Interview With Stuart Voytilla
Interview by Jenna Glatzer

Stuart Voytilla is a screenwriter, literary consultant and teacher of acting and writing. VP of Marketing for ScriptPerfection Enterprises, Inc., Stuart serves as creative consultant for their web-based writer’s resource, www.write-brain.com. Stuart is co-founder, writer and producer for Redfield Arts, a motion picture production company based in Baltimore, MD. Stuart also lectures about myth and genre, and currently teaches screenwriting and film aesthetics at San Diego State University. His book, Myth and the Movies, is published by Michael Wiese Productions (www.mwp.com). The book explores the mythic structure of 50 films, according to Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" paradigm.

What inspired you about Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey"? 

As a child, I was an avid reader of myth, fable and fairy tale. The Bible, the heroic trials of the Greeks and Romans, the Arthurian legends, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Joel Chandler Harris – all magical storytelling that fueled my need to weave tales. I wasn’t aware of Joseph Campbell until Star Wars. I was a senior in High School when the first film was released, and I had learned that George Lucas was greatly influenced by Campbell’s work. So, I read The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and in the 80s, the Campbell and Moyers "Power of Myth" interviews were aired on PBS. I was hooked. Here was a paradigm that helped me understand story structure while emphasizing a story’s potential to transform the audience member. Aristotle believed that art serves two functions: to delight and to teach. We often neglect how storytelling works on these two levels. 

It’s easy to see the “delight” or entertainment factor of our stories, especially movies. But most importantly, stories help us understand universal truths: how to live our lives, how to accept death, how to treat one another. Stories can make us laugh at our foibles, they can help us find love, they can heal. This doesn’t mean that we must write didactic stories that are obvious moral lessons. But a writer must understand that we as audience members are always looking for meaning in the stories we experience. We can’t turn that off. And we are a story-hungry species, which makes the storyteller’s role in society one that is essential and powerful.

How is this similar to or different from the three-act structure? 

I see the Hero’s Journey paradigm as an extension of three-act structure. It’s a deeper look at how the three acts work together to tell a great story.

Your book analyzes 50 films according to the Hero's Journey structure. What did you hope to accomplish by writing this book? 

The Hero’s Journey is clearly evident in grand adventures and epic fantasies like The Adventures of Robin Hood or Star Wars. So much so that writers and writing teachers undervalue the paradigm’s use in understanding other genres. So, my primary goal was to prove that the paradigm can help us understand the success of fifty of our greatest films (not just American films, but world-wide) selected from various genres, including romance, western, war, comedy, horror, and thrillers. As I analyzed these films and saw the patterns of the Hero’s Journey, I also uncovered ways in which the Journey’s elements can help us understand the salient characteristics of these genres. 

Did you meet your own expectations? 

Exceeded expectations. I'll admit I gave myself a difficult and diverse list of films (including The Godfather, Dances With Wolves, Halloween, Citizen Kane, Annie Hall, La Strada, The Piano, Platoon). I didn't choose the films because I knew ahead of time that the paradigm worked -- I challenged myself with this list of fifty. And it took a lot of work, viewing and reviewing the movies three, four, five times. Dances With Wolves was an example of a film that exceeded all expectations. I loved the film when I first saw it in the theater, but I wasn't looking forward to seeing this epic 3-4 times. But I did, and believe me, the Journey paradigm and the archetypes allowed me to appreciate the film on a deeper level with every viewing. This is an amazing paradigm.

You say that you wanted to find out whether certain genres used the structure differently than other genres. Did they? 

Oh, yes. It's amazing to see the patterns that define the characteristics of genre, and how the Journey helps us better understand these characteristics -- AND helps writers better approach the writing for a specific genre.

Why is it important for a writer to write within a genre? 

Genre has always been a great tool for categorizing types of story; film -- Hollywood specifically -- is a maven of genre. Genre is valuable because it helps delineate expectations of the story's arena. If I invite you to the movies to see a thriller, or a horror film, or a romantic comedy, the mention of each genre will set up inner expectations of what you will be feeling during the course of the film as well as lingering feelings after the film. Just think of the feelings an audience member carries away from an erotically charged thriller versus a hilarious comedy. Of course, genre also facilitates the marketing machine that must get the audience member into the theater. And genre provides a shorthand for producers and studios to determine what to make. If a studio is seeking a romantic comedy because of the success of that genre, then agents will be pushing their clients who specialize in romantic comedy. 

For all of these reasons, a writer trying to make it into the film business benefits from knowing and writing for genre -- as long as it's a genre the writer appreciates, respects and enjoys as an audience member. Of course, genre can be mixed and spun around and turned inside out -- I'm all for experimentation, but writers must appreciate the audience's expectations for a particular genre. Not that we write to meet those expectations because then storytelling quickly gets hackneyed and predictable, but you need to understand the elements of the genre and why the audience seeks that type of story. Let me use a very simple overview to better explain what I mean. Audiences may seek adventure tales because they transport us to exotic lands and deal with a central conflict of good overcoming evil. These are expectations that the writer of adventure should be aware of. In contrast, audiences may prefer Horror films because this genre allows us to vicariously experience our greatest fears and survive. On the other hand, Romantic Comedy validates the power of the heart and search for true love, while our great romance (often tragic) stories continually depict the sacrifice of love. An audience member may not be consciously aware of why he or she flocks to adventures, horrors, romantic comedies or romances, but the storyteller has to appreciate the genre and respect these audience expectations and needs.

Did you find that, in all 50 films, all of the elements of the Hero's Journey were present?

Let me stress that the Hero's Journey isn't a formula. I don't believe in plug-and-play or paint-by-the-numbers storytelling. The Journey is a flexible model that helps us understand how great stories work.

Joseph Campbell uncovered the Hero's Journey and its story stages after analyses of thousands of years worth of mythology and fable from across culture and around the world. Yes, the Hero's Journey gives us a greater understanding of the power of each of the films I addressed in the book. The Journey stages were not always in the classic pattern; stages may be omitted, or repeated depending upon the needs of the story and the genre. 

Character types have some great names-- like "Threshold Guardian," "The Shapeshifter," and "Trickster." Can you define one of these and give us an example of how this character is used in a popular film? 

I use archetype to define function of character, and not the character him or herself. Archetypes are recurring patterns of these functions in stories. For example, the Hero archetype is a character whose action at a certain moment is to serve or sacrifice for another. A Mentor guides. The Herald challenges. Depending upon the needs of your story, one character may serve different functions or archetypes. For example in Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi serves Luke as his mentor and thus guides him on the journey. But he also acts as Hero in a key moment when he sacrifices himself to Darth Vader, allowing Luke to escape the Death Star. In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter serves as Mentor, Shadow, and Threshold Guardian to Clarice at different moments of her journey. During key stages of his remarkable transformation in The Godfather, Michael Corleone must serve as Hero, Threshold Guardian, Shapeshifter, Mentor, Herald, and Shadow. The archetypes allow storytellers to effectively integrate character function into the story that’s being told. 

What is a common mistake new screenwriters make?

Overwriting. Not just dense, flowery prose for action and description, and too much focus on dialogue to convey information, but also trying to tell too much in the story. Getting lost in the details and not being able to step back to take a look at the overall structure of the story and its impact on the reader (and audience member).

BUY THE BOOK BY CLICKING HERE.  

To contact Stuart by email: stuartv@write-brain.com

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