Joseph Campbell and the Hollywood Formula

Joseph Campbell: The Man Behind the Myth

Joseph Campbell was born on March 26, 1904, in a New York City suburb and passed away on October 30, 1987. Mr. Campbell is best known for his work in comparative mythology. In his research, he compared myths from different world cultures and identified certain patterns that repeated in all of them. This discovery led him to introduce a highly influential storytelling concept known as the monomyth. 

The monomyth is a template of universal storytelling and it is based on the principle that all storytellers in the world tell the same story. Only, they tell it in different ways, recycling and disguising old plots and character archetypes and weaving them into seemingly-new tales.

The singular universal story that we all tell, according to Joseph Campbell, is the story of the hero, who, in turn, represents our ideal self.

The monomyth model, more popularly known as "The Hero's Journey," is a symbolic template that represents what we all strive for. We all go from zero to hero in our life journeys. All of us are transformed by our life experiences, and, as a result, our lives always become our transformational journey.

The monomyth, or the Hero's Journey, therefore, is one we can all identify with regardless of our religious creed, nationality, ethnicity, and culture.

In other words, we are all the hero of our own story according to Joseph Campbell. To him, our fictional narratives are symbols expressed by the unconscious part of our mind, and they represent the universal stages or rites of passage we go through in our lives.

Joseph Campbell's philosophy highlights the fact that every culture and organization in the world has its own traditions and customs, or levels of advancement, if you will. Churches, governments, companies, schools, communities. All of these institutions function around their own established stages of progression. Hence the expression "rites of passage."

Such rituals and ceremonies are universal to the human experience. They are what give our social institutions structure.

Structure is crucial when it comes to the monomyth. It is for this reason that the hero's journey model mapped by Joseph Campbell is divided into stages.

Successful passage of these stages is what ultimately determines whether or not the initiate reaches heroic status in their story.

Joseph Campbell and his Fascination with Native American Culture

Rites of passage, or rituals of initiation, became a source of Campbell's fascination early on in life. He was raised in a devout Irish Catholic home, and later became an altar boy. His traditional family heritage awakened in him a deep awareness of the ritualistic and symbolic nature of the human experience.

This awareness increased even more when, at the age of seven, Joseph Campbell saw Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1912 and instantly identified with the Indians. He discovered so many parallels between his own experience with ritual and those of Native Americans, that he came to believe he descended from them.

Hello, Jim Morrison! (The legendary Doors frontman once claimed that the spirit of a dead Native American shaman jumped into his body when Jim saw him lying by the side of a New Mexico road after a car crash). Coincidence?

Such beliefs, albeit superstitious and fantastic by scientific standards, are vivid examples of how our interpretations of reality can potentially become fixated in our life story as myths. 

In the case of Joseph Campbell, the belief that he descended from Native Americans motivated him to study every aspect of their culture, especially their mythology and narrative archetypes.

Campbell is said to have read through the entire children's section of the public library. By the time he turned eleven, he had graduated to the adult stacks. Native American life intrigued him to no end, and he was devoted to reading every material available, including Bureau of American Ethnology reports.

By the time he reached high school, he was writing articles on Native American mythology, and his devotion to his studies endured until he was in his eighties. Joseph Campbell wrote quite the impressive body of work in his lifetime, all of it dealing with mythology and its universal significance to the human experience.

His best known books include The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), The Power of Myth (1988), and The Hero's Journey (1990).

Joseph Campbell: Godfather of the Hollywood Formula

Joseph Campbell can be said to be the godfather of the Hollywood Formula in the sense that he defined important patterns of universal storytelling. These patterns have shaped the movie industry not only in Hollywood, but all over the world.

If we were to sum up Campbell's philosophy in a single phrase, it would have to be: "Follow your bliss," as his teachings indicate that this is the driving force of every hero's journey.

In the universal journey of the human experience, the hero overcomes obstacles, defies tremendous challenges, overthrows kingdoms, slays mythical beasts and ultimately becomes larger than life precisely because of all the growth he attains when passing through the stages of the journey.

But no human would be able to endure such trials if they didn't have a driving force to push them forward no matter what they face.

This fire in a person's belly is what Joseph Campbell refers to as following one's bliss. It's what makes that person who they are, and we all have that something that keeps us alive, whether it is the love for a person or the passion to achieve some form of greatness.

Following one's bliss is about finding our life's purpose, the meaning of one's life. Once you find that and follow it, you are on an exciting epic journey. Each person's bliss is their own to choose.

To a prince, for instance, following their bliss can mean rescuing their beloved from a dragon or perhaps recovering a lost treasure. To a medicine woman or native healer, following their bliss can be finding an herbal cure for a deadly disease.

Every hero follows their own bliss, and this quest is the driving force of the journey. What is your hero's quest? This is a question the writer must ask themselves in regards to every character they create.

Campbell's concept of the monomyth is a structural model based on universal rites of passage that all humans go through. We go through them as we follow our bliss. And, since fictional and mythical heroes are made in our own image, their journey is truly a reflection of ours.

Heroes become larger than life by following their own bliss.

Understanding this principle is what will shed light on the way Hollywood storytelling works. The Hollywood Formula of screenwriting undeniably owes its success and appeal to Joseph Campbell and his introduction of "The Hero's Journey," the ultimate narrative archetype.

It's no secret that Hollywood movies have been drawing inspiration from mythology from the very beginning. Epic motifs with heroic deeds and magical lands abound in films.

Throughout its history, Hollywood has depicted numerous versions of mythical stories including that of Moses and the liberation of Hebrew slaves from the ancient Egyptian empire.

Other visually dazzling epic journeys Hollywood has dramatized include the stories of Odysseus, King David, Simbad, Ali Baba, Tarzan, Beowulf, Helen of Troy, Alexander the Great, and the list goes on and on.

For as long as there are myths and legends, writers and artists all over the world will have at their disposal a limitless source of inspiration for their stories. Mythology represents the pinnacle of what the human imagination is capable of creating, and this is why the Hollywood Formula is derived from the Hero's Journey template.

Every Hollywood movie is a hero's journey!

There are numerous ways a story can be told. Genres, styles and moods are merely variables in a formula, but the essential story is always the same. You have a hero or protagonist who wants something bad enough to take on the entire world if necessary. 

This ardent desire propels them forward into a quest full of adventures and obstacles. After the hero reaches the climax of the journey, he returns home a transformed man or woman.

Movies resonate deep within us because we identify with the hero's journey, and this glorious quest is at the crux of Hollywood's universal success.

Hollywood film is the equivalent of Greek theater in our society. A complex art form, visual storytelling engages our senses, our emotions and our thoughts. No matter how many movies get made, audiences are always flocking to cinemas.

And, even though we are well aware of just how similar all these big-screen extravaganzas are, the years go by, and our appetite for entertainment only seems to grow stronger.

This high demand for movies in our society is probably the best indicator that Joseph Campbell was on to something. An important part of the human experience is artistic expression, and the Hollywood Formula provides the creative writer with a cornucopia of colorful archetypes that appeal to audiences worldwide.

Just like all the big names in Hollywood are milking the Hero's Journey for all it's worth, you, too, can take advantage of this valuable resource to write your own movie!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN THE STAGES OF THE HERO'S JOURNEY