We are thrilled to announce that, in keeping with our 2020 theme of myth and cinema, our keynote speaker at this year’s Mythologium will be Glen Slater, PhD.
Cinema Magic and the Cosmological Function of Myth
The mythic dimension of cinema is widely recognized. Heroes venture forth, soulmates search for each other, ordinary people are caught in battles between good and evil. The gods reappear in enduring themes like love and war, in the urging of spiritual quests and in the arrangement of underworld abductions. Whereas some find all this merely entertaining, others experience a form of immersion in divine drama.
In this presentation, I will suggest that the mythic quality of a film is not only attributable to the themes and characters that comprise the screen story, but has to do with the way the story is conveyed. That is, what largely generates mythic quality is the art of filmmaking itself.
I will focus on the way film portrays an ordered and meaningful cosmos. It does this by mixing several powerful elements that engage and guide our imagination. Four such elements—setting, cinematography, editing and music—and the role they play in conveying the more-than-human quality of existence will be highlighted.
About Glen
Glen Slater teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, where he is Associate Chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies Program. He has written for a number of Jungian publications, edited the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer, as well as the essay collection, Varieties of Mythic Experience. He regularly uses film in his classes to illustrate and explore archetypal patterns, teaches a course on mythology and cinema, has published many film reviews and is the past film review editor of Spring Journal.