming his anguish. He threw himself to the ground smothering flames, rolled over and over on the earth, while in the palace the Princess ran, ran along passage, ran down winding stair, until she was outside, running to him, tears scalding her, tears choking her. She reached him as he leapt up onto the rooster, as the animals stampeded for the gates. "Husband!" she wept. "Please! Please don't go!" But the creatures snarled and turned away from her, his quill sharp and smoking. The Princess clutched at him and was pricked terribly, falling pierced and bleeding, while the Grovelhog rode off into the night in a confusion of smoke and dust, the air thick with clamor and alarm, the bells tolling their solemn knell: betrayal and betrayal and betrayal.
For seven days and seven nights the Princess of Sweetness and Cherry Pie locked herself in her room and would not come out, but stayed, prostrate on the wooden floor, sorrowing. And the days passed-sun, then moon, then sun-while she thought and thought a hole in the hearth until she knew what she must do. She went to the the blacksmith and got from him three pairs of iron shoes, and that same night, while all slept, slipped out of the palace and set off to walk the world in search of her husband, half-man, half-hedgehog.
She walked and walked until she wore out the first pair of shoes, and still no one had set eyes on the creature. Such a walk she walked that her hair faded from red to brown. And she put on the second pair of shoes wore out while her hair faded from brown to gray, but still she walked, always searching, always praying to hear a music both bitter and sweet, beginning in hello and ending in goodbye, but nothing, no clue, no news. Until one day, weary and wretched, she came to a stream and lay down by it. The last pair of shoes had worn away to nothing, and she pulled them from her, rubbing her poor sore feet, and saw in the water's mirror that her hair was now quiet white. And the Princess of Sweetness and Cherry Pie wept for her red hair and her husband, both lost forever. Night was falling and the mist settling in, as it does in that season in that place, three pairs of iron shoes from anywhere. What could she do?
Then it seemed to the Princess that she lapsed into a dream. And in that dream she saw a bent figure walking the ground, his way lit by the swinging flare of a lamp. The man approached her, catching her face in the light, but instead of greeting her, he stumbled past, calling out into the mist. "Son!" he called, tears splashing his boots as he walked. "Hans!" The Princess got up and followed him, why she knew not, where she knew not, until they came to a cottage, an old farm cottage, long abandoned, swathed in cobwebs. Just as the cottage came into view, the lamp guttered, faded, and went out, and as the light disappeared so did the man. The Princess was at a loss. What now? she wondered. She looked about her, shaking her head as if to throw off the dream, but stopped suddenly, for there sitting in the porch of the cottage, rocking on a rocking chair, a small bundle wrapped in a shawl tight in her arms, was an old woman. The Princess watched amazed as the woman pulled back the corners of the shawl to reveal a tiny creature, half-baby, half-hedgehog. She gasped and ran to the woman, but as she reached the porched the woman disappeared and the door swung open. In went the Princess, her heart in her mouth, but inside the house was empty, only dust on the table, dust on the shutters. She sank to the floor and fell into a deep, despairing sleep.
Something woke her. A flapping. A beating of wings. She was still in the house. She hadn't dreamed it. The morning sun was pouring in, sending the dust dancing in its light. The Priness crept into the parlor in time to see a great golden eagly fly in and land on a table, it huge wings folding into rest. The Princess shrank back from the bird. Suddenly it shock and trembled, and transformed before her eyes into a strange creature, the posture of a man, the skin of a hedgehog, quills quivering. The Grovelhog! Her husband! Fear gripped her. And trepidation. The Grovelhog sat at the table and food appeared, wine. He raised his glass, unseeing, while his wife looked on. "To the health of that most beautiful woman who could not keep her promise," he whispered, and drank down her wine.
The Princess stepped forward. "Husband," she said, taking her courage. The creature swung round, his voice filling with anger. "How did you find me?" he demanded, the quills spiking. "I have walked the world to find you," his wife replied. "I have worn out the soles of three pairs of iron shoes and my hair is no longer red. I come to claim you and catch you up and snoodle you and hug you to bits." And with that she flung herself at his mercy, risking the spikes of his rage. She clung to him as he struggled, clung to him as his body trembled into a transformation, wings unfolding and shuttering, clung to him as the shape of a man emerged, disappeared, reappeared, all the while declaring her love and loyalty. She would not be thrown off, would not give in to the wings, to the spikes, to the violent shuddering, but held fast to her husband, until finally the shaking stopped and man and wife stood embracing, the spell broken. And they laughed and snoodled and hugged each other to bits, pain falling from them like feathers, like quills.
And so the Princess who could not keep her promise won back her husband through looking without hope of finding, and in time her hair grew red again and there was another wedding all over, and this time the feasting went on for forty days and forty nights and I myself was there to tell the best story there is to tell, a story that begins in hello and ends in goodbye, and or a gift they gave me a shoe worn to nothing.
And here it is.
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That’s a great tale, Matt. I see what you mean about accepting the shadow aspect of the Animus. I never thought of it that way before. But you are right: darkness before light. That is a nice touch at the end at the end of the story. It seems out of place if not for the alchemical reference.
