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How to find fairyland in your own backyard
By Ivy R. Roberts
Copyright, 2005
Ivy R. Roberts
Did you ever want to be Dorothy Gale? Everyone at some point wants to
be swept away from the life they know. We don’t want to be in Kansas, but in Oz.
realistic the narrative journey may be, it is the most powerful escape because it
imaginary adventure.
The fairy-tale film creates its magical world in relation to the real world so
that viewers can see the story’s possible applications to everyday life. Through
the representation of utopia, the fairy-tale film projects the real world into an
nature of reality and its boundaries: what is real, what is home, what is my dream
and how can it come true?: “Folk and fairy tales have always spread word
to our imaginations as an escape? The fairy-tale film offers hope that reality has
Fairy-tale form and ideology allow the integration of cultural and socio-
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become a classical American film because it shows the possibility of a utopian
search for home in the utopian land of Oz: “Oz relieves our anxiety by presenting
utopia as attainable. Dorothy says once she returns to Kansas, “if I ever go
looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my own back yard.”
While we may need to search for Oz from time to time, while we may need
reassurance that it does exist somewhere, we must remain content that we can
find everything we need and want in Kansas. Is America (or the real world) our
tale when we read it, we seem to know immediately that a particular film is a fairy
tale when we see it… It is almost as though it were natural for fairy-tale films to
exist because fairy tales are so much a part of our cultural heritage as oral and
literary tales.”3 Fairy tales have been a part of film since the invention of the
moving image. Once human beings realized the ability to reconstruct reality in
the cinema they have projected their imaginations into it. The medium of film
allows the imagination to come alive in a realistic manner; through film our
dreams come to life. Georges Melies’ Voyage to the Moon was perhaps the first
fairy-tale film because of its visualization of impossible magical events. The early
Bagdad, Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, King Kong, Lost Horizon and The
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Wizard of Oz. Only recently have the films been considered a genre of their own,
because aspects of the fairy tale can be found in a variety of places. The fairy-
tale classics return again and again in different guises: Beauty and the Beast
Tale of Terror, Disney’s Snow White) and Alice in Wonderland (Dreamchild, Jan
Svankmejer’s Alice).
that we cannot find in everyday life? Fairy-tale films have sought to explain social
the real world. We do not merely cut ourselves off from real life for a few hours to
real life connotations so that we may learn how to perceive our lives differently.
Taking into consideration the comparative works of folklorist Max Luthi, fairy-
tale scholar Jack Zipes and historian Robert Darnton, I will attempt to show the
relationship between the fairy-tale film and everyday life. Through the representation
the fairy-tale film opens up alternative avenues of thought for its viewers. From this
created, imaginary world we return to our everyday lives with new perspectives and
3
Fairy Tales and Reality
characteristics that bind the corpus together. The fairy-tale form creates a genre-
specific world. The form is useful to modern writers because of its specific
techniques and style. The beauty, simplicity and magic inherent in the fairy-tale
The traditional fairy-tale form focuses the world, creating it anew, while
integrating magical elements. Folklorist Max Luthi notes the striking contrast
made by juxtaposing the real and non-real in the fairy tale as follows:
The fairy tale allows for the existence of an otherworld within the domain of a
knowable reality. The fantastic elements so widely loved in magic tales give the
genre its power and attraction. In the fairy tale, fantastic occurrences arise
intermittently as contrast, letting the magic ooze into the real setting. Cocteau’s
Orpheus and Wenders’ Wings of Desire, for example, place their extraordinary
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events within the context of everyday reality. The real and non-real contrast in
the films; they seep into each other so that the magical becomes a little more real
The fairy tale offers both escape from reality and an answer to how reality
could be better in light of a utopian vision. Gilliam’s Brazil and Burton’s Edward
so that their viewers may be able to gain perspective on their own social
reality, the fairy tale has historically allowed revolutionary ideas to proliferate
within the genre.6 In this way, the fairy tale can offer storytellers and listeners a
visions are based on qualities fundamentally lacking in the real world. Listeners
of the oral tales and viewers of the fairy-tale films may imagine how the real
world might be changed if these qualities were somehow reintegrated into the
Many diverse groups through history have found the fairy tale’s abstract
form useful for their own means. The fairy-tale form allows for the widest content
and diverse meaning. Folk and fairy tales work in much the same was as a
genre; they have a particular style, flexible form and distinctive way of creating
their worlds.7 Folklorist Max Luthi argues, “the folktale’s many prohibitions and
strict conditions contribute in no small way to the elaboration of its precise style.”8
Luthi’s fairy tale presents a simplistic world, stripped of complexity because of its
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isolation, sublimation and abstraction. The fairy tale’s abstract form allows for its
potential use by many narrative artists. The form offers a distinct way of looking
at the real world: “Whatever in the real world is bound in a complex net of
isolation and capacity for universal interconnection.”9 In this way the fairy tale
offers a specific worldview, which allows writers the elasticity of its style as well
tale to find metaphors and symbols, Historian Robert Darnton’s approach is quite
contrary. Darnton reads the tales literally, saying they were rooted in the lives of
peasants. His study of tales, focusing on 18th century France, argues for the
folktale as a direct mirror to society and crisis: “Far from being the arbitrary
basis of experience in a given social order.”10 For Darnton, the folktale serves as
an historical artifact so that we can understand the mind and social climate of the
era:
[The peasants] tried to make sense of the world, in all its booming,
buzzing confusion, with the materials they had at hand… The peasant
tellers of tales did not merely find the stories amusing or frightening or
functional. They found them ‘good to think with.’ They reworked them in
their own manner, using them to piece together a picture of reality and to
show what that picture meant for persons at the bottom of the social
order.11
The peasants of 18th century France found the fairy-tale form useful as a way to
extract meaning from their everyday life. Similarly, this scenario can be found in
6
Dissociated from the common world, listeners of the tales find themselves
environments they find themselves again, transformed; the tools they find in the
fairy tale’s otherworld return with the listeners to apply to their real lives. Use of
the fairy-tale form today allows viewers, listeners of readers to visit an otherworld
and to glean meaning and relevance from its compilation of real life themes and
conflicts.
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The Wizard of Oz and the American Dream
example of the fairy-tale film. The film begs its viewers to question the real world
imagination allows her to experience the alternative to home in the form of Oz.
While the film affirms the value of the imagination, it also villainizes
the ultimate necessity of the fairy tale and its function to the individual. The
however, that reality is where we belong. While the departure may be desirable,
the return is what counts. Dorothy appreciates home only once she is distanced
from it. She realizes the real world can be beautiful and full of adventure. She
says: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my
own back yard. And if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” The
While the film spends the majority of its time evoking the magic of Oz, the ending
in fact reassures that reality is our home. Jack Zipes decodes Oz as “a specific
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no place. But Oz is a place and a space in the American imagination, and as
lacking in America. This is why Americans feel the need to go there. The
overarching theme of the film asserts that, while we may have recourse to
exists to bring the meaningfulness of Kansas to fruition. Had Dorothy stayed she
might never have come to the realizations she had in Oz. The relief of the return
justifies Dorothy’s quest for home, her desire to get swept away, and her wish to
transcend the rainbow. Only with this passage can she come to the
The film, however, paints Kansas in dismal black and white. It is a terrible
according to the film’s morals, remain in reality, couldn’t that reality be a little less
bleak?:
Anyone who has swallowed the scriptwriters’ notion that this is a film
about the superiority of ‘home’ over ‘away’…would do well to listen to the
yearning in Judy Garland’s voice, as her face tilts up towards the skies.
What she expresses here… is the human desire of leaving, a dream at
least as powerful as its countervailing dream of roots. At the heart of The
Wizard of Oz is a great tension between these two dreams… In its most
potent emotional moment, this is unarguably a film about the joys of going
away, of leaving the grayness and entering the color, of making a new life
in the ‘place where there isn’t any trouble.’13
While the film stresses that we must remain in reality and that our wishes can be
fulfilled “in our own backyard,” it also expresses our dear wishes for escape. The
choice is left to the viewer. One may wish to live eternally in Oz, or one might
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agree to the magical elements and the wish-fulfilling qualities of reality. Dorothy,
having experienced the wonders of the magical world of Oz, accepts her reality.
Viewers, however, may disagree. We must, then, turn to our imagination to fulfill
our wishes since the materialization of an otherworld in the real world is just as
likely as it would be to travel “over the rainbow.” While in the real world it may be
ourselves (our minds, that is) to the otherworld to momentarily find what we seek.
made possible through the manipulation of science and technology. His gifts are
simplistic, rational, and not entirely worth the trip. Though the phrase “it’s not the
destination that matters, it’s the journey itself,” answers the ineffectuality of the
Wizard’s power, it does not help the fact that Dorothy’s salvation rests in illusion.
His gifts, “objects of self-delusion,” account for both his lack of magic and his
belief that self-confidence will solve all of your problems.14 Imagination may not
be able to save you, but it can give you hope. The fulfillment of your wish may
not, in the end, be enough to make you happy; it can, however, uncover the
answer that has lain all the while within yourself. This general life-affirming moral
denotes a primary quality of the fairy-tale film. The answers to our desires lie
within ourselves and our flights of fancy only reassure that reality is where we
belong.
