The Movie was Better than the Book

I haven’t ranted about a book in a while and I don’t want people to think I am not reading any more. I just finished Irving Singer’s book, Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film. I got into the book with a friend of mine hoping to find some profound, radical philosophical ideas and thoughts in film. Maybe Singer would point out how Kant’s categorical imperative shows up as a norm of ethics in more movies than many have realized. Or maybe he would consider Nietzsche’s übermensch as a major them/model for the protagonist. Or, considering the title of the book, he would look at some of the cultural anthropologists like Eliade, Frazer, or Weber and how symbols/themes/structures are used to convey certain myths of our society through film. This is what I was hoping.

Unfortunately this is not what I found. I won’t say Singer’s work is bad or weak, but I won’t say that it is a strong work either. Most of the work seemed to analyze scenes of the films discussed, symbolism and the like. When he spoke of mythology it was more of creating a reality in the film and inviting the audience into that reality. This is just a technique of film, not really mythmaking.

Perhaps it would have been helpful if Singer explained what he meant by “myth,” which he never did. In my understanding, a myth is a story or an explanation that speaks to a certain held truth of a community. A myth need not be a false or made up story, although at times it is. When we think of myths our collective imagination usually turns to the Greek and Roman deity stories. These are stories that speak to a collectively shared truth of the community. An example of a myth that pervades today might be:

All politicians are lying, selfish individuals who do not care about making things better.

This isn’t true, not all politicians are like this, yet it speaks to a shared truth of our culture. We have a shared distrust of politicians as well as a shared cynicism towards the political system. Rather than speaking to each and every experience that may lead someone to such distrust and cynicism we tell a story about politicians to ground our “truth.” They are all crooked. This is the myth. It may be true or it may not, but it speaks to a shared truth.

Singer could have made this point, and could have argued that the movies speak to the transformation of a person from one point in their life to another. There is a lot of fertile ground to be found in such a premise. The myth may be something like:

“A significant life-experience can lead to a change wherein the individual will be different and yet maintain essential aspects of his or her character after the fact.”

Nice and convoluted, huh. The movies that Singer discusses speak to such a change and to a degree speak to such a myth. We could consider existential philosophers such as Camus, or Kierkegaard, or others.

This could have been a good book, but in the end it was so-so. In other words, “meh.”

Here is a list of the major movies discussed in the book:

The Lady Eve

My Fair Lady

Pygmalion

Vertigo

The Heiress

Washington Square

La Belle et la Bete

The Testament of Orpheus

2001: A Space Odyssey

8 ^½