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Hi All,
I have created a new topic for the discussion about differences in Feminine and Masculine approaches to confrontation with the unconscious and individuation . . . and I snatched up all the posts relating to this conversation from this topic and moved them here: Differences in Feminine & Masculine Individuation (http://uselessscience.com/forum/index.php?topic=101.0) (over in the Depth Psychology board).
Our first multi-member discussion . . and its a big topic! Exciting! (-)jump(-)
Looking forward to what we can dig up (-)485(-).
Yours,
Matt
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For an anima movie I’d like to suggest Chocolat:
A rural French village has come under the icy grip of its mayor, Comte de Reynaud. Until, that is, the arrival of anima in the guise of Vianne Rocher, played by Juliette Binoche. Soon, she and her chocolate work their magic on the frigid villagers who once again become open and accepting of others. She even thaws the Compte de Reynaud who then forms a relationship with the widowed villager, Caroline Clairmont. Anima is also accompanied by a young anima in training, her daughter, Anouk, who asks her mother why it is she wears red shoes and not black like the other mothers.
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Oh! though there are many films i could propose I would like to suggest this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette%27s_Feast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette%27s_Feast) Babette's feast.
A true post-post Jungian one where the creative body simply radiates liberation.
(-)cheers2(-)
Thanks Chris for helping me in my choice!
Roger
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Hello
I believe that The Ghost and The Darkness qualifies as a Jungian movie...besides the presence of Life and Death throughout it, there is also Love and its (at least momentary) victory over Death in the preservation of Life.
Comments?
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Hello everyone...
Please let me know of any refereed articles from scholarly articles that you may have access to...yes I am writing a fourth year paper on this subject so any assistance would be gratefully received.
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Hello everyone...
Please let me know of any refereed articles from scholarly articles that you may have access to...yes I am writing a fourth year paper on this subject so any assistance would be gratefully received.
Hi Love,
Do you mean that your paper subject is Jungian psychology or Jungian thinking specifically applied to film?
-Matt
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Film is near and dear to my heart. I started out in Jungian stuff three years ago now. back then I was looking for "Jungian" films to watch. Over the years I've learned almost any film can be viewed through Jungian or depth psychology lenses. Here are ten favorites in no particular order. ~ David
1. Dreams, Kurosawa
2. Kontroll, Nimród Antal
3. Where green the ants dream, werner herzog
4. Lady in the water, Shyamalan
5. Open your eyes, Alejandro Amenabar (Also its' american counterpart) Vanilla Sky
6. Republic of love, Deepa Mehta
7. Brazil, terry gilliam
8. Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro
9. Waking life, Richard Linklater
10. Blade Runner, Ridley Scott
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I thought that The Fisher King was a great Jungian inspired movie. A great quaternic set of higher and lower "marriages" of opposites. It favors the ego-anima development but I think it comes close to offering some ego-animus content as well.
Anyone have a movie that does a Phantom of the Opera/V for Vendetta level of animus story and the typical ego-anima development as well?
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I hadn't thought of it originally, but since I have had to watch at least part of this film nearly every few days (to appease my two year old son), it eventually dawned on me how perfectly Jungian it was.
The move is Pixar's Cars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixar_Cars). It's very decidedly a kid's movie . . . much more so than recent animated films like The Incredibles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incredibles) or Shrek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrek) (both of which are also great films, although not very "Jungian"). Thus, my two year old loves it even if he can't really follow much. But if one looks deeper than the kidification of the film, one will see a very nice individuation story.
There are even a number of wonderful, very subtle symbols along the way. When the ego-hero character, Lightning McQueen has to do community service for destroying the main road in the forgotten Route 66 town of Radiator Springs, he is harnessed to a large road paving machine ("Bessie") that splatters a bit of black tar on his "lucky (lightning bolt) sticker", which remains there throughout the rest of his indenture (blotting out his identity . . . which means nothing to anyone in this little town, no matter how famous he might be in the "real" world).
The main road through Radiator Springs that Lightning ruins (and must repave) w/ Cozy Cone Motel on left:
(http://www.internetvibes.net/wp-content/gallery/pixar-cars/cars_28.jpg)
Lightning first finds meaning in being in Radiator Springs (even if he is a prisoner) when he surprisingly loses a race to the old car, Doc Hudson, because he wasn't able to make a turn on a dirt track. After this, he feels compelled to figure out how to make this turn without skidding off the track). Later Doc tells him that "If you're going hard enough left, you'll find yourself turning right." The trick that Lightning has to learn (and finally does, employing it in his final big race) is to be able go left and turn right (while sliding) simultaneously in order to stay on the track. Not a bad metaphor for working with the instinctual unconscious instead of against it (working with instinct is like going with the skid).
The petulant Lightning replies to Doc's advice: "Oh, right. That makes perfect sense. Turn right to go left. Yes, thank you! Or should I say, no thank you. Because in Opposite World, maybe that really means thank you."
Doc demonstrating:
(http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/walt_disney/cars/paul_newman/cars2.jpg)
In another scene, the female "love-interest" car, Sally (an anima figure who is like a more evolved/enlightened version of Lightning McQueen) asks Lightning if he would like to stay in the hotel she runs called the Cozy Cone. He replies (roughly), "Yeah, it's like a clever twist on caution cones, which, of course, cars usually try to avoid. But now we're staying in them."