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Returning, we find, much as Dorothy did, that reality is all the better
the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them. As
journey is one that any imaginative person must take in order to see the
reality which surrounded Baum in 1900.”16 In his essay “The Wizard of Oz:
Parable on Populism,” Henry Littlefield examines L. Frank Baum’s book and its
Baum embedded a social allegory under the guise of a fairy tale. Baum’s use of
the form and its wide popularity supports the fairy tale’s dualistic application.
deconstructs Baum’s book rather than the 1939 film. While the film stresses
certain themes and morals over others, a good part of the social allegory was lost
ineptitude and the implications of his inability to perform his job, for his actions
The Wizard, a little bumbling man, hiding behind a façade of paper mache
and noise, might be any president from Grant to McKinley. He comes
straight from the fairgrounds on Omaha, Nebraska, and he symbolizes the
American criterion for leadership – he is able to be everything to
everybody.17
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The Wizard’s use of illusion and circus-like magician’s tricks shows how our
political leaders function in much the same way. The Wizard’s god-like persona
propagated by the Emerald City citizens satirizes the power we afford to political
The fearsome Wizard turns out to be nothing more than a common man,
capable of shrewd but mundane answers to these self-induced needs.
Like any good politician he gives the people what they want. Throughout
the story Baum poses a central thought; the American desire for symbols
of fulfillment is illusory. Real needs lie elsewhere.18
While the central theme of the film may be the dismissal of the fantastical world
in lieu of reality, the book stresses exactly the opposite. While we use our
what reality lacks. This operation, however, is not constrained to America. It was
expressed in the cross-cultural use of the fairy tale form and is still explored
alternative created world to the everyday life of the viewers. In the created world
Zipes, “Americans kept returning to the Oz material not because of the American
myth but because of the promises that America as a nation has failed to keep.
Oz is the utopia that exposes the myth of America as a land of the free and brave
as lie.”19 In Oz, Dorothy finds a home, and many Americans feel the same. The
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popularity of the novel and the film reflects the deep-seated wishes of Americans
to find utopia; it was promised as the American Dream but never came to fruition.
We need fairy tales for this reason. Through the visualization of utopia, viewers
and readers are able to see how their reality might be changed for the better.
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The Disney Corporation and the Commercial American Fairy Tale
industry because of its childlike, beautiful and timeless qualities. Certain writers
and institutions, however, have grabbed hold of the form to use it in their own
ways. The Disney Corporation, for example, adapts classic fairy tales into
animated children’s movies; in the process, however, the stories loose their
cultural specificity and much of its embedded meaning. Put on the screen in
Technicolor, classic fairy tales (i.e.: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White,
Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc.) convey
American ideology, which is peculiar because these tales are anything but
to neglect the historical use of the form as well as its adult attraction.
Today, when writers adapt traditional fairy tales or create new ones, they
commonly treat the beautiful stories at face value. The beauty of the stories is not
their only attraction, however. In her essay on the contemporary use of fairy-tale
The author may choose either to duplicate given patterns and ideas, and
thus confirm the existing order of the world, or to question and subvert
them so as to criticize the dominant forces in the society. This
fundamental distinction implies that one can speak of two tendencies
within the phenomenon of contamination: on one hand, contamination
may mean disfigurement or effacement of the "genuine" character of a
given tale; on the other, it may be seen as the fairytale's plasticity and its
potential to address social and cultural changes.20
According to Deszcz and Jack Zipes, the traditional role of the fairy tale in society
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fairy tale allows the faculty of imagination to flourish, to consider various “what if”
scenarios, and to operate without the bounds of reality. For society, the fairy tale
allows the artistic manipulation of the concepts to utopia and wish fulfillment in
worlds of imaginative creation serve not to reflect reality but explore common,
widespread issues of personal growth and ultimately grand conflict. Films such
as Legend and The Dark Crystal “fail to capture the charm of the genre precisely
Henson’s The Dark Crystal are epic stories about the struggle between good and
evil, visualized as ultimate opposites in black and white; the innocent must
universe. So cut off from reality, they may be magical and beautiful but they fail
to relate their stories to everyday life or to relevant social issues. Fairy-tale films
such as these still touch us as adults because of their lingering hold on our
imaginations and their quests for simple things (whether balance, happiness or
wholeness).
The power of these films rests in their visualization of magic and the
events unique to their particular stories. The Disney films rely on image over
content. While Disney’s vision of utopia may be beautiful, it does not reflect
reality. It represents, rather, a place where the American dream might come true:
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“The power of Disney’s fairy-tale films does not reside in the uniqueness or
novelty of the productions, but in Disney’s great talent for holding antiquated
views of society still through animation and his use of the latest technological
humor and music asks us to watch but not to think too hard on the content.
Disney’s form of entertainment, however, offers little in the way of dealing with
We must think for a second about the “original” tales, their morals and
their use in peasant societies. Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(1937), for example, bears little resemblance to the traditional tale.24 Adapting the
Grimm’s tales, known for their grotesque imagery and carnage, Disney omits the
“original” Grimm’s tale, Disney’s version installs caricatures: absolute good and
absolute evil. Disney also pushes a love between prince and princess absent in
the Grimm’s version. In the story collected by the Grimm’s from oral tradition:
there was no stepmother. There was no prince. That's right, the princess
is persecuted by her own mother, the Queen. The mother tries to kill the
daughter, and apparently succeeds, until the father - yes, the King himself
- discovers the daughter's preserved body. Enraged, he executes the
Queen. Stop and think about the implications for a moment. It's no longer
a story about beauty… Here is a mother who is so vain that she tosses
family ties aside and tries to murder her own daughter. Even worse, the
father's rescue at the end of the tale carries more than a whiff of incest…
The idea behind the peasant version, of course, is once again a
reinforcement of the old peasant adage: You are never really safe, so be
on your guard at all times. You cannot even trust your own parents! This is
a stark reality unknown to most of us nowadays, perhaps, but these were
vital life lessons for the peasants to survive.26
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The story as it exists in the American imagination, made possible by Disney,
expands on central ideas of a nuclear family, pure good, and love. Changing the
mother into a stepmother severs the familial connection. Disney’s version of the
mother dies in childbirth and knows only love for her daughter. All in all, Disney’s
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs strengthens contemporary values of familial
unity, parental love and love between man and woman as well as the adage
The Disney films and theme parks invite the bored public to indulge in the
like having your dreams fulfilled. Disney advertises the fulfillment of wishes
knowing full well that it cannot follow through. Disney offers fantasy in the form of
entertainment, nothing more. When individuals approximate that offer in the form
The magic and Technicolor of Disney’s concrete utopian theme parks is nothing
more than a façade. Disney offers a dream, not a reality. The theme parks and
films rely on image and simplicity while neglecting relevance to everyday life;
they are an indulgence in the imagination. All we can hope for from entertainment
of this type is perspective, inspiration, and insight so that we may change our
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situation individually and socially. Disney, however, offers magic in the form of
The ubiquity of the Disney Corporation not only in America but also in the
While Disney sells imagination as product, it also sells American capitalist values
intertwined. While they cannot be separated, the films, comics, characters and
adventures portrayed in Disney products offer the idea of the American dream of
and place of their reception. By introducing American values into the tales,
Disney was able to insert the framework of traditional tale types into mass
culture. To the mass audience Disney’s Beauty and the Beast holds precedence
over Cocteau’s Belle et la Bete and Aladdin over The Thief of Bagdad. Because
of their simplicity and childlike nature, the Disney animated films appeal to a wide
audience so that the images become embedded and irreplaceable. The tales are
now immutable in the mass culture because of Disney’s stranglehold on the fairy-
tale film. The appeal of Disney’s films concerns their innocence and
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Edward Scissorhands: Beauty and the Beast in Suburbia
vision of reality in order to show the possibility of social change. Suburbia, in the
film, represents utopian society while contrasting with the other in Edward. The
dark amid the light forms a high contrast through which we see their opposition.
This basic juxtaposition of opposites, called binarism, is a distinct trait of the fairy
tale:
When one looks at the fairytale world as a whole, it is the negative amid
the positive that stands out, the dark color amid all the magnificence and
sparkle: witches, dragons, and plotters; the presence of evil, of failure, of
the unsuccessful imitation, for example, which is really not just a foil, but,
as the instantiation of a contrastive possibility, something in its own right.29
In essence, all stories are about duality: the opposition between good and evil.
