Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth is a PBS documentary from 1988. The documentary was originally broadcast as six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) and journalist Bill Moyers. It remains one of the most popular series in the history of American public television. The 1988 companion book The Power of Myth was adapted from the same interviews.
Contents
Overview
The interviews in the first five episodes were filmed at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in California, with the sixth interview conducted at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, during the final two summers of Campbell's life. (The series was broadcast on television the year following his death.) In these discussions Campbell presents his ideas about comparative mythology and the ongoing role of myth in human society. These talks include excerpts from Campbell's seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Documentary series
The documentary series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth was broadcast in six parts:
Episode 1: The Hero's Adventure (first broadcast June 21, 1988 on PBS)
About Campbell, hero types, hero deeds, Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Krishna, movie heroes, Star Wars as a metaphor, an Iroquois story: the refusal of suitors, dragons, dreams and Jungian psychology, “follow your bliss,” consciousness in plants, Gaia, Chartres Cathedral, spirituality vs. economics, emerging myths, “Earthrise” as a symbol.
Episode 2: The Message of the Myth (first broadcast June 22, 1988 on PBS)
Creation myths, transcending duality, pairs of opposites, God vs. Nature, sin, morality, participation in sorrow, the Gospel of Thomas, Old Time Religion, computers, religion as “software,” the story of Indra: “What a great boy am I!,” participation in society.
Episode 3: The First Storytellers (first broadcast June 23, 1988 on PBS)
Animal memories, harmonization with body and life-cycle, consciousness vs. its vehicle, killing for food, story: “The Buffalo's Wife,” buffalo massacre, initiation ritual, rituals diminishing, crime increasing, artists, the Shaman, the center of the world.
Episode 4: Sacrifice and Bliss (first broadcast June 24, 1988 on PBS)
Chief Seattle, the sacred Earth, agricultural renewal, human sacrifice, sacrifice of the Mass, transcendence of death, story: “The Green Knight,” societal dictates vs. following bliss, “hidden hands” guiding life's work.
Episode 5: Love and the Goddess (first broadcast June 25, 1988 on PBS)
Companion book
The companion book for the series, The Power of Myth (Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers, and editor Betty Sue Flowers), was released in 1988 at the same time the series aired on PBS. In the editor's note to The Power of Myth, Flowers credits Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as "the Doubleday editor, whose interest in the ideas of Joseph Campbell was the prime mover in the publication of this book." The book follows the format of the documentary and provides additional discussions not included in the original six-hour release. Chapters:
Myth and the Modern World
The Journey Inward
The First Storytellers
Sacrifice and Bliss
The Hero's Adventure
The Gift of the Goddess
Tales of Love and Marriage
Masks of Eternity
The Tale of Buddha
The Power of Myth is based on the interviews between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers that were the basis for the acclaimed television series. It deals with the universality and evolution of myths in the history of the human race and the place of myths in modern society. Campbell blends accounts of his own upbringing and experience with stories from many cultures and civilizations to present the reader with his most compelling thesis that modern society is going through a transition from the old mythologies and traditions to a new way of thinking where a global mythology will emerge.
Some of the material in the first chapter comes from Campbell's previously published books, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Masks of God. The main theme of the book is the universality of myths—what Campbell calls "mankind's one great story"— that occur throughout the history of mankind, no matter which epoch or whichever culture or society is considered. Myths are the body of stories and legends that a people perceive as being an integral part of their culture. Before the invention of writing, these stories and legends were handed down from generation to generation in the form of rituals and oral traditions. The reappearance of certain themes, time and again, in different mythologies, leads to the realization that these themes portray universal and eternal truths about mankind.
Star Wars
In the first episode of the series, The Hero's Adventure, and the fifth chapter of the book, "The Hero's Adventure," Moyers and Campbell discuss George Lucas' report that Campbell's work directly influenced the creation of the Star Wars films.
Moyers and Lucas filmed an interview 12 years later in 1999, modeled after The Power of Myth. It was called the Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers and further discussed the impact of Campbell's work on Lucas' films.
Errata
The words attributed to Chief Seattle, read by Campbell in the fourth episode of the series, were actually written by Ted Perry for a 1972 ecology film called Home. Perry adapted the text from newspaper accounts that were, in turn, published years after Chief Seattle delivered the actual speech.
Views on religious fundamentalism
During the interview, Campbell reveals his views on religious fundamentalism in the modern world.
On this immediate level of life and structure, myths offer life models. But the models have to be appropriate to the time in which you are living, and our time has changed so fast that what was proper fifty years ago is not proper today. The virtues of the past are the vices of today. And many of what were thought to be the vices of the past are the necessities of today. The moral order has to catch up with the moral necessities of actual life in time, here and now. And that is what we are not doing. The old-time religion belongs to another age, another people, another set of human values, another universe. By going back you throw yourself out of sync with history. Our kids lose their faith in the religions that were taught to them, and they go inside."
Related media
Moyers, Bill and Joseph Campbell. The Power of Myth (1988). Betty Sue Flowers (ed.). New York: Doubleday, hardcover: ISBN 0-385-24773-7
Audio
Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers (2001). Penguin/Highbridge, ISBN 1-56511-510-4.
Video
Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers (2010). Bonus Moyers interview The Mythology of Star Wars, a 1999 conversation with George Lucas about Campbell's influence. Acorn Media/Athena.