The Writer's Journey

by Christopher Vogler

  'Simba has many MENTORS throughout the story. His father is his first great teacher, showing him the path of kingship and the Circle of Life, but he also learns diplomacy and statecraft from Zazu and something of the magical side of life from Rafiki. In Act Two his MENTORS are Timon and Pumbaa, teaching him their Hakuna Matata lifestyle. At the end of Act Two, Nala comes to teach him about love and responsibility, and his fathers spirit is a supernatural MENTOR encouraging him to face his destiny. In the climax, Nala, Timon, and Pumbaa become his ALLIES against Scar. Nala is also a kind of SHAPESHIFTER from Simba's point of view, changing drastically from a playful cub into a sleek, powerful she-lion, presenting him a face of love but also demanding that he do something to save his domain.

  The energy of the SHADOW is manifested in Scar and his underlings, the Jackals. Scar represents the dark side of kingship, totalitarian and compassionless. He can be read as a harsh model of adulthood, in which the early wounds dished out by life have become excuses for jealousy, cynicism, sarcasm, and a victim complex that turns into tyranny when the lifelong victim finally gets power. He is the dark possibilities in our hero, Simba. If Simba doesn't shake off his guilt and take responsibility, he could turn out the same way, a rogue male living bitterly on the fringes, waiting for a weakness to exploit. The Jackals are a lower form of life than the lions, living by scavenging rather than by noble hunting. They are bullies who readily follow the tyrant because they enjoy tormenting his subjects and lording it over them.

  Rafiki, the crazy baboon witch doctor, was one of the most interesting characters in the script, combining elements of a MENTOR and a TRICKSTER. In early versions, I felt his function was not clear. He was played for comedy, as a loony fellow who came around to make magical noises but who commanded no respect. The king regarded him as a nuisance and Zazu, the king's bird advisor, shooed him away when he approached the baby Simba. He had little to do in the script after the first scene, and appeared mostly for comic relief, more TRICKSTER than MENTOR.

  In the meeting that followed the storyboard presentation, I suggested taking him a little more seriously as a MENTOR. Perhaps Zazu was still suspicious and

  would try to run him off, but the more wise and compassionate Mufasa would let him approach the child. I had the impulse to accentuate the ritualistic aspects of the moment, referring to the rituals of baptism and christening, or the coronation ceremonies in which a new king or queen is anointed on the forehead with holy oil. Rafiki would bless the baby lion, perhaps with berry juice or some substance from the jungle. One of the animators said Rafiki already carried a stick with strange gourds tied to it, and came up with the idea of Rafiki cracking open one of the gourds in a mysterious gesture and marking the lion cub with a colorful liquid.

  I thought, too, of the presentation rituals in various religions, in which the holy books, images, and artifacts are held up for veneration. I remembered that the Catholic churches I grew up with had stained-glass windows strategically placed to create stunning effects when beams of colored light fell on the altar. It occurred to me that when Rafiki held up the baby lion to show the assembled animals, a beam of sunlight from the clouds could strike the cub, giving the divine stamp of approval to the specialness of this child and to Mufasa's royal line. There was an almost audible crackle of energy in the room at that moment. The image came into several minds at once and I experienced the frisson, the shiver down the back that always tells me when an idea expresses the truth of the story.

  One hotly-argued issue at this stage was the matter of Mufasa's death. Some of the animators felt that the graphic depiction of the death of a parent (even an animal parent) was too intense. In the storyboards, Mufasa is trampled to death in an antelope stampede and the young Simba is shown approaching, nudging, and sniffing the corpse, looking for signs of life but finally understanding that his father is dead. Some felt this was too strong for young children.

  Others replied that Disney has always shown the dark, tragic, and brutal side of life, and that though the company has often been criticized for it, such scenes are part of the Disney tradition, from the death of Bambi's mother to the death of Old Yeller, the family hound in a movie of the same name. Walt weathered a squall of controversy around Old Yeller's death, and later came to feel that killing off a beloved character was a breach of his contract with the audience. When the question came up on the animated adaptation of The Jungle Book, Walt insisted, "The bear lives!"