Binarism is the simplest way to show difference. Edward embodies the opposite
of society. He comes from the dark Gothic Castle on the outskirts of a pastel,
uniform community of square houses. While everything in and around the castle
Fairy tales continuously oppose good and evil, beautiful and ugly, and
weak and strong. Especially in character, the fairytale relies on basic ideas of
extreme perfection or extreme moral deceit to define their hero and villain:
basically strange and unfathomable, and for this reason they are the subject of
story after story.”30 By basing its characters at either end of a moral and visual
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distinguish the hero from the villain in the fairy tale because of their drastic
opposition in all respects (i.e.: the hero may be beautiful, noble, and chaste while
The film tells the story of Edward, the creation of an inventor, who remains
reject, Edward lives alone in the Gothic castle on the edge of a brightly colored
suburban community. When the local Avon representative finds him living there,
she decides to take him home to live with her and her family. At first the
community welcomes Edward, though deformed, for his artistic abilities to shape
Edward as their scapegoat, forcing him back into his castle and role as “other” to
their society. The film asks us to reconsider out concepts of beauty and
juxtaposition of pastel cookie cutter houses and the gothic castle on the outskirts
of town. Both images are exaggerated from our reality in an attempt to warp the
reality of the movie: “When you do a fairy tale you are a little bit at odds with
something real and heightening it. So what you have is an inherent balancing
problem between the real and the unreal.”31 The heightened world is evident in
Edward Scissorhands by its visual design. The appearance of the gothic castle
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and of Edward justifies the heightening of normality in the film. Suburbia
becomes a frightening place, more frightening even than the gothic castle.
social utopia. Set apart from urban life, suburbia was a getaway, a serene place
contrast with the ideal. Suburbia is not utopia, but a post-industrial attempt at
than functioning as a subset of it. When Edward comes to town they flock to the
occasion, interested in the arrival of something new and different. The citizens in
it are fascinated with Edward to the extreme. They are both nosey and
overwhelmingly inquisitive. When things turn for the worst, however, Edward
becomes the scapegoat, symbolizing all that society has to hide, fear and hate.
He is their villain, the dreaded other. Edward is the beast to society: “I’m not
finished,” he says. His father, the inventor, passed away before giving him
Fairy tales rouse different images according to the individual. Tim Burton,
creator of the modern fairy tale Edward Scissorhands, finds the spirit of tales in
horror films. For Burton, the idea of the fairy tale world is just that – a concept
rather than a reality. He relates the image and concept of the fairy tale to
21
All monster movies are basically one story. It’s ‘Beauty and the Beast.’
Monster movies are my form of myth, of fairy tale. The purpose of folk
tales for me is a kind of extreme, symbolic version of life, of what you’re
going through. In America, in suburbia, there is no sense of culture, no
sense of passion. So those served that very specific purpose for me.32
Burton’s personal interpretation indicates the abstract form of the fairytale. Aware
of the concept and spirit of fairytales, Burton manipulated the motifs of “Beauty
and the Beast” in his conception of Edward Scissorhands. His film taps the
fairytale-like spirit by heightening the story world from reality and using binary
opposition.
see the same motifs, indeed the same stories arise cross-culturally, vouches for
the fact that the folktale attracts certain themes and situations over others. The
“Beauty and the Beast,” shows a peculiar uniformity of the folktale, its elements
there are only so many stories to be told.35 These stories, however, are powerful
because of their meaning. They shed light on intrinsic human qualities, bring
well as the personal creative energy of the artist. Because of their well-known
22
and widely beloved atmosphere, fairy tales foster a collective willing to return to
Fairy tales are closely linked to the society which they helped
counterpoise, and I believe it would no longer be possible today to write
authentic ‘new fairytales.’ The old ones live on, but, the difficulties of the
growing child no longer being the same, we must complete them by new
stories in which the fairies have so altered their faces that we must give
them other names.36
Zipes. While society has changed from what it was in the 18th century, the form
remains remarkably stable. Manipulation of the form allows for the artist to insert
meaning of the 18th century fairy tales are no longer literally applicable to our
current setting, the form has been tested to be appropriate for the imbedding of
socio-cultural meaning.
cultural meaning, but also because of their abstract form. “Once upon a
time…and they lived happily ever after”: anything can happen within the frame.
The fairy tale’s abstract form allows for any number of motifs and meanings. Max
Luthi says, “anything is possible in the folktale.37 His study of the folktale shows
its abstract style in that the form allows for any content. The content, then,
If the fairytale survived many centuries in oral tradition and has vigorously
continued to live on for more than a hundred and fifty years in book form,
the reason, it seems to me, is to no small degree to be sought in the
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freedom which it allows and offers to listeners, readers, and
narrators…The narrator is allowed the freedom to discover and realize
new variations, new possibilities of development, and new narrative
goals.38
The folktale retains its magic even when removed from its traditional setting. Any
story applying fairytale elements will tap the fairytale spirit. Since anything is
possible within the abstract form the fairy tale allows for flexibility and a wide
range of content. The folktale’s abstract form gives freedom to the artist as far as
content and meaning while allowing an intrinsic magic of the world to arise.
contemporary social reality. The film relies on fairy tale concepts to convey its
content and allegorical levels. The film asks its viewers if American society is as
Edward Scissorhands allows greater conflict because of its detachment from the
real world. Likewise, the setting allows Edward to contrast all the more: the dark
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Orpheus: Converging Realities
tale and the fairy-tale film. In Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus the underworld, lies
parallel to reality, showing the closeness of the adventure, mystery and magic
found there. Fantastic events occur in the film with remarkable ease,
demonstrating the difference between the created world and the real world. The
a poet’s imagination. The abstract use of the well-known Orpheus myth, also,
shows that old stories can be renewed. The old stories live on because they have
gleaning options from its implication. The product, similarly, remains abstract so
that the viewer can likewise glean alternative meanings from the work.
In Greek legend, Orpheus was the famous poet and singer whose voice
could charm anyone who listened. His wife was Eurydice. When his love died, he
traveled to the Underworld to convince Hades, the God of the dead, to bring her
back to life. Hades’ allowed this on the condition that Orpheus not look at
Eurydice until they returned to the mortal plane. Falling prey to temptation,
framework of the story. In the film, the Princess, a mysterious and powerful
beauty, falls in love with Orpheus, murders Eurydice so that Orpheus will follow
her into the Underworld. Heurtebise, the Princess’ chauffeur, helps Orpheus
down the path laden with mysteries so that he can reunite with his wife, for in the
25
mean time Heurtebise has fallen in love with Eurydice. Orpheus succeeds in
bringing Eurydice back to life, but, as the myth prescribes, Orpheus’s eyes fall on
her and she disappears immediately. Orpheus returns to the Underworld and,
with the help of the Princess and Heutrebise, turns back time to unmake the
unfortunate incidents. Orpheus and Eurydice are resurrected and the film ends
An opening voice over gives direct reference to the Orpheus myth, citing
the basic story. The monologue stresses its timelessness: “Where is our story
you think.”39 The film continues to set the abstract story in a definite place and
skeleton from which to flesh out the story he needed to tell: “[The myth of
to follow the cadence of all fables which are modified in the long run according to
who tells the story.”40 Cocteau expands and details the simple story, depicting its
otherworld as dreamlike and poetical. Stratifying the created world with mystery,
In the film, reality is juxtaposed with illusion and the dream world with that
of the waking. The film represents the dream state as an altered world, one in
gloves and walking through a mirror. Orpheus’ journey is one of mystery, illusion
and intuitive succession rather than causality and rationality. Orpheus follows his
26
overcome mortality, to engage in the miraculous and intangible poetry of life and
Orpheus meets the Princess for the first time at the Poet’s Café in the
bourgeois attitude. Orpheus accompanies her to her home outside town. Once
there he recognizes his altered state of mind. When he explains to the Princess
He then takes a look in a mirror and it shatters. Orpheus then falls asleep in front
become obvious and necessary. This first incident incites the dream logic of the
the sense of being in a dream. Orpheus begins to blur the division of reality and
illusion, unable to distinguish between dreaming and waking. The events follow
intuition rather than logic, consequently bringing the audience into a likewise
reality. With Orpheus, Cocteau says that the dream world constructed in the film
could be a part of reality. Rather than discarding reality all together, as so many
films do, Orpheus integrates the non-real into a familiar setting to show the magic
27
in our everyday world: “The cinema-poet’s first concern should, therefore, be to
he does in the most routine actions.”42 We all visit the world of dreams nightly.
While familiar with the state of mind and the illogical patterns of events in our
In the world of dreams, anything might happen. It would seem the closest
of the otherworlds, for it resides in our heads, as does the imagination. The
intuition rather than logic. The world of dreams remains nearly untapped, for its
world and of the Greek Underworld. The rules of the otherworld in the film follow
paradigms correlative to both. While in the film it may be possible to fall asleep in
one place to wake up in another, it is also possible to pass through the mirror to
arrive in limbo. The dream state of the film allows for illogical events, but follows
basing the narrative in a real place and time, all subsequent action can be
weaves magic with reality, which effectively reflects the character of folk and fairy
tales: “Side by side with the ordinary world exists the otherworld. The frequency
with which the folktale makes use of otherworldly motifs is not surprising, for the
confrontation with a totally different world is one of the basic concerns of human
28
existence.”43 In the fairy tale the otherworld is close, tangible and realized.
Through the tales we are able to experience the wonders of magic, the
likely. For, as in a dream state, what we wish but rationally know to be impossible
authentic and tangible qualities a man of that fame and statue. Orpheus
becomes a real man with a real life, having real connections with the real world.
