In his book The Writer's Journey, screenwriter Christopher Vogler taps into the research of the well-known mythologist Joseph Campbell. Vogler's concern is with the contemporary function of the fundamental myth (or recurrent plot structure) that Campbell refers to as "the hero with a thousand faces," a narrative form expressed in epic poems such as Homer's Odysseus and surviving today in all kinds of screenplays (and other forms of story, too). As a point of fact, many screenwriters have acknowledged their direct dept to Vogler's book (and it's description of the "thousand faces" myth) as a means of generating effective story ideas. Consequently we can use Vogler's "thousand faces" template to help trace the function of the hero from its ancient origins to its contemporary persistence in screen-based narratives such as the cinema.
Campbell describes the "thousand faces" narrative structure as having several distinct components (some having to do with the story's progression, and others having to do with the characters and places encountered in the world of the story):
- The hero must go into a special (and dangerous) world to save the tribe and achieve personal salvation.
- The journey is circular, starting and ending at home with the trip abroad occurring in the middle.
- There's often a mentor figure.
- There's often a threshold guardian (overseeing the entrance to the special world).
- There's often a herald (who introduces the hero to the quest).
- There's often a shape shifter (a person who keeps changing their role).
- There's often a shadow character (the hero's reverse image).
- There's often a trickster (sometimes helping, sometimes hindering).
CS