Sally nicknames Lightning, "Stickers", because he (as a race car) has no headlights (because he lives in a place where "the track is always lit"). His inability to see in the dark is what gets him lost and arrested accidentally in Radiator Springs.
Mater, an old tow truck who becomes Lightning's new best friend, teaches Lightning how to drive backwards (also employed in Lightning's final race) . . . which Lightning originally says "freaks him out". Mater explains the value of "rear-view mirrors".
After Lightning has loosened up a bit and started falling in love with Sally, they go on a drive together where she shows him the true beauty of this forgotten land and tells him how the town used to thrive until it was bypassed by a new interstate that only saved 10 minutes of driving time.
Sally: Forty years ago, that interstate down there didn't exist.
Lightning McQueen: Really?
Sally: Yeah. Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way.
Lightning McQueen: How do you mean?
Sally: Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.
Ornament Valley, home to radiator Springs:
(http://www.internetvibes.net/wp-content/gallery/pixar-cars/cars_35.jpg)
This scene takes place across from an abandoned Route 66 motel called the "Wheel Well" that Sally explains used to be the most popular stop on the "Mother Road" (the nickname for Route 66). In this scene, the three fuel pumps that once stood in front of the entrance to the Wheel Well are ripped out (leaving only rusted foundations behind). After Lightning learns how to value Radiator Springs (or his unconscious) and sacrifices a victory in his final race to help a wrecked car cross the finish line, he decides to make radiator Springs his home base, reinvigorating the town, putting it back on the map. The Wheel Well is shown again with its three fuel pumps restored.
Throughout the movie there are many more symbols and Jungian themes.
I didn't think much about it at first, but I started to realize that I was having a very strong, unconscious emotional reaction to the movie that only grew stronger after repeated viewings. Then it dawned on me that the story resonates very powerfully with my own symbol system.
You may or may not have noticed that I have a book of poems called What the Road Can Afford (http://barbarity.blogspot.com/2005/08/what-road-can-afford.html). The Road plays a huge role in my personal mythology (as I relate this Road to a devotion to the Work). A film about a hero who destroys and must rebuild a road is about as close as one can come to this personal symbol of mine. The entire film, Cars, is about a process of re-valuating something that has been neglected, forgotten, or disposed of (not a "heroic" conquering) . . . and I frequently refer to the Work as a "re-valuation process" (rather than an enlightenment or "attainment" of higher consciousness).
Recently I had a dream in which an old BMW I used to own that burst into flames in my driveway one day (and I previously dreamed about as a symbol of Jungian psychology) was fixed after I installed a new spark plug and rolled it over (it was upside down). When I started it up, it roared to life, sounding just like Lightning McQueen. It was at this point that I really understood how profoundly this movie had affected me. In essence, I learned to re-value it (something I had originally dismissed as nothing but a little kid's movie fetishizing cars).
So, basically, I give it my highest recommendation. See it. If you've already seen it, see it again. And think Jungian while you watch. This film is amazingly rich while also being very succinct (symbolically). It is a wonderful portrayal of an individuation (perhaps as good as that in any film I've seen).
-Matt
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Then, of course, there is the explicitly Campbell inspired Star Wars trilogy (see Bill Moyer's The Power of Myth). I see Campbell as deeply inspired by Jung but, perhaps, equally by parallel work in anthropology and comparative folklore.
I came to Jung via Campbell in my own studies.
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I thought that The Fisher King was a great Jungian inspired movie. A great quaternic set of higher and lower "marriages" of opposites. It favors the ego-anima development but I think it comes close to offering some ego-animus content as well.
Anyone have a movie that does a Phantom of the Opera/V for Vendetta level of animus story and the typical ego-anima development as well?
Hi Chris,
I don't remember if I mentioned it elsewhere, but the best male-ego/anima work film I can think of is David Cronenberg's adaptation of William Burroughs' Naked Lunch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch_%28film%29). It's an extremely surreal film (like a nightmarish dream) . . . but with a very coherent archetypal narrative (which doesn't exist in the book). I highly recommend it, but be prepared for Cronenbergian weirdness (e.g., living insect typewriters that talk out of their anuses). It's less an homage to Burroughs' writing than a completely independent and personal creation of Cronenberg's.
Anima figures are extremely common in fantasy films, of course, but it is still very rare to see portrayals of the "anima work proper". Many anima stories that make it into pop culture are little more than anima-gawkings or what the Jungians like to call "anima-possession" stories. These would be stories that leave the anima on a pedestal but never depict the integration of the anima and the heroic sacrifice that results in her depotentiation/death.
Naked Lunch is much more sophisticated, not only about the anima work in general, but about the equivocation the male ego feels around the anima and her "universe". Cronenberg takes an event from Burroughs' real life and uses the fictional universe from Burroughs' book to construct a myth around it. The real life event is the "accidental" murder of Burroughs' wife. Supposedly, he and his wife used to perform a trick together for the amusement and astonishment of their friends. She would place something on her head, and he would shoot it off with a pistol: the "William Tell Routine". Well, needless to say, one time he missed and shot his wife dead. Whether or not there was a potential (psychological) motivation for this was never publicly known. But I think it happened in Mexico or somewhere out of the U.S. Burroughs fled the country and returned to the U.S. to escape the law.