Orpheus is driven by the need to write, which becomes the need to create
newness and the need to find originality in a world stripped of poetic reality.
Feeling overwhelmed and suffocated by his work, Orpheus searches for new
transmissions: “The mirror would do well to reflect further,” “the bird sings with its
fingers.” The poet’s quarrel with originality is realized in his obsession with the
unknown origin of the beautiful and enigmatic phrases. Orpheus says: “My life
had passed its peak. I was rotting, stinking of success and death. The least of
those phrases is much more than my poems. I’d give all I’ve written for one of
those little phrases…I’m on the trail of the unknown.”44 Orpheus’ will to find new
29
Orpheus blends the real and the non-real to question the waking state and
the existence of reality itself. Orpheus’ continual dream state in the film allows us
to question what is real and to wonder whether the otherworld is really that far
away. Cocteau’s reworking of the Orpheus story in the form of a dreamlike fairy-
tale film raises the ultimate question: what is reality? Could reality be a form of
dreaming? Is the underworld just beyond the mirror? Perhaps in dreams it is.
30
Wings of Desire and the Vision of the Eternal Child
world through the journey of its main character, Damiel. The representation of the
eternal child in Damiel shows his innocent perspective on all things: the concrete,
the abstract, the real and the illusory. This representation allows the audience to
join Damiel, to adopt his perspective in order to view the world repeatedly
renewed. The film celebrates innocence and magic and therefore serves as an
example of Michael Atkinson’s film enchante genre. Its abstract nature allows for
human. In the world of the story, angels walk amid humans listening to their
thoughts and offering consolement in the form of touch. As an angel, Damiel acts
like an innocent and curious child. While aware of what the real world holds, he
remains detached from it. As an immortal ethereal being, he has no body and no
are able to realize the grandeur of what we already have. Damiel’s journey leads
him to Marion, a trapeze artist. She becomes his link to the physical world as a
reality. With the mere power of will, Damiel becomes human, for angels have the
31
ability to choose. Damiel’s perspective remains innocent when he falls; he
achieves both of his goals: to be tangible and to be loved. The simplicity and
poetic nature of the film successfully convey the abstract story and its themes.
The film relies heavily on the abstract themes expressed through voiceover
narrated poems and on its images; very little is told. The film links philosophy and
poetry with existential questions, telling the story of an angel who desires to be
human.
While Wings of Desire is set in reality, the angels are foreign to it.
Adopting their perspective situates the viewer outside looking in. The film
was familiar. While the angels can hear the thoughts of humans, they interpret
The film focuses on the experiences of Damiel and Cassiel. Their world is
represented in black and white (the world represented through human eyes is in
color). The absence of color shows the angel’s desire for texture, touch, and
32
we already have is to realize what we take for granted. By inhabiting this
privileged perspective we realize what we have and how glorious it all is.
from the familiarity of everyday life enabling the viewer to see her own life in a
new light: “In Wings of Desire, [co-writer] Handke and [writer/director] Wenders
reality in the film slightly skews the familiar, but little more than any other realistic
inner thought of normal people. The heightened poetic discourse, while allowing
the ideal vision of a utopia sought after. While the everyday world represented in
the film remains basically realistic, the privileged narrative perspective rests
outside it. The existence of angels in the narrative designates an unrealistic tone,
as beings that defy realistic conventions. The separation of the worlds, however,
realistically, in an attempt to draw the viewer into critical analysis of her own
everyday life. The same is applicable to the romantic fairy tale: “The reversal and
the familiar appear strange so that the reader will be compelled to take a more
critical and creative approach to daily life.”48 Propelled by Damiel’s carnal wishes,
the viewer is placed in a situation through which she may see the importance and
33
novelty of what she already has. She can step back from her life and watch
sets the tone of the rest of the film. The poem introduces Damiel’s perspective,
the frame of which is repeated through the film in different forms to show his
activities: a man stands outside a bakery, a woman rides a bicycle, a family eats
When the child was a child, it was a time of these questions. Why am I me
and why not you? Why am I here and why not there? When did time begin
and where does space end? Isn’t life under the sun just a dream? Isn’t
what I hear see and smell just a mirage of a world before the world? Does
evil actually exist and are there people who are really evil? How can it be
that I, who am I, wasn’t before I was, and that sometime I, the one I am no
longer will be the one I am?49
The poem linguistically strengthens the film’s images. The words give the
pictures meaning, enabling the viewer to see the seemingly normal story world in
a new way. The deep questions of identity, existence and reality based on the
senses proposed in this opening monologue fuel the viewer’s imagination and
The repetition of the frame of the poem shows Damiel’s inward journey.
When he ponders his existence as an immortal child the poem reflects his state
of mind; when he achieves his wish the poem shows his maintained childlike
perspective and his enhanced joy in newness. The poem shows Damiel’s
passage, fueled by desire, mirrors a childlike image. His eyes are curious, his
34
demeanor always exploring. He views the world as always new. He is, in a
enunciated and thus could take on any form. Hearing the collective thoughts of
condensed form of language, holds existential value. It is said, “you are what you
not hear poetry of thought spouted at every turn. Wings of Desire allows us to
see the transcendence of latent thought, the ideas rushing through our heads
perhaps never realized. We may verbalize our grocery list and our daily
schedule. When asked how we are doing, we say, “okay. I’m fine.” Handke
predicates that our latent thoughts are divined when enunciated. Thought, to
Handke, perhaps reflects more the unconscious spirit than conscious mind.
One of the humans Damiel follows is Homer, the aged poet. His thoughts
linger on his storytelling abilities, the power inherent in narration, and the human
35
Where are you my heroes? Where are you, my children? Where are my
own, the curious ones? The first, the original ones? Name me, muse, the
immortal singer who, abandoned by those who listened to him, lost his
voice. He who, from the angel of poetry that he was, became the poet,
ignored or mocked, outside on the threshold of no-man’s land.51
While representative of Homer’s inner thought, his monologue does not correlate
spoken through the film, show a hidden poetic nature of language. While
everyone may not be a poet, Handke supposes that we are all in some way
poetic thinkers. The use of poetry in the film heightens the sense of reality,
representing the images, which may seem normal and everyday, as lyrical and
prosaic.
She swings on the trapeze sporting a pair of angel wings, referred to as “chicken
feathers” because of their awkwardness and inability to make her angelic. In the
expresses the loss of his childlike perspective within the frame of the poem:
When the child was a child it woke up once in a strange bed and now time
and time again. Many people seemed beautiful then, but not so much
anymore, only if it’s lucky. It had a precise picture of paradise and now can
only guess at it. It couldn’t imagine nothingness and today shudders at the
idea. When the child was a child it played with enthusiasm and now with
such involvement only when it concern work.52
Once his eyes fall on Marion, Damiel is able to see another perspective, which is
reflected in the change of the poem. Marion offers Damiel a link to the physicality
and tangibility of the mortal world. In this way Damiel helps us understand the
emotional transition from child to adult. We lose our untainted perception in lieu
36
mortality. We lose the joy felt for simple things. The incarnation of the “when the
child was a child” poem emphasizes the loss of innocence on the realization of
sexual desire.
achieves his greatest wish by the sole power of will. His transformation revitalizes
our belief in the power of the imagination. In reality, we use language and create
narrative to fulfill our wishes. The imagination facilitates the possibilities inherent
come true.
Walking with his friend Cassiel, he imagines how his first day as a human
sand; the world turns to color. He has become human by the simple enunciation
of the wish, as if the Mother Goose rhyme could have the power to transform
reality: “Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might,
with the impossible, have uttered these words with the hope they might come
Damiel’s fall echoes that of Lucifer, though his defection from the divine is
expressed not as an evil act (and, of course, in Wenders’ new age vision
of spirituality, no God is referred to); rather, his entrance into mortality is
provoked by desire and the simple exertion of will, not to power, but to
self-realization. The male angel is transfigured by his desire for gender
and physicality, human bonding and heterosexual love, and the glories of
the everyday.54
37
According to mythology, angels have the option to fall from grace. This we know
from the story of Lucifer. But Damiel’s story is quite different. Unlike Lucifer,
Damiel is an emotional being characterized by his childlike nature, his full belief
in his wishes, and his will to transform. His self-realization proves both the
ethereal entity to innocent curious child. After his metamorphosis his childlike
desire is lost but his yearning for newness revitalized. He joys in the novelty of
humanity. He becomes a different kind of child, having jumped the fence to the
tasks, to smoke a cigarette with a cup of black coffee, and to walk and breathe.
seeks the newness of taste and touch as he devours a pear. He joys at looking a
stranger in the eyes, and the reciprocation. These are the things we take for
granted because they are common and everyday. To adopt this perspective in all
his thirst for knowledge and his innocent countenance. He teaches himself to
whistle; he seems free of cares; his eyes are wide with curiosity. He states:
When the child was a child it lived on apples and bread. That was enough.
And is still that way. When the child was a child, berries fell only like
38
berries into its hand and they still do now. Fresh walnuts made its tongue
raw and they still do now. Atop each mountain, it was longing for a higher
mountain. And in each city it was longing for a bigger city and it still does.
