The Dark is Rising
I committed the cardinal sin over the weekend and went to see a film before reading the book. I enjoyed The Dark is Rising. My 10- and 11-year-olds were mesmerized. While I liked the film, I suspect there's a lot missing from the original intent of the book. There's a lot of talk on the blogosphere of the book being sanitized (interesting article on that here) for public consumption and for the consumer demographics that will bring the neanderthals non-readers out to see it.
Why am I not surprised?
I particularly enjoyed the white horse ridden by The Dark in the film. If you are a horseperson, then you'd see the rider giving cues to the horse to achieve the dramatic effect of the malevolent horseman. Once, I saw the dressage whip in the frame, presumably being wielded by the horse trainer just offscreen, as the horse performed some particularly expressive moves on camera. Do any of you other horsepeople out there watch for this type of thing too? Or am I just weird?
Needless to say, I am buying all of these books for my library.
Cinema Confidential has a pretty amusing interview with Christopher Eccleston about his horsemanship in the film.
Q: Had you ridden a horse before this?
CHRISTOPHER: No.
Q: What training did you do?
CHRISTOPHER: As much as we could in a very short time. I let the stunt men to do the easy stuff and I do all the dangerous stuff. That's the way I like to do it.
Q: We heard that you do the big stunt where you get thrown from the horse.
CHRISTOPHER: You know more than I do. The last thing I heard was that the horse was going to very cleverly go down on all fours, which I've seen them do, which is pretty extraordinary. So the last thing I heard was the horse was going to go down on all fours and I was going to step ever so sensitively off it.
Q: And then they were going to yank you from the horse into the air…
CHRISTOPHER: I've heard some of that but I thought that was going to come later.
I also enjoyed the gnostic elements of the film. The Seeker with his knowledge. The Elders. The idea of Will's twin brother. The awakening of Will and his realization of who he is, and that the answer lies inside of him.
I'm reading June Singer's Boundaries of the Soul, The Practice of Jung's Psychology right now. Seems to me she may be speaking of that celestial twin idea, the guardian angel in this passage that practically leapt off of the page at me yesterday. Singer, in talking about the real problem that brings most people to analysis, writes--
It all boils down to a truth which seems deceptively simple but is in fact complicated and all-encompassing. It is that he has looked at himself and does not like the person he has become, and that he believes that somewhere in him is rising the possibility of being another sort of person, the one he was meant to be.
That second entity was united with the first at some point in time, perhaps in early childhood, perhaps in adolescence under the aegis of an admired friend or an inspiring teacher. It may have been recognized as a peaceful way of being, or a way of seeing the world that was wide and full of wonder; or it may have been seen in terms of devotion to some idea, some purpose. In the struggle for material possessions, for personal achievement, for social position or for the favors of an entrancing lover, the second entity was sacrificed--the birthright for the mess of potage. For some this meant the determined putting away of the dreams of youth, and sometimes in that process the unique promise of the personality simply slipped away unnoticed, leaving a sense of quiet despair. Primitive people have termed this "loss of soul."
Wasn't it Plato who said that all learning is remembering? Yes, I think.
I've also just finished the first chapter on Awakening in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. This blew me away--
Throughout the previous two years, my awakening had shown me new truthys about my religion, my life, and the lives of women. I had survived a landslide of awareness. But I didn't know if I could act on them.
When you can't go forward and you can't go backward and you can't stay where you are wtihout killing off what is deep and vital in yourself, you are on the edge of creation.
Without giving anything away, I'd say that's where Will was at the end of the film. And that's where I found myself not so long ago. On the edge of creation with the wind roaring at me and tearing at my hair. Everyone's path is unique, and this may seem strange to some of you--but the horses helped to wake me up. To remember who I am.
Anyway, I'd recommend this film. But then again, growing up, I spent a lot of my free time in the public school library reading our poor selection of mythology books, and now I just order them from amazon.com, and the stack beneath my four-poster bed is getting unwieldly, to say the least. (I was really thrilled when our Borders was doing a fund raiser recently for the Boys and Girls Club, and I gave them a mythology book.) I'm excited to see these types of messages about the problem of wholeness coming out of the film industry, even if perhaps they are a little diluted and Hollywooded up. I feel my spirits rise when presented with messages of awakening. I wanted to stand and cheer for Will (but my kids would have been sooooo embarassed), when he told The Dark (who just happened to be riding that splendid white horse) just who he was.
And the horse was very cool indeed.
