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Summary: A Socratean Dialogue With Joseph Campbell
Review: This is the edited version of the hundreds of rolls of tapes that Bill Moyers shot of his long socratean dialogues with Joseph Campbell shortly before Joseph Campbell's death in 1987. The entire collection is split up into six succinct subject-sequences where Moyers and his editor took different parts of the dialogues and organized them together thematically. The Hero's Adventure talks about the existence of the idea of the hero in lots of cultures and what role he or she plays in its mythology. The Message of the Myth talks more about the Jungian idea of the existence of archtypes of the collective unconscious and the metaphorical implications of many well-known myths from various cultures. The First Storytellers talks about the way environment and the basic necessities of everyday life affects the way the earlier hunting and gathering cultures created much of their mythologies and how they came to terms with the way they had to survive through the use of myths. Sacrifice and Bliss talks about the changes that came over different cultures when they changed from herding cultures to aggrarian cultures and how they changed their mythologies to suit their new ways of living and also the importance of the idea of the "here and now"; how heaven and nirvana and things of that sort are not physical places but a metaphorical place within your metaphorical heart and that "bliss" is only to be found in the present as you live your own life in the here and the in the now. Love and the Goddess talks about the idea of person to person love (as opposed to a more spiritual brotherly "Agape" love that for instance Jesus supposedly talked about in such aphorisms as Love thy neighbor/enemy); and how that idea altered the way European cultures thought about arranged marriages and Roman Catholic Society mores in general; and also about Love in general which is Campbell's favorite subject; and also about the idea of the Goddess and the role of woman in many of the world's mythologies and various metaphors that exist that symbolize the Woman's power to give birth and what implications these metaphors have on the here and now. Masks of Eternity talks about the idea of God both the idea of the Personal God (or the vastness of the universe and life given humanized form) and the impersonal god (or the idea that the universe and life has no containable form and that its vastness and all-inclusiveness precludes any kind of mere mortal understanding). Moyers prepared for these dialogues by reading every one of Campbell's books and the questions he asks can be fairly simplistic at times but at the same time apt and knowledgeable (he asks questions of him and Campbell answers; as a student would quiz a guru in a dialogue from an eastern culture). Campbell is very knowledgeable about many kinds of mythology and religion and answers him back every time with intelligent amusing and interesting anecdotes, countless memorized recitations, verses and many pointed professorial questions which make Moyers pause and think and in the end helps him and the viewer/reader to understand a lot of what he's talking about much better. It's not light viewing/reading I warn you; but with several viewings/readings you will get to understand many of the things that connect you to the human race and the universe and see how tragically pitiful we mere mortals really are in our blind groping for meaning in the face of the unfathomable beauty and mystery of Life (not the milton bradley game).
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Summary: Joy
Review: The deepest spiritual truths and wisdom that have eluded people of faith have been realized here. Speaking on things that I have always known within, but never able to capture in words. Campbell brings these truths to the surface. It is nothing short of joy to my soul.
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Summary: Starring the man who followed his bliss....
Review: Because the reviews below already covered so much ground--about the power and prevalence of myth and mythic structures, etc.--I'll veer a bit to the side and say that if you're steeped in mythology and symbolism already, you won't find a lot of new stuff here, except in bits and pieces. It's a very basic introduction filmed for the benefit of a nontechnical public. Campbell is always informative and charismatic, but the questions put to him by Moyers are remarkably rudimentary. Good interviewers sense not only the obvious content of what you just said and feed it back to you (the Moyers style in this video), but also get at the shadows of possibility, the alleyways and grottos behind your words. Case in point: Laura Pozzo's way of getting at James Hillman in the book INTER VIEWS. I'd like to see her on video some time. If you're either a beginner in this field or teaching other beginners, you can't go wrong with this series.
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Summary: If I could give it 10 stars, I would!
Review: Joseph Campbell is a man that I often look to as one of my mentors and I have very few persons that I put in this category. A man of vision, unpretentious, strong in his convictions but compassionate in our journey into the unconscious. In Joseph Campbell's association with George Lucas in the "Star Wars Trilogy", we can experience the plight of our humanity, birth, death and resurrection. We are all heroes if we can experience this transformation. This is not an easy journey and we can choose to go through these stages or at times we are forced to take these steps. It is more painful to be unprepared for a change in our lives and Joseph Campbell helps us to focus on the small things so that we can be prepared for the larger changes. Sooner or later we have to face up to our unconscious. We have to detach ourselves from ourselves and not take things at face value. There is so much more that needs to be experienced and dealt with so that we can transcend to our next life. We have to die to our ego and look inward in our deepest self because this is where and what we are made of; not our successes in our jobs, not the way we look on the outside, not our money, our prestigious homes and cars, these things shall pass away but our soul/spirit shall live forever. We need to find the courage to change the things we can and let go and accept the things that we cannot change and ask God to give us the wisdom to know the difference. Other books that I would recommend are Morton Kelsey's "The Other Side of Silence" and Carl Jung's "Memories, Dreams and Reflections". Please see my book reviews.