Reached in the treetop for the cherries as elated as it still is. Was shy in
front of strangers and it still is. Waited for the first snow and still waits that
way. When the child was a child it threw a stick, like a lance, into a tree
and it’s still quivering there today.55
While Damiel has changed physically, his spirit and mind remain invariably the
same. He retains the childlike demeanor expressed in his desire for humanity,
The angels in Wings of Desire, visible only to children and other angels,
are adult versions of the children in [Wenders’] earlier films. Given their
prominence, they extend and make manifest the spiritual and folkloric
dimension already latent in children themselves. They are truly ‘guardian
angels,’ compassionate spirits whose job is to protect and even redeem
the adults of earth.56
Damiel remains a child but exudes a different kind of innocence. Now that he
knows physicality his curiosity focuses on the new experiences associated with it.
prescribes to what critic Michael Atkinson prescribes the film enchante genre,
also called the nursery film. In his essay “Film Enchante: Out of the Nursery, into
fantasy film genre for the creation of a new sub-genre applying to a style that
taps a childlike imagination, returns its viewer to a reminiscent past, and evokes
a fantastic quality with its narrative and visualization. In this way, film enchante
What distinguishes the nursery film from its numerous nexuses and
junctions is their distinctive juvenescence, their ceremony of innocence.
To a child, a movie can literally be a heaven, and is no farther from her
39
grasp for that: what happens in heaven – immortality, freedom from the
reigns of space and time, union with the divine, reunion with loved ones –
can happen in movies, and happens commonly in the nursery film, where
the only criteria is the sweet will and enraptured flight of an open
consciousness.57
innocence and of the eternal child. Situating the viewer outside reality looking in,
what Atkinson calls an “otherworldly dynamic,” the film offers the adoption of a
childlike perspective so that can see the world in a new and different way.58 The
character of Damiel acts in consistently childlike ways throughout the film. His
curiosity and innocence heighten the narrative’s fairy tale qualities thereby
effecting the viewer’s perception of events and interactions. While viewing his
consider the childlike eye in order to gain a fresh perspective on the world.
Watching Damiel’s journey allows the audience to come back to reality with new
eyes. While our everyday speech might not be poetry, while we may not be able
that we can see our own lives and the world around us as new. The imagination
transform our surroundings and our own lives through perception. Reality may
not be what it seems, as long as our imaginations allow us to see the possibilities
40
Brazil: Dystopia and the Revolutionary Fairy Tale
The fairy tale allows for revolutionary content within its form. While
outwardly benign, upon closer examination the fairy tale will divulge its political
implications hand in hand with narrative devices. The fairy tale form owes much
history. The efforts of the German Romantics brought new meaning and
applications to the fairy-tale form. The German Romantics used the form’s
shows both the elasticity of its abstract form and the mark history can make on
artifact:
41
Fairy-tale scholar Jack Zipes analyzes the form from a socio-cultural historical
Zipes, the German Romantic writers implemented the fairytale form because they
dystopic. Socio-cultural crises affect the attitudes of artists and the issues
expressed in their artwork: “Insofar as [fairy tales] have tended to project other
and better worlds, they have often been considered subversive, or, to put it more
positively, they have provided the critical measure of how far we are from taking
history into our own hands and creating more just societies.”61 Artists of the
Romantic era took up the traditional folktale form to show their socio-political
meaning so that the writers and readers could imagine the real world in new and
better ways. Zipes stresses primarily the social revolutionary applications of the
fairy tale form. Rather than manipulating the form in artistic consideration only,
by spreading their revolutionary ideas under the guise of a traditional tale. The
Terry Gilliam’s Brazil functions in much the same way as the Romantic ‘s
use of the fairy tale. The film uses the opposition of reality and non-reality and
the idea of utopia to illustrate a society that stifles original thought and dreams.
insipid and asphyxiating. Very much a product of its culture, era and political
42
atmosphere, Brazil shows the utopian longings of a fantasy-prone bureaucrat.
The film, however, proposes neither an answer to the narrative dilemma nor an
outlet for social change. It rests in the stasis of its created world while leaving
utopia as no more than a dream. The film is a reaction to the state of America; it
depicts its alternate world in a pessimistic fashion, revealing the reality of what
The world of Brazil is full of exaggerated technology ruled over by the coldness of
a dominating government.
Brazil tells the story of Sam, a bureaucrat, who struggles against his
technological reality by retreating into a dream world. The audience sees the
world through Sam’s eyes. Much of what he experiences in reality rests in his
skewed perception of his environment. The film illustrates its future world as an
inefficient bureaucratic system, obsessed with paperwork and rules, illogical and
Ministry, the government that controls the lives of all its citizens. Imposing laws
and bureaucratic regulations, the system relies on reason and over-the-top logic
to keep its citizens beaten down. Due to a paperwork error, an innocent man,
Buttle was charged for the crimes of Tuttle. After coming across the mistake,
Sam attempts to fix the problem. On the way, Sam meets Jill, the woman from
his dreams. He subsequently gets wrapped up in terrorist activity, meets the real
Tuttle, who fixes the faulty wiring in his apartment, and becomes a veritable
43
The film, originally titled 1984_, connotes not the country of Brazil, but the
calypso song:
And, as the tagline states, “it’s only a state of mind.”62 The song summons
images of escape to utopia, of “the good life” that’s waiting for you, of a near
future where your wishes will be met, when you will have achieved happiness.
Over the opening shot, drifting through the clouds, the melody plays. The lyrics
pop up in the film sung by Sam in his car, sung by Tuttle while fixing Sam’s
plumbing and again at the end when Sam has lost all hope. The song becomes
the symbol of escape for everyone in the created world who has lost hope but
The world of the film dangles an illusive utopian vision before its subjects,
and an absurdly heightened capitalism. The film is “set in what the director
described as ‘the flip side of now,’ a totalitarian society whose entire apparatus
crushes its citizens in so many ways, leaving flights of fantasy as the only means
of escape.”63
Sam finds in his dreams what lacks in his real life. This escape enables
able to see himself in an ideal image: brave, handsome, noble, desired. His
44
dreams express an opposite image to that of his everyday life. In reality, Sam is
His dead-end job is just what he wants; it allows him time to daydream. Sam’s
social environment constrains him from attaining his wishes. “They” would
They in this formula are The Ministry in its many incarnations: Central
Adjustments, the Ministry of Records, etc. Big Brother, if you will, exists as a
[Brazil] was originally called The Ministry. It was really about how
organizations become self-serving organisms and will do anything to keep
themselves alive. That’s how it really started, and then you mix into all that
things like Peter Principle, which is to say that people are promoted to a
position above their capabilities and there they stay. Therefore,
organizations are always peopled by employees that are bad at the job
they’re doing. I was keen on Sam being a character who was wise, who
avoided being promoted beyond his capabilities, because it bought him
lots of free time to dream and fantasize, not taking responsibility for the
organization.64
This scenario is just as applicable to life in America today. The heightened reality
of Brazil attacks corporate domination and the proliferation of mass media, which
necessarily affect our lives and worldview. In this way, Brazil gives us distance
from our social condition so that we can look back on our situation with new
eyes.
The world of the film allows for ironic juxtaposition of expected utopic
places ending up being worse than you can imagine. “Shangri-la Towers,” for
example, one would suspect to be a castle in the clouds. The slum apartment
45
advertising the ideal lifestyle: the slogan “Happiness: We’re all in it together”
hangs over a picture of the suburban nuclear family in their new car; another
shows a cruise ship with the title “high security luxury holidays: relax without
fear.” The place shows that once, perhaps, the ideals had been attainable. Since
then, however, society has degenerated to the need for high security, fear and
The world of Brazil mirrors our own while emphasizing the idiosyncrasy of
government systems, their officials and the absurdity of technology: “The point
about Brazil is that we’re starting at a level that’s already fantastic, but we’re
trying to root that fantastical world in a kind of hyperreality that everybody can
skyscrapers tower so high they block out the sun. On the highway, oversized
monster trucks rumble past compact cars. The exaggeratedly small and large
become a fad, as if beauty and the outward impression of youth could counter
than convenient. The instruments meant to make life easier only complicate.
his apartment automatically runs a bath, makes toast, brews coffee, turns on the
TV, and opens the extendable closet. But it malfunctions. The coffee pours onto
the toaster, leaving Sam with soggy bread and sugar water:
46
a little bit easier. The ducts are there to service you. And the ducts are
there to keep an eye on you; there’s a two-way relationship with
everything, every television you get, you actually see the world, but the
world sometimes comes into your life and transforms you.66
The technology in the film shows, exaggeratedly, how we have come to depend
recounts an experience from childhood of the joy he felt in popular culture fairy
tale narrative:
reflect this state. Sometimes it is all we can see; you can’t drive two blocks in any
visible in American culture today due in large part to the Disney Corporation. The
Disney cartoons provide a nice picture to look at. They use fairy tales to tell nice
47
stories, but do so by severing the genre’s connection to history, society and
culture:
Mass culture has created a mass utopian desire. Now, we all seek the same
paradise, but it is no easier attainable. In a way, this mass utopia negates the
beckoning the individual to imagine their own form of perfection, she is handed
the means of attaining utopia in a sterilized plastic package. There are alternative
examples of utopia in the mass media, however. Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, for
discourse.
