Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Comedians Jack Druce and Michael Hing talk about "Life as a movie"

As a movie buff and someone who revels in imagination, I'm an advocate for viewing life through the prism of Movies or Video Games. I've related travel feelings through Movie Tropes and have often used Cinema as a measuring stick for my life. Joseph Campbell articulated this best but its worth noting that we've been bombarded by more engrossing media since his time.

VIDEO: Joseph Campbell - Myth As the Mirror for the Ego
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well the ego can't reflect upon itself unless it has a mirror against which to read itself and that mirror would be the Mythological schedule that lets it know where it is...
Australian Comedians Jack Druce and Michael Hing touch on the idea of 'Life as a Movie' and the issue of Reality Inversion.
The Druce and Hing Podcast: 54 - Wolf The Movie 3D!
MICHAEL HING: (1h 3m) Presumably a lot of screenwriters and stuff are themselves dorky writer nerds who are writing stories about themselves as we all would. And in the film of the life that they're writing of course they get the girl. And so you grow up thinking that people will find this thing charming... the thing is that's not how life works. Because if that was how life worked then that movie would be very boring and their would be no element of interest or intrigue to it.

It'd just be like "Here's 90 minutes that have been directly captured from how things happen" as opposed to "This is an actual Million Dollar fantasy, not only could we not find this anywhere in the world. We had to hire actors and pay people to write this story where this series of events happened because it would never happen in real life. And now you will pay money to experience this because you know it would never happen as well"
Jack makes a great point that no matter how visceral an experience is delivered, we can never truly embody the feeling and thoughts of another person.
JACK DRUCE: (55m 50s) People in movies they're just doing stuff, you don't know what they're thinking. So when you're doing stuff you're thinking "this sucks I'm really bad at this". You don't know if people in movies are thinking like that or not. They could be. You don't know if that's in stories, you don't know whats in their heads at that time so you think you're doing it wrong. Because well I'm doing this thing and I'm in my head thinking it sucks and that's not how culture and stories have told me how people do stuff.
- Find the 'Druce and Hing Podcast' on iTunes or on Michael Hing's Libsyn page

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