‘Why do I put myself through this hell? Why don’t I go get a job like normal people?’ Seconds into his Masterclass and these are the kind of questions Robert McKee is throwing at me. My internal knee jerk answer was; ‘It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done.’ Not great.
Seconds later, marginally less crappy answers begin to bubble to the surface ‘I write to share my view of the world. I write to connect to people. I write to figure out a way forward.’ This last one proves pertinent.
Human consciousness is a gift that separates us from most (controversially, all) other animals, McKee posits. But it is also the root of much suffering. It makes us aware of our impending demise. As a result, most of us live our lives carrying this leaden dread of the inevitable moment when we return to darkness. “Life has no intrinsic meaning,” he tells us, but there is hope – story.
Humans were made to tell stories, and like Will Storr and Jonathan Gotschall, McKee too describes the brain as “a storymaking machine”, linking cause and effect throughout our lived histories. But this is what we do for ourselves. And we piece it together from what we see around us; books, films, graphic novels. We look for models that resonate and use them to guide us forward. “Stories make sense out of life.”
Chalking a TV series or a film off as ‘just a bit of entertainment’ is tempting. But also reductionist, according to McKee. “No story is innocent,” he says. ‘Every story adds to civilization or subtracts from it. It either enriches lives, or subtracts or poisons lives with false ideas.’
Stories always have an agenda. They communicate a philosophy, a belief, a bias. If they’re superficial, hollow and empty, then there’s a message there too. Signalling to the audience that moving through life without being critical, without thinking, is an option. “When the storytelling goes bad, the result is decadence. Corruption. By corrupt, I mean, people will lead minor lives. Shallow. Narrow. Insensitive. False. Inauthentic. Impoverished.”
Looking at my stories, my local industry, and some of the work gaining the most traction in various markets, I feel the need to pause with this. I can’t help but ask “is this the direction I want to take? Is this the truth? Is this what I want to contribute?” Not a breath later, a slurry of voices chime in; ‘You’re taking yourself way too seriously.’ ‘It’s all self-expression. Nothing is wrong here.’ ‘Isn’t this supposed to be fun?’
It can be fun, and it is for some. For others, fun comes in brief interludes. The rest of the time, it’s tough graft. If you feel guilty for feeling the weight of storytelling, you’re not alone. A lot of people look into this world with rose tinted glasses, whispering ‘oh look, how nice.’ But that’s just the outside view. “A story isn’t a journey. That’s a California word, a euphemism used to not face reality. We don’t want to use the word ‘shit’ we use the word ‘number 2’ but you people are writers and you don’t live in euphemism. Life isn’t a journey. It’s a struggle. It’s Sisyphus dragging the rock up the mountain. A bus ride is a journey. You get to sit comfortably and get to the other side. Life isn’t like that. It’s hard.”
McKee uses the word ‘journey’ purposefully, obviously, leading to the final portion of his lecture – a direct attack on Joseph Campbell’s work. “Joseph Campbell LIED,” McKee emphasises. “There is no such thing as a monomyth. Anthropologists since Campbell have pointed out repeatedly that this is a lie. Campbell hated Christianity and wanted to create the foundation for a new religion.”
At that moment, I felt the room go cold. Online or not, real or imaginary – this happened. The room stopped breathing. In my head, I turned to Scott Myers for his reaction. Then he continued; “The monomyth implies that it is the only story. False. Story is the universe. Myth is a part within it. People mistook the part for the whole. Politically, myth is ultra conservative. Myth says the world is, society is, as it should be. Your problem is how to adjust yourself to it. How to fit in. the way the world is organised – male hierarchy – top to bottom. Rigid or conservative.” This is why comedy doesn’t exist there, he elaborates. Because comedy is an attack on society and institutions within it. Jokers and tricksters exist in myth, but that’s not comedy. Comedy’s view is that those institutions are wrong, and that they should be changed for the better.
What I took from all this is that we cannot rely heavily on patterns if we want to create authentic work. The monomyth and the Hero’s Journey have been exploited by many, Hollywood primarily, to create cookie cutter films and IPs. I dare say, even Myers would agree with that observation. McKee urges us all to think critically and to be tough, not to fall into the trap of copying patterns.
As with this LSF learning experience, what we can see from all the teachers we have here is that there are many paths we can take to becoming the storytellers we want to be. As I write this conclusion, Chris Jones finishes off my thinking with a message; “Many ways to the summit of the mountain.”
No one approach, method or process will work for every project we take on, for every goal we set for ourselves in this line of work. We must take the time to absorb and collect that which rings true and honest. Only then can we fashion from it something new that is our own.
Maltese screenwriter and filmmaker in love with redemption arcs, awful jokes and all things cute. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook @CassiCamilleri.
