The Myths That Make Us
by Brian Fox
The film Lady in the Water tells the story of a myth. A girl named Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) comes from the blue world of water to bring a message to mankind. She must deliver it to a writer living in an apartment in the middle of nowhere – and played by director M. Night Shyamalan. Fearsome creatures complicate the task by trying to kill her, and her only help, her only protector, is a stuttering bald man, on the run from life after some tragedies of his own. Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti), the janitor of the apartment complex, must forge an unlikely band out of the misfit tenants he serves, overcome his own shyness and fear, and reach out to a childlike stranger in order to help her fulfill her mission.
The fundamental fact that Lady in the Water tells the tale of a myth must inform a true understanding of this unique story. One might dislike Star Wars because they don’t like sci-fi, but the failure to appreciate the genre would not normally be considered a flaw in the film. Lady in the Water may be inaccessible to some viewers because the genre of the myth has been dormant for many years, an unfortunate and unnecessary casualty of those who fail to grasp its ability to delight and instruct through the wonder in its stories. The narrative includes both commentary about the archetype of the myth itself and a moralistic tale to all mankind by telling the personal struggle of the characters within the myth.
The film is highly self-aware. Yet it would be difficult to place modern man within a mythological story and refuse to allow him to wonder about his own role. Lady in the Water simply has the realism to allow people to act as they probably would, should they find themselves within such a story. The characters’ self-consciousness gives the audience greater empathy for them.
In Shyamalan’s premise, the increasingly violent conflicts of our world threaten all those who live in it. As a potential solution, the story offers the storyteller himself, M. Night Shyamalan; and suggests that mankind listen to its modern poets, the storytellers of movies.
In order to find their roles within the story, Heep and the other characters seek out an interpreter, someone who can read the signs and give them direction. Though the realm of interpretation has been dominated by analytical critics for many years, Shyamalan snubs them by suggesting that the cold, intense-authorial-scrutinizing approach of the modern critic fails to comprehend the myth. Little wonder this film did poorly under their specs.
One of the primary things the critics hated about this film was the failure of the critic character in the story to carry out his expected role as the teacher of meanings. Shyamalan directs a jab at them by suggesting that they give flawed and useless commentary. To say the critics ‘murder to dissect’ the stories they analyze has uncomfortable ramifications. If the teachers of meaning give flawed and useless commentary, the people will inevitably go astray. Shyamalan’s jab may sting, but in a world that has lost its unified ethical code, the blow finds its mark.
Shyamalan departs from the modern artistic modem of introspection to guide his characters, and instead projects plain-spoken axioms, such as, “No one is told who they are” and, “You have a purpose, everyone has a purpose.” These declarations often come from none other than the character named Story. Just like the character he portrays in the film, Shyamalan has a message for mankind, and rather than stand and preach, he tells a story.
In order to accomplish their purpose, the characters must learn to overcome the sense of isolation, fear, and loss they have experienced and learn to help each other, depend on each other, and reach out to help the innocent. This highly personal struggle, best shown in the tremendous acting of Paul Giamatti, as Heep, tells the story of a hero, overcoming his weaknesses to forge a link to the world of innocence that holds the answers mankind needs. He must transcend his own mundane work to help a stranger. This is really the greatest strength of the narrative. The entire moral emanates from the character arc of Paul Giamatti. The fascinating camera work, the highly original and well-developed characters, and the incredibly imaginative story simply compliment this breakthrough of Shyamalan’s.
Both his creatures and his characters feel like stereotypes, despite being incredibly different than anything that came before – the mark of the classic. At first glance it appears that Shyamalan has borrowed much of his myth from other work. The image of the eagle evokes memories of many Native American myths, the concept of the peace-keepers as terribly evil and powerful creatures seems to stem from Hindu mythology. The band of sisters, the healer, the guardian all seem very familiar to those accustomed to reading myths. Yet the longer one contemplates other myths for direct correlations, the more one realizes that Lady in the Water is unique. It does not rehash the ancient myths, it writes a modern one.
As Joseph Campbell wrote in his book Myths To Live By, “Literally read symbolic forms have always been – and still are, in fact, the supports of their civilizations, the supports of their moral orders, their cohesion, vitality and creative power. With the loss of them there follows uncertainty, and with uncertainty disequilibrium.”
Civilization requires moral code, and the source of moral code has always been in stories. The collection of these stories form the metanarrative, and that, in turn, forms the interpretation of all life and morality. Yet while Joseph Campbell seeks to build his own myths, having ‘proved’ by atheistic presuppositions the preposterousness of the ancient myths, Shyamalan takes less from Nietzsche and assumes a more eastern approach.
Across the gambit of Shyamalan’s movies he keeps his audience wondering if the extra-natural might be real. But he generally avoids the problem of proving them scientifically. He focused on the message of the story. The myth and message become primary and the evidence-obsessed scientific evaluations are questioned and confounded, just as they always are when confronted by the supernatural, the extra terrestrial, and the preternatural beyond the edges of civilization. Yet the fringes of civilization become even more important for that very reason; they embody the unknown. It is there that courage, integrity, and the definition of goodness become most important.
For most people, myths are a long-forgotten part of ancient culture. Like plowing fields, it is something they now gladly overlook, merely a curiosity fitting only as an eccentric oddity among overly bookish professors. But those who ignore myths ignore the fact that they provide what so many modern people lack: a sense of identity and purpose. That sense of identity can only be found if one knows their place in the myth.
Finding one’s place in myth is an essential part of applying them to modern times. It is the cornerstone of their relevance and the justification of their presence in our lives. It is the reason they are included among history, math, and science as something to which everyone should be introduced. The fact that we cannot find our place in the myths, due to our vastly different scenery and lifestyle, is perhaps why we lose touch with their lessons, and the mysteries they convey.
Shyamalan makes the myth more accessible. It is only after we understand the myths that we can begin to ask the all important question – such as whether or not they are true.
