A Few Examples
Emory University’s Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL):
“SLAYING THE FATHER” AND OTHER PARADIGMS OF GROWTH IN MOVIES ABOUT AMERICAN FAMILIES
Using concepts from his book, LIFE, MYTH, AND THE AMERICAN FAMILY UNREELING: THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MOVIES FOR THE 20TH CENTURY, Stein explored the “slaying the father” path of personal, familial, and societal transformation as it is integrated in exceptional feature films with the journey through the socio-mythic gauntlet to cosmo-mythic salvation and the being/becoming paradox of growth. For illustratration, Stein displayed clips from such movies as OUR TOWN, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, PLEASANTVILLE, and AMERICAN BEAUTY.
Vanderbilt Osher Lifelong Learning:
THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS ON FILM
Hearing the call of who you really are, tapping the liberating power of forgiveness, deciphering the truth among the cries for war and peace, disavowing success to find fulfillment, facing death: these are among the core obstacles that all heroes (real or fictional) need a transformation of consciousness to surmount. Their journey arcs, through good storytelling, provide us with messages for solving our own similar life conundrums. No medium brings these messages home more powerfully than great motion pictures. The impact of these films often become even more meaningful when the transformations of consciousness have been effectively depicted as occurring in the lives of real people. In this workshop we look at clips from films about a Noble laureate, a holocaust survivor, a revered author, a messiah, and a simple man as examples of the transformations of consciousness that enable us to find at-onement in life.
Nashville Salon:
POET EDWARD ARLINGTON ROBINSON’S LIFE AND CALLING
A presentation focusing on Robinson’s quest to find Inner Light in the Outer World through selected readings of his poems linked to his biographical journey. The presentation is visually accented with PowerPoint imagery, culminating with my short dramatic motion picture adaptation of his poem, Mr. Flood’s Party.
1st UU Nashville:
ARCHETYPES & PROHECY IN FILM
Drawing from the culminating chapters of his book, Life, Myth and the American Family Unreeling, Stein will guide participants in exhuming the buried layers of archetypes (structural, mythological, generational, etc.) that exceptional film storytelling utilizes to resonate our lives and, in this case, foretell our collective future. The revelation of this prophecy will occur over a period of four sessions through a microanalysis of the Spielberg/Kubrick creation, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, whose major release in movie theaters just prior to 9/11 can be seen as extraordinarily prescient when illuminated through the archetypes operating beneath its surface.
Nashville Salon:
TOLSTOY: THE CONUNDRUM OF A CONFOUNDED PROPHET
This demonstrates and discusses how a finely wrought and visual documentary can tell an incredibly compelling story about the human difficulties of becoming a saint. It’s an introspective look at one of the world’s great geniuses who still was unable escape our human condition. And it’s an informative history of a man who made all the difference in the world to a world that still needs that difference.
Osher Lifelong Learning at Vanderbilt University:
FAMILY ON FILM: THE LAST DECADE OF THE 20th CENTURY
In his third engagement exploring how classic films have “exposed” the American family across the decades, Stein elaborates on concepts from Part IV of his book, Life, Myth, and the American Family Unreeling. Using extensive clips from such masterworks as Smoke Signals, The Joy Luck Club, Grand Canyon, American Beauty and more, he investigates the cosmological understandings by which timeless storytelling immeasurably helps us release our fears and embrace transformation. Specifically he will be looking at understanding the circumstances of our families, and thus of our society, provided by a number of seminal films of the last decade of the last millennium. What precipices for good or ill did these movies see us edging toward? Did they find cause for woe or celebration amid the stressful cacophony of the end of the century? Our double session will give us extra time for film and talk-back as we peer through the essential filmic lens of how mythological structure reveals the stories of our lives.
Greater Nashville Unitarian Church:
THE FUNDAMENTAL (SPIRITUAL) PROBLEM WITH MONEY
From Wall Street through Tolstoy, Jesus, Ayn Rand, Buddha, Groucho and other eclectic lights to a guru Gorilla, J.J. Stein presents a dramatic and divergent exposition regarding our fundamental problems with money.
B’nai B’rith Evening:
MOVIE AND DINNER
Invited to lead a discussion of Lee Daniels, The Butler for this gathering