Terry Gilliam never expected Brazil would end up the way it did. The
original screenplay was much longer, denser, and more elaborate, if you can
believe. We know the film in its “American version,” which is the product of a
constraints the production of Brazil, a 20-week shoot, had to shut down for its
13th and 14th weeks. During this time Gilliam make drastic rewrites in order to
simplify the script to accommodate the money issues. In response to the issue
Gilliam says:
48
I liked what I was originally trying to do, but we didn’t get it. It was so clear
when we were writing that there were two parallel worlds, the real world
and the dream world, and the story in the dream world was a complete
tale in itself… What happened was the real world [of the film] was proving
so bizarre that there was no need for the dreams. For example, when I
pulled out all the guts of the flat, they were hanging like entrails; but there
was a dream sequence where Sam tries to cut through a forest of these
entrails with his mighty sword. But there was no need for the dream once
we’d done it in Sam’s ‘real’ world.70
The world of Brazil is fraught with surreal images both fantastic and bizarre,
beautiful and grotesque. The film relies upon the juxtaposition of desire and
dystopia, shows how much we rely on the imagination. Brazil offers its viewers
the vision of a dystopic future so that they can have the ability to prevent it from
becoming a reality. If the film is set “somewhere in the 20th century,” then this
future is close at hand (the film was released in 1985). The dystopia is countered
by the utopian longings of the hero, Sam, who envisions his paradise as a serene
landscape of green rolling hills and blue skies. The constriction of the reality in
the film hinders Sam’s dreams from coming to fruition. Sam must rely on his
imagination for his dreams to play out. This reliance, however, proves to be his
downfall when his imagination seeps into reality, turning to surrealism and
subjectivity.
The story of Brazil relies greatly on subjectivity and dream imagery. You
cannot always tell what is real and what is a dream. The dreams show us Sam’s
vision of utopia, for they present the opposite of reality. As the film begins, we
49
find ourselves floating through a blue sky. We are at first introduced to Sam as a
beautiful woman, who we later learn is Jill, the object of Sam’s affection, an
Aphrodite figure. We are then jarringly taken from the dream by a ringing phone.
Sam Lowry. Subjectively, Sam affects the world because his escapist longings
are incredibly desired and incredibly unattainable. The will involved, however,
reflects a psychosis rather than a positive view of the human condition. While
Sam becomes unable to survive in the bureaucratic world, he uses his dreams to
make the world more bearable. Depending on this escape, however, he veritably
severs his connection with reality projecting his dreams onto it. The “Scheinberg
cut” makes it seem like the characters in which Sam finds salvation are actually
and Jill Leyton, Sam’s dream girl, are made out to be figments rather than real
people because of their dealings in the fantastic reality of Sam’s creation. Tuttle
adventurous opportunities where Sam sees only limitation. Tuttle explains his
unique perspective on his job: “I came into this game for the action, the
excitement. Go anywhere, travel light. Get in, get out, wherever there’s trouble, a
man alone.”71 Tuttle is Sam’s savior, rescuing him from the System, from
oppression, from depression, and from disabled desire. Likewise, Jill embodies
50
life with her in the country. She is his connection, but the connection proves to be
one with the imagination. Because of the allowances made in the reedit, we are
left wondering whether Jill is real or if she is merely a product of Sam’s delusion.
Is Jill a part of Sam? Does she exist at all or is she a projection of Sam’s
The intrusion of dreamlike events into the reality of the film proves Sam’s
delusion. Finding reality oppressing his dreams, Sam retreats further, imagining
the oppressive society bowing to its knees. However, the use of subjectivity veils
this change. Sam’s wishes find expression in reality through his subjective point
come too fast for Sam to reply. Eventually, the whole system collapses in a flurry
Sam finally witnesses his dreams coming true in reality, but in fact it is a
psychosis. Once he obtains his wish, imagining himself retreated to the idyllic
countryside with Jill, it is made clear that he only digs deeper into psychosis. As
the coda pronounces, perhaps this is where utopia can be found. In an iconic
“this is the end” shot, the camera pulls out of the serene setting, showing their
quaint cabin set amid rolling green hills and pastures. It is a common utopia, an
symbols of Sam’s oppression, Mr. Helpmann, the head of the Ministry, and Jack
Lint, Sam’s best friend and torturer, enter the frame, giants towering over the
countryside to reveal that Sam has dreamt it all. Utopia is, therefore, nonexistent
51
in reality. “He’s gotten away from us,” says Mr. Helpmann. Sam hums the tune of
“Brazil” in his daze, showing that his dream has been fulfilled but in an alternate
way. Sam retreats into his lobotomized brain never to achieve his dream.
the German Romantics, the fairy tale embodies revolutionary characteristics due
to its use of utopian longing. In Brazil we see Sam longing for utopia but never
achieving. Since utopia remains a fiction, the narrative implies that wishes are
unfulfillable. Hopefully, viewers come out of the film believing more than “wishing
is pointless;” this is one of the film’s strongest messages. While Brazil relies on
fairy tale elements, its driving message is thoroughly anti-utopian. While Brazil
argues that utopia is to be sought after, it also says that it does not exist in a
52
The Fairy-Tale Film: What Distance from Reality Allows
to delve into our wishes fully. But the imagination itself cannot fulfill our wishes.
This is why we need fairy tales and film. If I thought the same level of adventure
portrayed in film and narrative could be found in reality, I probably would have
become a mountain climber rather than a screenwriter. Narrative film allows for
of what we know as reality, has fewer boundaries than everyday life. In film we
can witness an adventure that we could never accomplish, not in our ordinary
lives. Stories focus their imaginary worlds and imbue them with meaning. Isn’t
this what we want the real world to be? In film and fiction we find transcendence
Once inside this alien world, we find ourselves. Deep within these
characters and their conflicts we discover our own humanity. We go to the
53
movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another
human being who at first seems unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live
in a fictional reality that illuminates out daily reality.73
We turn to narratives to find what lacks in our everyday lives. While we remain
basically separated from most of the extremes of life we can see these
characters of the story: “Our appetite for story is a reflection of the profound
human need to grasp the patterns of living, not merely as an intellectual exercise,
but within a very personal, emotional experience.”74 Perhaps we watch films and
read books to learn about the world. We examine the activities of other people to
Fairy-tale film equips us with new eyes so that we can see the world from
different perspectives. We should come back with something new; we should find
films show us places we could never go, events we could otherwise never be
part of, and revelations based on circumstances we would otherwise never have
patterns of human life and the quest for knowledge. Within these alternate worlds
we watch others like us journey on paths like ours. The difference, though, lies in
the fact that films are not bound to the laws of the real world. They can open up
54
The illusionistic tendency of the combination of film and narrative can
hinder the viewer’s imaginative faculty. Unlike other narrative forms, film
visualizes the story world for the participant, leaving the imagination inert. While
we watch the images of the narrative play across the screen, we submit to them.
The pictures conceal the controls and machinery. They prevent the
audience from really viewing the production and manipulation, and in the
end, audiences can no longer envision a fairy tale for themselves, as they
can when they read one. The pictures deprive the audience of their ability
to visualize their own characters, roles, and desires.75
We no longer construct visages in our heads, flesh out the events in our minds,
or visualize the world of the story for ourselves; the films do all the imagining for
us. We are given a thoroughly realized story world with events and characters
whole and animated. Watching the complete construction of story events on the
screen hinders the creation of new daydreams only to allow the imagination to
longingly "other" that in no way can it be viably attained. What is left for the
imagination to explore? Only after the film has ended does the viewer’s
imagination light up again. We are left to imagine the character’s various post-
experiences in our heads as well as possible applications of the story to our own
real lives.
Fairy tales allow the escape to another world, a world quite unlike that of
traditional tales; our dreams of the wish fulfillment they offer linger as we grow
55
older. We still want this escape as adults and, since it is merely a dream of the
This common goal is played out in fairy-tale film in an attempt to break the
setting brings to light the beauty that can be found in everyday life. It just
depends on where you look and how you see it. The world we live in can be filled
with just as much beauty and wonder as the films we love: “If we are to grant
existence to things merely on the basis of their seeming real, we will be at a loss
to find any illusions in the world. And as surely as there is a real world out there,
from the real world, based on the conclusion that the illusion enables a
heightened autonomous reality, then everyday life will retain none of its inherent
beauty. Finding adventure in the outlet of the make-believe, which narrative film
allows, can strip the real world of its magnificence if one does not extract
We must, therefore, find ways to bring our wishes and dreams into reality.
While narrative allows for a vicarious fulfillment, it will always remain intangible. If
we are to rely on narrative for its ability to fulfill our wishes there will always be
56
something lacking – in ourselves and in our perspective of what the real world
offers. Narrative can show us alternative ways to bring our wishes to fruition, but
we must take the next step. We must attempt to fulfill our own wishes in our own
real lives.