Of course, from at least that time onward, Burroughs was a self-acknowledged homosexual.
Cronenberg weaves this into a myth of loss/depression/descent, discovery, and sacrifice . . . and captures Borroughs' complex and equivocal feelings about his own homosexuality, using it for what amounts to be a "Jungian" confrontation with the shadow. Also, William Lee's (i.e., Burroughs) alchemical "dissolution" and "reconstitution" is portrayed through the device of his drug addiction and hallucination . . . which he gradually comes to cure by increasingly cutting his heroine with a non-addictive substance until he is weaned from the heroine addiction. A fantastic and fantastically complex film that was just too "out there" for many people to get. I think even many Jungians would not "get it", because the conventional Jungian understanding of the anima work remains incomplete. But in my opinion, there is no other film or modern story that says as much about the anima work as Naked Lunch. It's the gold standard.
-Matt
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Oh yes . . . and also check out the film of The English Patient (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_English_Patient_%28film%29) based on Michael Ondaatje's amazing novel for a good portrayal of the anima work. I had initially forgotten about it, because the book is really much richer (in the Jungian/mythological sense) . . . and doesn't focus as much attention of the anima work aspect of the story. The film gives much more screen time to this, though (by which I mean the romance between Almasy and Katharine). In the book, the focus is on a very intricate animus story (with a "triple animus") . . . and the anima work part comes in as a backdrop or foundation for Almasy's character. We could say that he has Fallen, because he tried to "possess" the anima and she was therefore taken away from him. His Wound (his horrible, identity-removing burn) is the mark of this Fall (quite literally as well as figuratively) . . . and his "healing" (and ability to finally die) comes through his retelling of his story to his nurse, Hana. By weaving it into a myth (and a gift to Hana), he learns to construct a functional fiction our of his Wound/complex.
I've pimped The English Patient a number of times. In my opinion it is the most complex and the most important "Jungian" story we have today. I.e., most important because it is a myth of modern masculinity . . . where most of our myths are really quite archaic. That is, I think Ondaatje reached into the mythic, instinctual roots but expressed this in a new and more modern (more accurate) language.
The film is also good and has a lot of archetypal symbolism too it . . . but the book is very clearly a work of archetypal/symbolic literature (and can be read like a massive dream).
It gets my highest possible recommendation.
-Matt
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I would really like to contribute to this thread but I am busy trying to finish my new book about a modern Alice's adventures.
One should keep in mind that Hollywood has already canned Jung and many of their productions are formula concoctions and hardly worth getting too excited over the idea of finding something original. For originality, one has to look at the movies that are based upon the writings of creative individuals.
In Alice's story, I have drawn upon the Dracula myth and the Snow White fairytale as well as the usual Greek myths that have been associated with anorexia nervosa. I have also mentioned several films to illustrate the archetypal phenomenon of the underlying fantasies that transpire in the psychic background of an anorexic without her having the foggiest idea about it.
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One should keep in mind that Hollywood has already canned Jung and many of their productions are formula concoctions and hardly worth getting too excited over the idea of finding something original. For originality, one has to look at the movies that are based upon the writings of creative individuals.
It is difficult to differentiate a so-called Jungian film because Jung didn't precisely develop anything new, he "only" revealed the patterns underlying mythic stories and fantasies.
But the individual artist has a psyche and does not necessarily need to know Jungian psychology to access Jungian psychology. He just needs to have a psyche and for Jung to be correct about that psyche.
So, perhaps, the more differentiated question for this thread is...
What are the Top Ten "Jungian" Films that are explicitly influenced by Jung?
or
What are the Top Ten "Jungian" Films that uniquely demonstrate Jung's insights?
...because just as with myths formulated centuries before Jung was born are amenible to a Jungian analysis (and therefore might appear to be influenced by Jungian thought) so too are more recent stories.
What is interesting to me is how cartoons and the recent influx of Fantasy movies tend to show up the archetypal much better. This is presumably an unconscious artifact of these respective genre's and the values in those genre's that their respective author's find in them.
My own dream work is based on an effort to refer back to the motifs encountered in dreams. I use Jung as a theoretical launching point and I have seen Jung's and other Jungian perspectives demonstrated by the "hard data" of actual dreams. But I could find myself wandering away from Jung and formulating motifs based on neural architecture or just the patterns themselves independently of Jung's particular concepts. The endurance of Jung's ideas may depend on if his terminology is efficient and explanatory as time goes on. As such I have begun to see how my approach to dream work could veer into the realm of literary analysis.
On that note it is interesting to see how this Wikipedia article describes the brief period of influence that archetypal literary criticism had in that area of scholarship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetypal_literary_criticism
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When I said that Holliwood already canned Jung, I meant that they have developed a formula based upon Jungian psychology's understanding of the stuff in mythology that will arouse emotions and enchant the audience.