  In the end, it was decided that The Lion King would confront death directly, and the scene was shot as originally boarded. The arguments that prevailed were that the movie was striving for the realism of a nature documentary, that the audience was used to seeing realistic treatments of animal violence, and that we were making a movie for the entire spectrum of the audience, not just for infants who might be traumatized by the scene. I agreed with this choice, feeling that it was true to the animal world we were trying to depict, but was somewhat disappointed when the movie then strayed from realism in Act Two, with carefree comedy replacing what would have been a desperate struggle to survive.

  I was bothered by one structural element in Act One — the excursion to the scary Elephant's Graveyard. Instinctively I felt that though it was a good scene, it was in the wrong place. It was a dark visit to the country of death, and it felt more appropriate as the stage for an Act Two ordeal. Act One was already heavily weighted with the death of Simba's father, and I felt the Elephant's Graveyard sequence both made the first act too long and overwhelmed it with death energy. I suggested saving the Graveyard location as an INMOST CAVE for an Act Two central crisis of death and rebirth, and replacing the Act One scene with some other transgression by Simba that tests his father's patience, but with a lighter, less morbid tone. This bit of advice was not taken and who can say if it would have made any difference.

  I do feel, however, that the movie is weakened by the turn it takes in Act Two. The almost photographic realism of the Act One animal scenes is replaced with a more old-fashioned Disney cartoon style, especially the comic rendering of Timon and Pumbaa. Simba is a growing carnivore and there is nothing realistic about him subsisting on a diet of bugs. I feel the movie missed a big chance to follow through on the promise of the first act with a realistic series of TESTS, leading to a life-threatening ORDEAL near the midpoint. Someone should have been teaching Simba real survival skills, how to stalk his prey, how to hunt, how to fight for what is his. I offered a range of possibilities. Timon and Pumbaa could teach him, he could meet another lion to teach him survival skills, or Rafiki could appear to carry on the teaching of Mufasa. I advocated creating a scene where Simba is truly tested, a real ORDEAL in which he discovers his mature power in a battle with a crocodile, a water buffalo, a leopard, or some other formidable foe.

  The development of Simba from a scared little cub into a jaunty teen-aged lion is handled too quickly, in my opinion, with a few quick dissolves of him growing older as he crosses a log bridge. A montage of scenes of him learning to hunt, first comically and then with greater assurance, would have been more effective storytelling. Timon and Pumbaa add much-needed comic relief to the story, but fail to dramatize the stages of Simba's development, the individual lessons that he has to learn. They teach him how to kick back and enjoy life, but they don't give him what he really needs. The lessons learned in Act Two (be laid back, relax, enjoy life, don't stress out, be scoundrelly and a little gross, recognize love when you find it) don't prepare Simba for the ORDEAL he must ultimately face.

  Meanwhile I felt there was more work for Rafiki to do in this story. I wanted him to be more like Merlin, an experienced wise man who had perhaps been the king's counselor at one time, who pretends to be crazy so he can appear harmless to the usurper, and who is charged with looking after the young prince as he grows up in obscurity, training him for the moment when he's ready to take his rightful throne. I advocated weaving him into Act Two as a MENTOR who accompanies Simba into the SPECIAL WORLD and does a MENTOR'S function —
giving the hero something needed to complete the journey and outface death. Rafiki was needed to teach real survival lessons that Timon and Pumbaa failed to impart. I envisioned Rafiki showing up soon after Simba arrived in the SPECIAL WORLD, and that he would guide Simba through a series of escalating tests that prepared him for his ultimate showdown with Scar. Of course Timon and Pumbaa would still be there as welcome comic relief.

  The character of Rafiki grew significantly through the rest of the development process. The animators ended up making him a true MENTOR, a gruff Zen master who gives Simba tough advice and hard knocks, but also the gift of inspiration, guiding him to the vision of his father's spirit. He wasn't as active or present as I would have liked, although a couple of brief scenes were added in the first half of Act Two. Rafiki witnesses the devastation of Pride Rock by Scar and, thinking Simba is dead, sadly smears a drawing of him on a cave wall. Later, Rafiki's shamanic powers tell him that Simba is still alive and, after adding an adult lion's mane to the rock drawing, he sets out to summon the young hero to his destiny.

