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You may or may not know it, but you’re already very familiar with mythologist Joseph Campbell’s concept of the monomyth, or The Hero’s Journey. Campbell developed his theory of a common structure to the world’s myths in the early 20th century, and many writers and filmmakers since have been influenced by it. If you’ve read The Odyssey or seen Star Wars, you’ve encountered The Hero’s Journey in action. Campbell also saw this structure as a psychological guide to life, and that’s the thread that Patrick Takaya Solomon’s documentary Finding Joe picks up.
Solomon traces three major steps of The Hero’s Journey through interviews and a series of music video-like vignettes illustrating concepts from Campbell’s work and various world folktales. These three steps include The Call to Adventure, Initiation, and Return. The other focus of the documentary falls on one of Campbell’s most famous phrases, “follow your bliss.”
There’s a brief introduction to Campbell himself and his wider body of work, but that’s put aside fairly quickly to concentrate on the The Hero’s Journey and how it relates to one’s own life. Interview subjects include scholars, philosophers, writers, actors, and athletes, each offering personal experiences and interpretations of how Campbell influenced them and how they’ve lived their own Hero’s Journeys. There’s no question that these are meant to be inspirational more than scholarly, and many of the intricacies of Campbell’s work are brushed aside in favor of personal success stories and broad calls to follow one’s dreams.
The interviews are intermixed with video vignettes featuring a group of children acting out stories and generally being really, really cute. There’s a definite commercial quality to these sections. While they are illustrative of the concepts being discussed, the vivid colors and stirring music are clear emotional appeals to buy into the worldview that the documentary espouses—that The Hero’s Journey is a guideline for personal transformation.
It’s Finding Joe’s continuous pressing of this perspective that I think robs the documentary of some of its potential. There’s a self-help vibe present through the piece, which becomes much more strongly pronounced toward the end. While the call to follow one’s bliss certainly informed much of Campbell’s philosophy, I don’t think it lacks for emphasis in today’s culture. That’s not to say that it isn’t a good message, but it leaves the film feeling a bit slight.
While it may not go very deeply into Campbell’s work and it veers into the shallows of pop psychology, Finding Joe still works as an introduction to an idea that has become ingrained in popular culture. The Hero’s Journey can as easily be applied to most of this summer’s blockbuster films as it can to religious mythology and classical literature, and Campbell’s unique view of how these stories reflect our own psychological needs can add to the experience of those works. And if that understanding indeed helps you follow your bliss in the way that Solomon hopes, then all the better.
Ed. Note: To find out whether Finding Joe is playing in a theater near you, visit FindingJoeTheMovie.com.