Fairy tales and fairy-tale films are not fanciful escapes; they uphold the
human ability to fulfill our deepest wishes in our own lives. The fairy-tale film
shows us that the otherworld is not so different from the real world; it all depends
on perspective. The fairy tale does not create its utopian world as a far off
Neverland. Rather, fairyland lies deep in our hearts to tell us that the bounds of
reality are not as stringent as adults say they are. Realistically, wishing upon a
star may not be as eventful as attempting to change the social dynamic. Fairy
tales, however, allow us to do both. We may see our wishes come true while
continue to read and write fairy tales so that we can imagine the scientific laws of
57
Appendix:
How Many Stories?: A look at Structural Folklore and Genre Film
Forms of storytelling as diverse as the fairy tale and the film may provide
insight into how writers convey meaning and how traditions develop and change.
field, and it has also been used in film to understand how classical texts build
upon conventional structures. Study of film genres has drawn from structural
folklore, shedding light on the contrasting methods and traditions of each form.
Generally, through each of these fields it can be seen that basic stories are
persistent through traditions and that generic forms enable both artistic and
socio-cultural dialogue.
Fairy tales have maintained a place in people’s creative and social minds
for millennia not just because of their beauty, timelessness or fantastic elements.
variations of themes and motifs while following the conventions of the tale
structure:
Storytellers used the backbone of a tale while elaborating on the events. The
also embroidered details to make the story place- and time-specific so that the
listeners would become drawn in and able to associate better with the events and
58
characters. Using a basic theme, character and setting, the performer created
the story anew with each retelling: “Because of their oral existence, narrative
plots.”79 In oral performance, the details change with each retelling. The story will
change to suit the audience. Given the basic tales in a teller’s corpus, the
narrator can build upon any situation. Fairy tales are useful today both as an
Folktale, he presents thirty-one functions, which are the building blocks of the
tales.80 By function, Propp means an action of a character within the tale. Based
on these functions he theorizes: “all folktales are of one and the same type in
regard to their structure.”81 The tales show a strict structural cohesion. They
follow the same guidelines in that we see the hero consistently perform the same
acts, meet similar people, and reaching similar conclusions. Though it would be
one hundred Russian tales that fairy tales constitute a uniform corpus. Propp
does not presuppose the universality of his functions; rather, he warns the
through the action, showing the hero’s journey from inciting incident to successful
toward resolution.
59
A tale may consist of more or less functions, but the basic structure of the
distinguished the central conflict of the folktale as the pairing of the functions 8a)
The basic sequence lack/lack liquidated (L-LL) makes apparent the clarity
of the fairy tale structure… Corresponding need and striving for remedy
dominate not only the fairy tale narrative but life in general. Humans,
animals, and even plants seek compensation for harm they have suffered,
to heal an injury or relieve a lack which they feel.82
From Propp’s thirty-one functions it is possible to simplify the basic conflict of the
story into binary operation: lack/lack liquidated (L-LL). The L-LL scenario is the
central conflict within the folktale. Based on a generic concept, the folktale truly
possibilities.
The peculiar uniformity of plot structure found in folklore can also be found
in narrative film. The work of Vladimir Propp has been illuminating in the analysis
of film texts.83 Deconstruction of such films as Rio Bravo, Sunset Boulevard and
novels and plays), comic strips, motion-picture and television plots, and the like…
60
which spread across cultural and historical boundaries. These analyses support
the theory that film genre works in much the same way as the fairy-tale form.
The structure of narrative film has taken from fairy-tale form in its linearity.
Because of its abstract form and elasticity, fairy tales provides excellent models
for story structure as well as a deep well from which modern storytellers can
Film genres work in much the same way as folklore form. Genres function
way that the oral performer modifies his tales from a generic corpus for each
retelling, the genre system allow artists to modify stories to please audiences at
given social times. Genre formulas can be altered to adapt to the social
atmosphere. In his essay “The Structural Influence,” film critic Thomas Schatz
notes the similar artistic methods of the genre film and the folktale:
61
According to Shatz, genres work in consistent ways to reaffirm the social order.
In this way they function in much the same was as the folklore genre, which
supports the theory that genre films, because of their elasticity based on plot
the genre film can also be seen as a way in which the tension of cultural and
system also reaffirms social integrity through the reiteration of themes and
morals, which stress the role of the individual as a thread of the social fabric.
Genre formulas can be viewed as basic stories, the grounds from which
whole film narratives develop (albeit there are many films that do not fit into a
genre mold). If there are only so many of these genre formulas how are there so
many films with such a wide range of stories? A simple story can be boiled down
into something as simple as, “a detective hunts for a murderer while deterred by
a viciously cunning vixen,” as is the basic film noir formula. From this phrase we
get a great deal of information on character, motive and conflict. Formulas can
offer writers a starting point so that they can insert their own creative ideas and
ingenuity. The main concern with genre rests in the duplication of narrative based
principle of its classical origins: ‘there is nothing new under the sun,’ and truth
62
with a capital T is to be found in imitating the past.”89 The continued life of simple
stories, such as genre formulas and folktale structures, relies not on the
repetition of the past, for this leads to the proliferation of sterility and convention.
Ingenuity and creativity can perhaps be found not in the imitation of past filmic
Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them
lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted in man
from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that
he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his
earliest lessons; and no less universal is the pleasure felt in things
imitated… The reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is that in
contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring.90
plots. Common conflicts arise and proliferate within narratives through mimesis,
such as L-LL. The most general conflict could be defined as good versus evil. We
from our everyday situations? A plot, being an imitation of action, would only
the same as everyday life? Storytelling offers the possibility of escape into an
alternate world. This otherworld has many of the attributes of reality, but is
We used to think of the stories we read, listen to, and watch as little more
than trivial amusements employed to “kill time.” Now we know that people
learn from stories, are emotionally affected by them, and actually need
stories to lend color and interest to their everyday lives. That is why some
63
scholars have described humans not as Homo sapiens, man and woman
the knower, but as Homo narrans, man and woman the storytellers, the
tellers of tales.91
Human beings were telling stories before the invention of language. Storytelling
is our most powerful art form because it allows us to reconstruct reality through
events and imaginary characters. Narratives offer a gateway into this otherworld
so that we can view reality from a distance. In this otherworld events have form,
paths have definite objectives and conflicts are neatly resolved. We may learn
from the character’s mistakes and gain solace through their achievements.
Returning to reality, then, we may see in our everyday what we had previously
thought was lacking. We bring back the lessons we learn from these imaginary
64
1
Jack Zipes, Happily Ever After (New York: Routledge, 1997), 1-2.
2
Jack Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell (New York: Routledge, 1979), 3.
3
Zipes, Happily Every After, 61.
4
Max Luthi, The European Folktale (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 24.
5
Max Luthi, The Fairy Tale as Art Form (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 105.
6
See Jack Zipes, “The Grimms and the German Obsession with the Fairy Tale,” in Fairy
Tales and Society, ed. Ruth Bottigheimer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986).
In the article Zipes applies his socio-political view of the fairy tale to the Romantic movement in
Germany to show how writers utilized the fairy-tale genre as a pacifist political movement. The
Romantics introduced political ideas into their fairy tales, hidden under the genre’s innocent
guise.
7
The terms folktale and fairytale in this examination will be used synonymously. Due to the
translation of the source material, “fairy tale” has been changed to “folktale” and vice versa in the
texts. In scholarship, “folklore’ is an umbrella categorization, which includes tale types as diverse
as fables, jokes and legends. The fairytale is a type of folktale, also called wonder tales or magic
tales. There is also some ambiguity when translating folk and fairytale works. From German, for
example, the term märchen applies across the board. The translation of German tales and
scholarship, then, includes the ambiguity of the terminology. For example, Vladimir Propp’s
Morphology of the Folktale actually relates to wonder tales (fairy tales).
8
Luthi, The European Folktale, 35.
9
Luthi, The European Folktale, 87.
10
Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 23.
11
Darnton, 64.
12
Jack Zipes, Fairy Tale as Myth (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1994), 138.
13
Salman Rushdie, The Wizard of Oz (London: BFI Publishing, 1992), 23.
14
Henry Littlefield, "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism," American Quarterly 16 (Spring
1964): 56.
15
Roger Ebert, “The Wizard of Oz,” Chicago Sun-Times, 22 December 1996, NC5.
16
Littlefield, 48.
17
Littlefield, 54.
18
Littlefield, 57.
19
Zipes, Fairy Tale as Myth, 128.
20
Justyna Deszcz, “Beyond the Disney Spell, or Escape Into Pantoland,” Folklore 113 (April
2002): 85.
67
21
In his article “The Grimms and the German Obsession with Fairy Tales,” Jack Zipes notes
how the Germans used the fairy tale form to question institutional and political standards during
the Romantic period. Deszcz similarly applies the fairy tale’s historically proven methods to
Disney’s use of the form and the classic stories.