  Rafiki really comes into action at the end of Act Two as he takes Simba on a vision quest that has elements of a CALL and REFUSAL, and an ORDEAL in which Simba has an encounter with death (the ghost of his father) and wins a REWARD in the form of enhanced self-confidence and determination.

  The encounter with the father's ghost is another borrowing from "Hamlet," although in Shakespeare the young hero encounters his father's ghost in Act One. It made for a powerful scene in The Lion King, although one that small children sometimes find confusing. When I saw the film I heard children in the audience ask their parents questions like "Wasn't he dead before?" and "Is he back alive again?" The appearance of the ghostly father is dramatic and emotionally moving, but it plays mostly on the verbal and intellectual level. Simba gets encouraging advice, but the lessons are not dramatized as tests. The teaching of Rafiki is more satisfyingly concrete and physical — the baboon shaman raps him on the head to teach him a lesson about putting his mistakes in the past.

  At the time of the storyboard presentation, the details of Simba's return to Pride Rock had not been worked out. We discussed many options. Simba could leave the SPECIAL WORLD with Nala, Timon, and Pumbaa, agreeing to face Scar together. Simba and Nala could go together, after having a parting of the ways with Timon and Pumbaa, who might show up later having had a change of heart. The final decision was to have Simba go off alone during the night, leaving Nala, Timon, and Pumbaa to wake up and find him gone the next morning. Rafiki tells them Simba has gone to take his rightful place, and they hurry to join him.

  Act Three marches swiftly to the climactic battle, although it feels somewhat weighted down by Simba's lingering guilt over his belief that he caused his father's death. Scar dredges it up again, hoping to turn the lions against Simba by getting him to admit his responsibility for his father's death. I felt the writers played too heavily on this note, making the story seem turgid and overly melodramatic, and turning Simba into an angst-ridden modern protagonist, more appropriate to a novel than to an animated film about animals. However, it does provide a RESURRECTION moment in which Simba passes a final test by accepting responsibility for his father's death instead of running from it.

  The Lion King can be faulted for giving center stage to the male characters and relatively little energy to the females. Nala is fairly well developed but Simba's mother is underutilized and passive. She could have been more significant in training Simba in Act One and resisting Scar in Act Two. This imbalance is addressed in Julie Taymore's stage version of The Lion King, which gives more weight and action to female characters, and which makes Rafiki a female shaman.

  There was considerable suspense around the release of The Lion King. None of us in the production knew how the film would play for the audience. The Disney animated films had been climbing in popularity with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and many wondered if The Lion King would fail to top them. To everyone's relief, it performed even better, becoming the most successful animated film to date, and the most profitable motion picture in history. Why? Partly because people were delighted by the animation of the animals and the exuberant, African-flavored music, but also thanks to the universal power of the Hero's Journey patterns in its story. The challenge of growing up and claiming your rightful place in the world is a classic Hero's Journey motif that naturally struck something deep in many people. The familiar rhythms of the Journey were not the only principles guiding The Lion King — in fact, at times, they were outweighed by other concerns like low comedy and sheer fun — but I can say that this is one case where they were applied consciously to make the work more accessible to a broad audience and more dramatically satisfying.

  For the past few years, the film that young people were most interested in talking about was Pulp Fiction. They wanted to know how on earth the structure of the Hero's Journey could be found in that film. Its defiance of the conventions of structure, content, framing, dialogue, and editing intrigued them. They enjoyed its passionate intensity and sardonic humor. Some people were offended by its vulgarity and flashes of violence, but most admired the film for proving that unorthodox subject matter and uncompromising style can be both entertaining and highly successful. However, despite its innovative qualities, Pulp Fiction can be interpreted with the reliable old tools of the mythic Hero's Journey. Seen this way, the film in fact presents at least three distinct journeys for three different heroes; Vincent, Jules, and Butch.