I didn't suggest that artists are using this "easy path" to success, only the fabricators who rework the works of artists. Many children's stories are based upon canned stuff and are otherwise devoid of any real creativity.
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When I said that Holliwood already canned Jung, I meant that they have developed a formula based upon Jungian psychology's understanding of the stuff in mythology that will arouse emotions and enchant the audience.
I didn't suggest that artists are using this "easy path" to success, only the fabricators who rework the works of artists. Many children's stories are based upon canned stuff and are otherwise devoid of any real creativity.
Malcolm, do you think the Hollywood writers often really understand the archetypes they draw on as "Jungian" . . . even in a very simplistic, adulterated way? I often get the feeling from the more archetypal films I've seen that the archetypal themes are generated unconsciously.
Sometimes not. For instance, I am willing to bet that the Wachowski brothers applied some Jungian theory consciously in V for Vendetta. The Fisher King also seems to have drawn intentionally from some Jungian influences (and Terry Gilliam is clearly a fairytale and perhaps a Jungian buff). But then I think of the Disney-Pixar film, Cars, that I seriously doubt was intentionally "Jungian".
As a creative writer who is also a Jungian, I have found the intentional application of Jungian ideas to my poetry and fiction very difficult to pull off gracefully. In fact, the idea seems so cumbersome to me, that I never try to apply Jungian ideas. I always strive for conveying the psychic material that is just beyond my ego's grasp. But in the process of revision, I spot the archetypal themes and may find ways to help cultivate them (i.e., get my ego clutter out of their way as much as possible).
As for Hollywood writers, I think of them more as applying general formulas to story-making more so than archetypes. Have you seen the Coen Brothers film, Barton Fink? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Fink) It's another excellent anima work film (forgot to mention it above). In the film, Barton is recruited as a Hollywood writer and instructed to produce a "B-Picture", wrestling movie . . . but he feels so disenfranchised by its mundanity, that he falls into a "creative impotence" (which is where the anima and shadow work begin). None of the Hollywood execs understand why he can't crank out this simplistic piece of crap or why the prospect of writing it sends him into an existential crisis.
If you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out. A great and wonderfully bizarre film . . . and very symbolic/archetypal.
And, Sealchan, if you are still looking for films that depict more complex versions of the anima work, add this one to the top of your list.
-Matt
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When I said that Holliwood already canned Jung, I meant that they have developed a formula based upon Jungian psychology's understanding of the stuff in mythology that will arouse emotions and enchant the audience.
I didn't suggest that artists are using this "easy path" to success, only the fabricators who rework the works of artists. Many children's stories are based upon canned stuff and are otherwise devoid of any real creativity.
Did Hollywood develop this? Or has this been the art and manipulative mastery of all oral storytellers and writers over the eons?
It has often been stated that the success of the movie Star Wars was due to the fact that is so well followed the tried and true form of the Hero's Journey as outlined by Campbell and as consciously referenced by the creator of Star Wars George Lucas. But was it Jungian scholarship that sold the movie or was it real connection to archetypal motifs?
I have read somewhere that the most trashy romance novels and gratuitous adventure tales are often great examples of archetypal themes. It is just that they are mildly entertaining to the averaged majority and are not innovative enough for those who have a more focused and discerning awareness. The authors know the twists and turns that capture the reader's interest if not their broader discernment.
Great story-tellers like Shakespeare "simply" pack more archetypal content in per paragraph and also incorporate a broader range of human experience in a well-balanced way.
And, Sealchan, if you are still looking for films that depict more complex versions of the anima work, add this one to the top of your list.
Thanks, I will keep that in mind. But if you can think of a movie that also has swords, lasers or spaceships in it that would be better for me. (-)laugh2(-)
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Thanks, I will keep that in mind. But if you can think of a movie that also has swords, lasers or spaceships in it that would be better for me. (-)laugh2(-)
Ah, you're a man of my own heart! (-)cheers(-)
No lasers or spaceships, but have you seen House of Flying Daggers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Flying_Daggers)? It has swords a plenty! And a pretty good anima story . . . but it loses a little archetypal coherence at times (that is, it's hard to peg the characters to specific archetypes consistently throughout the film) . It isn't really a successful individuation story. Beautiful film, though.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon has some great archetypal themes, but it is more of an animus movie.
But, yeah, I'm ready for another great, archetypal, space movie. Joss Whedon's abbreviated TV series Firefly and the feature film based on it, Serenity, were excellent, but their mythos is more existentialist than Jungian, per se.
I recently re-watched the Star Wars films with Leo (I think his favorite character is Darth Vader, which is somehow perfectly appropriate, no? (-)laugh2(-)) and then started Avatar: The Last Airbender right on their tail . . . and I have to say, even though Star Wars was a big, big deal in my childhood, Avatar, in both its mythology and its execution, is just infinitely better. I can't say enough good about that show. Leo, Christy, and I are all totally transfixed and have just finished watching the second season.
The last two episodes of the first season have an anima theme this is very archetypal . . . and complete (in the sense that the anima work ends with the depotentiation of the anima as she merges back into the non-personal, mythic/archetypal realm). But in general, Avatar is a hero's journey tale with a lot of emphasis on the shadow (elicited by the wonderfully angry and scarred, Prince Zuko . . . who is everything Annakin Skywalker should have been and then some). I'm sure you would really enjoy the show.
-Matt
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Oh, another good, Jungian animus film I recently saw was Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howl%27s_Moving_Castle_%28film%29). Very much worth seeing. I purchased it for my growing collecting of Jungian films. There is, I think, some kind of "animus push" going on in the "collective unconscious". My guess is that this is due not only to women engaged in the animus work, but also to "post-feminist" men who have done some anima work and are now moving on to the "redemption of the Masculine" from archaic patriarchy. Most of the animus stories coming out in film and literature are written by men. And perhaps it is an instinctually driven way of men telling women (and other men, of course) what it is like or what it means to be a man . . . resembling the way women brought the Feminine into consciousness for men during the feminist movements.
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Matt Koeske said, "Malcolm, do you think the Hollywood writers often really understand the archetypes they draw on as "Jungian" . . . even in a very simplistic, adulterated way? I often get the feeling from the more archetypal films I've seen that the archetypal themes are generated unconsciously."
Actually, I should have included Campbell, Sir James Frazer and a whole lot of other scholars.
The movie Apocalypse Now (1979) uses Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough as a paradigm for the movie's plot. In fact, Col. Kirtz has a copy of The Golden Bough on his desk suggesting that he wants to end his days in the manner of the primordial king who is killed by the hero. If this copy of The Golden Bough was not pictured in the film, one might suppose that the writers conjured this plot up from a Jungian version of the Oedipus complex (as opposed to the Freudian version). The Oedipus scenario appears in alchemy whereby the alchemical king is ritually killed.
I speculate that Hollywood has Jungian analysts as consultants on various projects. After all, millions of dollars are at stake in the production of a film.
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When I said that Holliwood already canned Jung, I meant that they have developed a formula based upon Jungian psychology's understanding of the stuff in mythology that will arouse emotions and enchant the audience.
I didn't suggest that artists are using this "easy path" to success, only the fabricators who rework the works of artists. Many children's stories are based upon canned stuff and are otherwise devoid of any real creativity.
Did Hollywood develop this? Or has this been the art and manipulative mastery of all oral storytellers and writers over the eons?
It has often been stated that the success of the movie Star Wars was due to the fact that is so well followed the tried and true form of the Hero's Journey as outlined by Campbell and as consciously referenced by the creator of Star Wars George Lucas. But was it Jungian scholarship that sold the movie or was it real connection to archetypal motifs?
I have read somewhere that the most trashy romance novels and gratuitous adventure tales are often great examples of archetypal themes. It is just that they are mildly entertaining to the averaged majority and are not innovative enough for those who have a more focused and discerning awareness. The authors know the twists and turns that capture the reader's interest if not their broader discernment.
Great story-tellers like Shakespeare "simply" pack more archetypal content in per paragraph and also incorporate a broader range of human experience in a well-balanced way.
And, Sealchan, if you are still looking for films that depict more complex versions of the anima work, add this one to the top of your list.
Thanks, I will keep that in mind. But if you can think of a movie that also has swords, lasers or spaceships in it that would be better for me. (-)laugh2(-)
Although Star Wars was a fabrication, it is still packed with archetypal stuff that is a big turn on for individuals who are unaware of the fabrication.
The Children's stories that I refer to are the new ones that mix archetypal stuff with technological themes and sociological ideals.
Some of the Science fiction film dealing with aliens may not be understood by their makers, and then maybe they are a fabrication. Many deal with the same theme, that of something that symbolizes the unconscious that was buried deep in the earth and suddenly became active at the same time that mankind developed technology. The reason that I am suspicious that the creators of these plots may not be aware of the archetypal nature of their creations is that an understanding of the archetypal message might not be welcome.
The unconscious message suggests that the unconscious is in a wrathful mood over the way that mankind is using technology. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein dealt with this subject a long time ago. I make mention of Shelley's Frankenstein in my book project. That is, the Frankenstein monster, strangely, has the the same outlook upon life as many self-destructive individuals possess. That is, a feeling that one is horribly ugly and unable to find anyone who will ever truly love him/her; a sense of isolation and an affinity for a dreamscape of a frozen wasteland. This story was not a fabrication, but a revelation of psychological significance.
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For those who may be interested: Although The movie Apocalypse Now (1979) consciously uses the hero's journey and the ritual killing of the old, sick king in its plot, it does represent a skillful use of the boat journey through a dangerous jungle into forbidden territory which symbolizes a very dangerous area of the unconscious where the hero will be tested to his limits, i.e., Cambodia where the Americans weren't supposed to be, but where Col. Kurtz was hold up.