22
Michael Atkinson, “Film Enchante: Out of the nursery, into the night,” Film Comment 34
(November/December 1998): 36.
23
Zipes, Fairy Tale as Myth, 94.
24
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “Snow White,” in The Annotated Brothers Grimm, ed. and trans.
Maria Tatar (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), 240-255.
25
Kevin Yee, “Fairy Tales: a closer look at their familiar yarns,” MousePlanet,
http://www.mouseplanet.com/fairytales/ft010622.htm (9 Mar. 2005).
26
Here, Yee references the story from the Grimm’s first edition of their Kinder- und
Hausmarchen, compiled in 1810. In contrast to the other editions of the book, the first edition was
published posthumously and included the tales unaltered from the oral telling.
27
Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the
Disney Comic, trans. David Kunzle (NY: International General, 1975), 96.
28
Dorfman and Mattelart, 95.
29
Luthi, The Fairy Tale as Art Form, 105. Through the process of binarism we see the two
opposing forces as well as every dot on the spectrum between them. For example, if we were to
place the young and the old side by side in opposition, we would inevitably see everything
between them constituting the separation: the egg, the extremely young new born, the toddler,
the pubescent, the adolescent, the adult, the middle-aged, the retired, the elderly, the extremely
old man on his deathbed, and the dead. Thus, between every two opposing factors lies a whole
range of moderators on the spectrum. When we read in a fairytale that the hero is an innocent
beautiful youth, we immediately differentiate that from the old, the ugly, and the evil. We have
already set the hero apart from what might oppose him in the story.
30
Luthi, The Fairy Tale as Art Form, 5-6.
31
David Breskin, “The Rolling Stone Interview: Tim Burton,” Rolling Stone, 9 July 1992, 115.
32
Breskin, 41.
33
Otto Rank, “The Myth of the Birth of the Hero,” in In Quest of the Hero (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1990), 3. Various theories exist to explain the origination of tales. In this essay
Rank differentiates the theories as 1) elemental ideas, 2) original community and 3) migration.
34
Luthi, The European Folktale, 75.
35
Robert McKee, Story (New York: Regan Books, 1997), 196-7. All stories can be sublimated
into a basic pattern: order-disorder-order. To put it simply, the world begins in a state of
equilibrium; an antagonizing force disrupts the stasis and the balance must be restored. This
model can be considered a building block of all stories. Whether the equilibrium concerns the life
of the hero, the community, or the larger world is entirely relative. This pattern represents many
central qualitites of narrative as well, including change, conflict, resolution, catharsis, and
realization. Writer McKee has described the basic plot as follows: “For better or worse, an event
68
throws a character’s life out of balance, arousing in him the conscious and/or unconscious desire
for that which he feels will restore balance, launching him on a quest for his object of desire
against forces of antagonism. He may or may not achieve it. This is story in a nutshell.”
36
Michel Butor, “On Fairy Tales,” in European Literary Theory and Practice, ed. Vernon W.
Gras (New York: Delta, 1973), 362.
37
Luthi, The European Folktale, 76.
38
Luthi, The Fairy Tale as Art Form, 166.
39
Orpheus, Dir. Jean Cocteau (Films du Palaid Royale, 1950). Opening voice-over narration.
40
Jean Cocteau, The Art of Cinema, ed. Andre Bernard and Claude Gauteur, trans. Robin
Buss (London: Marion Boyars, 1988), 156..
41
Orpheus, Dir. Jean Cocteau. Dialogue from the film.
42
Cocteau, The Art of Cinema, 38.
43
Luthi, The European Folktale, 77.
44
Orpheus, Dir. Jean Cocteau. Dialogue from the film.
45
Atkinson, 37.
46
Robert Phillip Kolker and Peter Beicker, The Films of Wim Wenders (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988), 145.
47
Kolker, 147.
48
Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell, 65.
49
Wings of Desire. Dir. Wim Wenders (Argos Films, 1987).
50
Kolker, 147.
51
Wings of Desire, Dir. Wim Wenders. Voiceover Monologue spoken by Homer, the aged
poet, in his search for Potsdammer Platz.
52
Wings of Desire, Dir. Wim Wenders. Another incarnation of Damiel’s voice-over
monologue.
53
P.F. Anderson, “Star light, star bright,” The Mother Goose Pages, http://www-
personal.umich.edu/~pfa/dreamhouse/nursery/rhymes/light.html (30 October 2004).
54
Kolker, 148.
55
Wings of Desire, Dir. Wim Wenders.
56
Kolker, 148.
57
Atkinson, 36.
58
Atkinson, 35.
69
59
“Terry Gilliam on Fredrico Fellini’s 8 _,” Fredrico Fellini's 8 _ (Criterion Collection, 2001).
60
Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell, 63-4.
61
Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell, 3.
62
Internet Movie Database, “taglines for Brazil” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/taglines
(12 Dec. 2004).
63
David Morgan, “Gilliam, Gotham, God,” in Terry Gilliam: Interviews, eds. David Skerritt and
Lucille Rhodes (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 53.
64
Paul Wardle, “Terry Gilliam,” in Terry Gilliam: Interviews, eds. David Skerritt and Lucille
Rhodes (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 91.
65
Terry Gilliam, Gilliam on Gilliam, ed. Ian Christie (London: Faber and Faber, 1999), 121.
66
Stuart Klawans, “A Dialogue with Terry Gilliam,“ in Terry Gilliam: Interviews, eds. David
Skerritt and Lucille Rhodes (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2004), 154.
67
Gilliam, Gilliam on Gilliam, 26-7.
68
Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell, 105.
69
Gregory Solman, “Fear and Loathing in America: Gilliam on the Artist’s Fight or Flight
Instinct,” in Terry Gilliam: Interviews, eds. David Skerritt and Lucille Rhodes (Jackson: University
Press of Mississippi, 2004), 186.
70
Gilliam, Gilliam on Gilliam, 117.
71
Brazil, Dir. Terry Gilliam (Universal Pictures, 1985). Dialogue of Archibald “Harry” Tuttle, on
plumbing.
72
Zipes, Happily Ever After, 110.
73
McKee, 5.
74
McKee, 12.
75
Zipes, Happily Ever After, 37.
76
Butor, 352.
77
Andrew Kania, “ The Illusion of Realism in Film,” British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (July
2002): 256.
78
Darnton, 19.
79
Linda Degh, “Oral Folklore,” in Folklore and Folklife, ed. Richard Dorson (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1972), 59.
80
Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968). By
function, Propp means the actions of the dramatis personae (the characters in the tale). The
following is a list of his thirty-one functions found on pages 25-65 of Morphology:
70
1. Absentation 16. Struggle
2. Interdiction 17. Branding
3. Violation 18. Victory
4. Reconnaissance 19. Lack Liquidated
5. Delivery 20. Return
6. Trickery 21. Pursuit
7. Complicity 22. Rescue
8. Villainy 23. Unrecognized Arrival
8a. Lack 24. Unfounded Claims
9. Mediation 25. Difficult Task
10. Beginning Counteraction 26. Solution
11. Departure 27. Recognition
12. The First Function of the Donor 28. Exposure
13. The Hero’s Reaction 19. Transfiguration
14. Receipt of a Magical Agent 30. Punishment
15. Spatial Transference 31. Wedding
81
Propp, 23.
82
Luthi, The Fairy Tale as Art Form, 55.
83
Pam Cook, ed., The Cinema Book, (London: BFI, 1985) includes an overview of Propp and
the application of morphological analyses on popular film and classical Hollywood Narrative film.
The article includes close readings of Rio Bravo and To Have and Have Not and references
Sunset Boulevard. John Fell, “Vladimir Propp in Hollywood,” Film Quarterly 30 (Spring 1977): 19-
20. Fell examines Kiss Me Deadly.
84
Alan Dundes, Introduction to Morphology of the Folktale, by Vladimir Propp, (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1968), xiv-xv.
85
Peter Wollen, “A Morphological Analysis of North by Northwest,” in Readings and Writings,
18-33 (London: Verson, 1982).
86
See Steve Neale, “Questions of Genre,” in Film Genre Reader 2, ed. Barry Keith Grant
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995) for more on the diverse aspects of film genres. Film
genres function both to institutionalize creativity and to provide structure to film markets. Genres
are not necessarily created to feed a particular social or cultural hunger, though mostly arise to
answer a social problem. They arise when studios recognize high grosses in a particular area;
they continue when grosses in that area remain high.
87
Thomas Schatz, “The Structural Influence: New Directions in Film Genre Study,” in Film
Genre Reader 2, ed. Barry Keith Grant (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 97.
88
Thomas Sobchack, “The Genre Film: A Classical Expeirence,” in Film Genre Reader 2, ed.
Barry Keith Grant (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 109.
89
Sobchack, 102.
90
Aristotle, 3. By poetry, Aristotle refers to literary art and narrative in general.
91
Arthur Asa Berger, Narratives in Popular Culture, Media and Everyday Life (Thousand
Oaks: Sage Publications, 1997), 174. See page 162 for a chart comparing narratives and
everyday life.
71
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Filmography: