The Screenwriter as Shaman?

Anyone who knows me knows I have this . . . well, not obsession, I'd say, but a keen interest in how mythology develops, evolves, and affects society.

As such I read a lot of Joseph Campbell (and I recommend him to you if you are one of the four or five people who haven't indulged yet). I was reading an interview between Campbell and the reporter (and Campbell student) Bill Moyers called The Power of Myth, where they were discussing how movies in a way replace the role of ritual in our modern existance.

Rituals are important, even for non-religious people like me, because they mark a boundary. Once a boy goes through the circumcision ritual of the Australian Aborigines, for example, he knows that he is now expected to act like a man, and childish behavior is no longer tolerated. It's a traumatic experience that carries with it a physical reminder.

We don't have anything like that anymore in our culture, which Campbell felt (and I sort of agree) causes a lot of problems. There is no longer a dividing line between childhood and adulthood, other than the arbitrary one of the age of majority. There is nothing one can point to and say, "See, I am now a man." Or woman.

Campbell felt that, in a way, movies replaced that experience, and it occurred to me today that he was right. Campbell felt that this was not necessarily a good thing, as screenwriters and filmmakers are in this to make money, not initiate people.

I do believe, however, that there is a genre of film that *could* serve this function, almost accidentally.

It's not an original idea with me--if I remember correctly, Stephen King mentions it in his book Danse Macabre--but it seems to me that horror movies can become sort of a replacement.

Think about it--they're rated R so children can't get in. Good ones are a traumatic experience. Afterwards you feel . . . different. If it's one of the really *good* horror movies. Good horror movies almost *have* to have the same qualities of those rituals I was talking about earlier. If they don't then they aren't *good* horror movies.

I'm talking about one of those films that makes you forget you are watching a film. One of those that has you trembling during the opening credits. One of those that makes you forget there are other people around you in the theater.

Alien did that to me. So did Jaws. But I'm talking now about films that did that to *you*. A film that may utterly terrify me may just bore the hell out of you. And vice versa--I found The Exorcist dull and never did see why it was so frightening to so many.

I'm attempting something like that with what I'm working on now--hopefully it'll be considered an initiation type film. And that's going to be what I call really *good* horror films from now on--initiation type films.

What do you think? Am I way off base? What would you consider your initiation type films?