I happened to catch part of this film that depicted the ritual killing of the king, so when I came across a copy of the DVD at a local store I bought it to see the whole thing. I am not a movie buff and rarely watch TV. Most of the films I watch are on TV and if I don't see anything that looks psychologically interesting I turn it off. However I found several films that were taken from popular novels that expressed archetypal motifs that I have found to represent the soul's adventures into the psychic background when the individual experiences a sense of alienation. I will be dealing with this topic in my book as well as the interesting fact that While Hollywood is consciously aware of the effects that archetypal motifs have upon people, modern psychology isn't. That is, modern science ignores the very source of a disturbed individual's malady and merely posits plausible explanations for the disorder that fit their preconceived beliefs. While Hollywood is in a business that requires it to have an astute understanding of psychology, the modern psychological community is only concerned with making sure people conform to the approved belief system. Sort of ironic, I'd say!
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I’d like to mention a movie character, only looking from a different Jungian angle:
I think most would agree that Hannibal (the Cannibal) Lecter, of novel and movie fame, is portrayed as being a strong intellect, a thinker in Jungian terms, knowledgeable on many fronts. He’s also portrayed, it seems to me, as being a powerful intuitive, able to peer into past and future, easily analyzing anyone, even from meager case material. But here’s the rub, he’s also shown as being very much the sensation type, a connoisseur of fine music, food, and drink – questionable food, for sure, but a gourmet all the same.
Why the rub?
Well, how is it that superior intuition can exist alongside superior sensation?
According to Jung, intuition and sensation are in opposition and cancel each other out. One cannot develop as strongly as the other. One must remain inferior.
So how is it that Hannibal is both?
I know he’s only a fictional character. But according to type theory, Hannibal’s personality shouldn’t even exist.
No big deal; just thought I’d throw it out – maybe stir up a “hmmm” or two.
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My theory on typology is that our inferior function isn't necessarily dumb it is just slow. So having a refined palette (ewwww!!!) doesn't necessarily mean that you can't have an inferior sensation function. I've only seen brief glimpses of anything other than Silence of the Lambs, but his feeling function seems particular out of whack as well as he is extremely judgemental about people and seems non-chalant about imposing the final judgement upon them. He may be accurate but he does not have a very moderated response! I suspect Hannibal is an NT. I am and I have had at least one or two dreams which have projected onto this fictional character.
Or Hannibal Lector is a character associated with some archetypal quality and the author has made sure that he has as little human weakness as possible. So his character is more like an omniscient diety.
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I guess if I were creating an imaginary monster as a person, I would want to equip him with all the necessary psychic weapons to make him a real super-psychopath. And I couldn’t do much better than Hannibal.
He’s certainly motoring well on three cylinders (thinking, intuition and sensation). But as a monster, Hannibal’s best quality would have to be his feeling function, skewed as it is. He wants to rid the world of imperfection. And what’s wrong with that? For instance, cooking up a flutist because he couldn’t play on key. Then, as a sort of finishing touch, serving parts of him to a few of his orchestra members!
Yes, I’d say his values are a bit out of whack. But now he’s obviously banging on all four, and this could be the archetypal quality you mention. Like the number one, four is a symbol of the Self, only differentiated. So maybe Hannibal comes across as a kind of dark Self – an omniscient deity, like you say, but a negative one.
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Yes, I’d say his values are a bit out of whack. But now he’s obviously banging on all four, and this could be the archetypal quality you mention. Like the number one, four is a symbol of the Self, only differentiated. So maybe Hannibal comes across as a kind of dark Self – an omniscient deity, like you say, but a negative one.
Hi Rohche,
This is what I see in Lecter, too. I've been calling this figure the Shadow-Self. Looked at psychologically (as if the stories were dreams and not literal), Lecter is only dangerous to people who stand against him or who "disappoint" him by not living up to their inner potentials. But if you think about it, he guides Clarice through an individuation journey in Silence of the Lambs. "Have the lambs stopped crying, Clarice?" And, of course, he is a therapist.
I'm not sure if the 4 functions thing is the right paradigm (but then I'm always leery in general when it comes to typology). I often get the feeling that Jungians do not adequately value the shadow as an individuation driver. Like the Christian devil, the shadow (to the Jungian) is an abstract thing to blame for our ethical lapses and fears. But my take on the shadow is that it is essentially the measure of darkness between us (the ego) and the Other (what we do not understand or control). It is not just (and maybe not primarily) the things we project into the darkness, those things we don't want to hold in our identity. It's the thing projected into, the receptacle . . . a kind of gut or bowel that receives everything we fear, reject, or don't want to be.
And as a result, it is both crazier and wiser than we are. After all, if we were so exceptionally wise, we would have no conflicts, no troubles, no overwhelming pain and confusion, right ;)? So everything we don't understand (about ourselves and our lives) but perhaps could, is concealed in the shadow. Hannibal Lecter is an expression of this, a projection of all those things we should know about ourselves but choose not to or fail to grasp. Because we are "ignorant" or blind or unconscious, there is a shadow that knows. And it knows what stands between us and this knowledge (what we place between in order to obstruct our knowing). The shadow sees-through all of our gilded illusions.
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Hi back, Matt
It was Jung who reminded the West about the light hidden in the darkness and that another name for the Devil is “Light Bringer.” So it seems to me you have precisely the right attitude towards Shadow. But for the life of me, I can’t see the benefit of having Hannibal as one’s Shadow – unless for the joys of fava beans and a nice Chianti.