  THE POST-MODERN MIRROR

  Young people may have responded to Pulp Fiction because it reflects the post-modern artistic sensibility they grew up with. Post-modernism is the result of a world blown apart, fragmented into millions of pieces by a century of war, social disruption, and rapid technological change. The doors of perception have been shattered by machines and the frantic pace of electronification. Young people now come to awareness in a high-intensity bombardment of random images and brief story segments torn from all the previous styles of art and literature. The bits may have an internal consistency and obey some rules of the old story world, but they assault the consciousness of the young in no apparent order.

  Young people perceive the world as reflections in a shattered mirror, whether they channel-surf to cut up the stories themselves or have the stories chopped up for them by MTV-style editing. They are accustomed to juggling story lines, time periods, and genres at staggering speed. Because of the archival nature of television, constantly churning images and eras, post-modern kids live in a stew of styles. The young can costume themselves in fashions ranging from '60s hippie to heavy metal headbanger, from cowboy to surf dude, from gangsta to grunger to preppie. They

  master the idioms and attitudes of all these options and more. On their interactive, multi-media computers, they are comfortable with randomly sampling bits of entertainment and information without concern for the old world's notions of time and sequence.

  Pulp Fiction reflects the postmodern condition in both style and content. Postmodernism is most apparent in its unusual structure, which disregards the conventional cinema's respect for linear time. The sequences appear to have been sliced up with a samurai sword and thrown in the air, although in fact the order of scenes has been carefully chosen to develop a coherent theme and produce a definite emotional effect. The signs of postmodernism are also present in the film's content. The nightclub where Vincent and Mia dance is a perfect postmodern microcosm. Contemporary characters find themselves in an environment peopled by icons of former eras — Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley, Jayne Mansfield, Ed Sullivan, Buddy Holly, Dean Martin, and Jerry Lewis. Most of these people are dead, but they eerily live on through their immortal images. Vincent and Mia perform novelty dances from the 1960s to music that hasn't been heard in movies for thirty years. Pulp Fiction is part of the pop-culture jet stream, flowing easily out of the current collective unconscious, charged with images and sounds from previous eras.

  RELATIVITY AND W
ORLD CULTURE

  Pulp Fiction is postmodern also in its sense of cultural relativity. Although the film is set in America, it is shot through with a sense of worldwide culture and a global viewpoint. The characters are constantly comparing one culture to another, one set of standards to another. Jules and Vincent discuss the peculiar way American fast food is named and consumed in other countries, and marvel at drug laws in other lands. Butch, the American boxer, compares notes with a South American woman cabdriver on personal names in different cultures — her Spanish name is poetic and meaningful, while in America, he says, our names don't mean anything. This consciousness of other cultures may have contributed to the film's worldwide popularity.

  The characters in Pulp Fiction are engaged in debate about value systems, reflecting the postmodern sense that no single code of ethics is adequate anymore. Jules and Vincent argue the moral significance of foot massage and the cosmic importance of a pattern of bullet holes. Where Vincent sees a meaningless accident requiring no response, Jules sees a divine miracle demanding a complete change of behavior. In the postmodern universe, everything is relative, and moral values are the most relative of all. Although the audience has seen Jules as a cold-blooded killer, he can seem like a hero compared with those around him. The story appears to say that Western society's narrow value judgments about morality are outdated. In the new world, each person must select his or her own moral code, argue it fiercely, and live or die by it.

  THE ETERNAL TRIANGLE IN PULP FICTION

  One of the pop-culture streams tapped by Pulp Fiction is the tradition of film noir and its sources in the hard-boiled fiction of 1930s and '40s pulp magazines. Like Titanic, the film employs the powerful archetype of the Eternal Triangle. The Mr. Big of Pulp Fiction is Marsellus Wallace, mysterious crime boss; the Young Woman is Mia, Marsellus' wife; and Vincent is the Young Man, who as usual finds himself attracted to the Young Woman, testing their loyalty to Mr. Big. Vincent passes through this ordeal without betraying Mr. Big, like a Grail-questing knight refusing to yield to grievous bodily temptation. But, as we shall see, in another arena, another branch of his Hero's Journey, Vincent fails a more spiritual test.