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Summary: Brilliant documentary!!!
Review: I have read all the books of Joseph Campbell, and none of them match the interview made by Bill Moyers with Joseph Campbell. Seeing Joseph answering questions of the human imagination, made me realize that he's a better speaker than writer. It made me see the real man behind extraordinary books. If you are after a visual explanation of what a Myth might be, then this 6 tape documentary is a must for your collection.
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Summary: if I could have met anyone.....
Review: .....it would have been Joseph Campbell. His books are brilliant, but to see him speak lets you know that it's only out of the deepest love that Campbell did all that he did. In my opinion, these are required watching for any student of life.
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Summary: This is it! Stop here! Wildly enthusiastic!
Review: I started watching these videos in Japan, around 10 years ago. I had run headlong not only into culture shock, but also the fact that, for a non-Christian country, the Japanese seemed to be embodying Christian ideals far better than the West. My previous study of ancient religions from Thomas Taylor's translations of the Neoplatonists, and Manly P. Hall's extensive writings, had convinced me that the Petrine notion of Heaven as an exclusively Christian enclave was erroneous in the extreme. In walked Campbell... Amazing... I have watched these videos over the years literally hundreds of times, and have always enjoyed them. Campbell's story-telling is elegant and always a balm for the day-tired soul seeking solace in the living room, reclined before a television. I really cannot commend the tapes highly enough. They are preferable to the other videotapes in which Campbell flies solo, usually before a crowd which is either mildly hostile or hasn't done its homework. The cordial and informed interaction with Bill Moyers in George Lucas' elegant private library, and the frequent segues to cinema, artwork, and beautiful clips of foreign locales, make the programs a delight again and again. The 1st program deals with the hero's adventure, and is liberally laced with Star Wars' scenes. The 2nd discusses the significance of denotation versus connotation in Christian thinking, and includes one SW scene. The remaining episodes range all over the world, and hammer home Campbell's (and Moyers') thesis that all religions are true in this sense: they are metaphorical of the inner spiritual potentialities of men and women. Particularly fascinating is the footage of a cannibalistic "horror society" re-enacting THE myth and Campbell's interpretation of it: the death and eating of the god. The male-female pair to be consumed engage in a public, ritual sexual intercourse, are slain in flagrante dilicto, and are immediately cooked and eaten. "That's the sacrifice of the Mass" Campbell points out. "There [in Roman Catholic ritual] you are taught that this IS the body and blood of the Saviour...".
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Summary: These videos changed the way I looked at everything
Review: Joseph Campbell is a genius who understands his subject and presents it better than anyone I've ever seen. He is a master teacher and is utterly engaging. Everything he talks about is immediately at hand for him and he has obviously immersed himself in religion and myth, their similarities and the symbolism behind them. The one weakness from this video is the interviewer Bill Moyers who often times is out of his depth and asking dumb questions when Campbell has just explained it to him. Despite this, Moyers was obviously prepared and pulls all the right things out of Campbell who tells the greatest stories, since he has the greatest material to pull from. Campbell doesn't pick one mythology more than any other, he wanders though Native North American, East Indian, Christian and Buddism and is equally at ease with any and many more. He is such a joy to listen to and gives so much in this video series. In total, there are 6 videos of about 1.5 hours each. I started watching them and pretty soon, my girlfriend was looking over my shoulder and just sat down and watched the rest and asked to see the beginning too. These are a must for anyone who thinks that religion and mythology are of any importance.
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Summary: Fascinating and Engaging
Review: Excellent piece of work. The information was presented in short, easily digestible segments, while being wonderfully engaging. Joe Campbell does an amazing job of speaking about the subject matter on many levels without evasiveness, ambiguity or condescension. Watching this series is a delightful experience.
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Summary: Into the classroom with an amazing professor...
Review: My friends joked when I bought this set that I would only watch it once, if that many times. But in the two weeks since I received it, I have watched most of the tapes twice! Fewer stories are told and illustrated than I had hoped (its pretty obvious this documentary was made more than a decade ago on a budget), but Campbell is an amazing teacher with fantastic insights. The tapes are a terrific way to relive your favorite part of college classes-- a brillant teacher with something new and fascinating to say.
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