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Hi back, Matt
It was Jung who reminded the West about the light hidden in the darkness and that another name for the Devil is “Light Bringer.” So it seems to me you have precisely the right attitude towards Shadow. But for the life of me, I can’t see the benefit of having Hannibal as one’s Shadow – unless for the joys of fava beans and a nice Chianti.
(-)laugh2(-)
But if we are like Clarice (and not one of the cannibalized victims) wouldn't Lecter be driving us toward individuation? If I recall the second film (only read the first book years ago), Lecter even cuts his own hand off instead of hurting Clarice (who has handcuffed him . . .to a fridge, right . . . how appropriate for one with such a unique appetite; I could be misremembering). He definitely cares about her, as creepy as he might be.
In the first movie, he shows her how to solve her case and face her own demons at the same time.
So we could say that there is a certain perspective on Lecter (the "Clarice perspective") in which he is not merely terrifying, but also beneficial, even healing.
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I’ll see your Shadow, and raise you an Animus.
Starling’s experience of the male characters in her life appears somewhat damaged: Her father was shot and died when she was ten years old, presumably by male robbers. Then, having been given over to be raised on a farm by her uncle, she witnessed him slaughter horses and lambs. She ran away from the farm with the sound of screaming lambs still ringing in her ears. The rest of her childhood was spent in an orphanage.
As a consequence, it is likely that Starling’s Animus was negatively effected. And this might explain her fascination with killers. I’m guessing her Animus would find a ready home projected onto the likes of Buffalo Bill and Lecter. This probably even explains why she joined the FBI. Her contact with Hannibal could then be viewed as strangely fortuitous. An Animus projection onto Lecter would no doubt evoke a counter projection. And, as if in therapy, Clarice and Hannibal would become locked in a struggle with their inner material. One, like you say, to cure; the other, to find closure.
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I’ll see your Shadow, and raise you an Animus.
Starling’s experience of the male characters in her life appears somewhat damaged: Her father was shot and died when she was ten years old, presumably by male robbers. Then, having been given over to be raised on a farm by her uncle, she witnessed him slaughter horses and lambs. She ran away from the farm with the sound of screaming lambs still ringing in her ears. The rest of her childhood was spent in an orphanage.
As a consequence, it is likely that Starling’s Animus was negatively effected. And this might explain her fascination with killers. I’m guessing her Animus would find a ready home projected onto the likes of Buffalo Bill and Lecter. This probably even explains why she joined the FBI. Her contact with Hannibal could then be viewed as strangely fortuitous. An Animus projection onto Lecter would no doubt evoke a counter projection. And, as if in therapy, Clarice and Hannibal would become locked in a struggle with their inner material. One, like you say, to cure; the other, to find closure.
I'll buy that diagnosis (-)howdy(-).
I don't recall the book well enough nor the details (if many) of her childhood, but I would say that (if she was a real "analysand"), in order to have a shadow animus figure like Lecter, she would have had to experience more "grotesquery" than even the murder of her father and the slaughter of the lambs. Like the cannibalism and the highly-educated sophistication and "taste" of Lecter, where does this come from?
But perhaps if she was an "simple, orphaned farm girl and daughter of a working class cop" the exaggerated "classiness" of Lecter would make an accurate compliment. But in order for that to happen, she would have to 1.) be capable, potentially, of extreme sophistication, but 2.) be somehow stunted or kept from it so she never developed it. Then, perhaps she could conjure up an animus like Lecter whose developed "taste" is symbolized by his penchant for eating people. Maybe Clarice desires the finery of more sophisticated culture, but simultaneously despises it, seeing it as self-absorbed, false, pretentious.
But the degree of violence in Lecter is not really fitted to a healthy woman's animus. Most of all, both characters seem to me to be products of the author's imagination. His anima and his Shadow-Self, maybe. Perhaps Lecter is a kind of ego-Self hybrid conjured up through the author's inflation/identification of the ego with the Self . . . where the homicidal trappings of Lecter could be the product of shame for identifying with the Self (which was also punishing the ego with its numinous intensity). Or maybe, Harris felt psychically castrated by an analyst whose intelligence and sophistication outshone his own. And he felt simultaneously devoured and healed by the shrink.
In other words, I've been watching that new HBO show, In Treatment, and my diagnosis engine is running a bit rich (-)laugh(-).
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:)
In Treatment, huh? I’m going to have to watch that.
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:)
In Treatment, huh? I’m going to have to watch that.
It's very well done, intense, dysfunctionality. Great acting. Very interesting especially for anybody interested in clinical psychology.
http://www.hbo.com/intreatment/
You could watch the episodes online, but the site says that is ending this week.
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I watched all five shows online, and you’re right; they are very well done. What messy, confused, hurtful beings we humans are. I’m glad I’m not a therapist!
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This film because of puer the aspect shown by character of Robert Redforda, Deni Fenshem Attonom. It, apparently, is deeply connected with the earth and the nature, in other words, underground Great Mother. So so, actually, that its reaction to the adult world, with its civilized rules of behavior, is exclusively adverse. And, it agree a background of Frantsu M-L, it as it is a lot of puers, is devoured in plane wreck.