Jeffry John Stein was born on Long Island and educated
at Dartmouth and
Stanford.
He was a motion picture development and production executive
in Hollywood, and is now a screenwriter and novelist. He teaches
his special brand of film courses in workshops around the country,
and at the Watkins College of Art and Design Film School where
he was a founding faculty member. He has also taught at Tennessee
State and National Universities. He lives on a wooded hilltop
in Tennessee with his artist wife and two daughters.
Book Synopsis:
This book is about what movies do for us. It is
about how movies exhibit the contradictions, truths, and fantasies
surrounding our bedrock American beliefs in things held sacred,
including, in this case, our creed of family. It is about why
we again and again attend the dark universal tabernacles in which
these sermons are offered.
The depth of analysis offered here will also bring
new insights to those concerned with parenting issues, self understanding,
and media consciousness — all increasingly relevant areas
of concern in contemporary life. And, for those interested in
telling stories that will truly "move" the rest of
us, this book will serve as a secret doorway to the inner sanctum
of human characters responding to the places and times of their
lives.
Finally, this book will bring revelation and liberation
to reader’s lives by showing them how to look through movies
into themselves as they have never done before. In the specific
examples of archetypal life journeys illuminated through these
films, they will experience empathy with the ineffability of
their existence. And, in transubstantiating with these movie
characters amidst history, culture, and family, they will journey
through their own conundrums in arcs that bring them moments
of at-one-ment.
LIFE, MYTH, AND THE AMERICAN FAMILY UNREELING can
be previewed online at: www.universal-publishers.com/browse.php.
Click on Entertainment, Music & Drama and sort, if necessary.
Or order anywhere.
PageOneLit.com: What/Who was your first
impression of film and movies and how has that impression affected
your life professionally and personally? Who were your earliest
influences and why?
Jeffry John Stein: Richard Henry Dana began
his book TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST by saying, "A whale ship
was my Harvard and my Yale." In playing with the preface
to FAMILY UNREELING, at one time I wrote, "Even though I
went to Dartmouth and Stanford, in many ways I feel that watching
movies during my formative years was my Harvard and my Yale."
Certainly the experience was not as imperiled as Dana's, but
as a youth and teen, movies certainly presented virtual reality
to me. My first encounter with theatrical films was during the
heyday of the 50s horror, science fiction, and social consciousness
movies. It was here that I first learned about the Id (FORBIDDEN
PLANET), radiation (THEM), prejudice (THE DEFIANT ONES), integrity
under duress (ON THE WATERFRONT, HIGH NOON), etc., etc. And
this was a time when the television late night void was filled
with older movies from the thirties and forties: Capra, Hawks,
Hitchcock, etc. with the likes of Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, and
James Cagney firing my imagination and measuring my identity.
Movies presented a world of ideas about the various realities
and possibilities inherent in our world. Even from my earliest
years of dating girls (and I started very early), I didn't take
them to the movies to hold hands or talk. I went to watch and
learn, and be stimulated to discuss them afterward.
PageOneLit.com: What are your five favorite
films of all time? And why?
Jeffry John Stein: This is a question I
can never answer in any area of my life outside of my devotion
to my family. There are so many wonders in life, including wonderful
films, that to claim one or five as ascendant above others is
to lessen the others. But my book as a whole is an answer to
this question because the workshops out of which it grew were
created partially as a way to share many of my favorites with
others and to investigate just why these movies were so enduring
for so many people. And though my book features in-depth discussions
of 21 films, and references many more, it only begins to scratch
the surface of those films that I exalt. That's why my workshops
have expanded into so many subjects beyond the family, including
success, leadership, aging, teen problems, race, historical change,
and progress and technology. And my book is all about answering
"why" these films are so effective: the mythological
and metaphorical underpinnings within the historical subtexts
that challenge us to encounter the big questions of our human
condition. Take for example how THE GRADUATE makes us laugh while
subconsciously leading us allegorically through the 1960's generational
rebellion by resting on the mythological foundation of the individual's
need to slay the father. But the layers of paradox are yet so
much deeper still that you'll just have to read the book if you
want to journey down the rabbit hole of the "what and how
" of THE GRADUATE, or OUR TOWN, or AMERICAN BEAUTY, etc.
Key among other qualities of great cinematic tales is that they
be infused with the paradoxes of our existence (our yins and
yangs). This is what connects with us emotionally, intellectually,
and viscerally.
PageOneLit.com: In LIFE, MYTH AND THE AMERICAN
FAMILY UNREELING you write "Understanding what stories are
really about is necessary in order to structure them to provide
their mythological functions." Please explain.
Jeffry John Stein: English teachers often
struggle to get students to distinguish theme from plot. For
example, THE GRADUATE, discussed above, is not about a recent
college graduate who comes home, has an affair with Mrs. Robinson,
and then falls in love with her daughter. That is all superficial
(if entertaining) storyline. It is about Reformation of the
vapid (parental) power structure of the 60s much as the Protestant
Reformation was about reforming the papacy in the 15th century
from corrupting meaningful spiritual fulfillment. Or SMOKE SIGNALS
is not just about two American Indians who journey off the reservation
in quest of a father, but rather about the purpose of that quest
which is to discover the healing properties of forgiveness that
allow love to release life from the deadly grip of hate. These
are the messages that connect with our souls beneath the surfaces
of the entertainments. And if a writer/filmmaker doesn't know
why s/he is telling what s/he is telling, either conceptually
or intuitively, then the likelihood is that the films s/he makes
will be a bunch of tripe no matter how they are dressed up in
titillation. The mythological function, then, of these tales,
is to tap into the universal answers that elevate our lives.
PageOneLit.com: How can a fan and lover
of film benefit from your book LIFE, MYTH AND THE AMERICAN FAMILY
UNREELING? How is this book different from others in the genre?
Jeffry John Stein: There are books such
as Chris Vogler's THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, and Stuart Voytilla's
DISCOVERING THE MYTHIC STRUCTURE OF 50 UNFORGETTABLE FILMS where
film buffs can discover one of many approaches (stemming from
Joseph Campbell's seminal work) found in my book. But these
books are tailored for filmmakers and film students. And there
are a few books like Michael Wood's AMERICA IN THE MOVIES that
insightfully show how movies reflect our culture. And yet others,
such as Marsha Sinetar's REEL POWER, that apply the lessons in
the movies for self-help purposes. But none of these, nor any
that I have yet encountered, combine and amplify all these aspects
with a focus on how important movies have become to our spiritual
well-being in a shrinking, sometimes terrifying, and often absurd
world. With the Babel of thunderous communication trying to
brow-beat us with dogma about how bad things are, this book can
provide a kind of family therapy that positively affirms conflict
as the road to resolution: that 
synthesis, and thus growth,
is the result of thesis and antithesis. It should be evident
from my book's first words that this is not a trivia or celebrity
piece of fluff, but rather, like THE MATRIX, it is a journey
through the aforementioned rabbit hole where we discover how
the movies manipulate us with their wonders, and how we can use
those same wonders to free us (if only momentarily) from our
daily grind and human angst. I have described in another writing
that FAMILY UNREELING, in particular, would make a meaningful
addition to the libraries of family therapists, cultural historians,
story-tellers, filmmakers, and students of mythology. But for
me, the process of researching this book has provided a means
of getting a handle on my midlife passage, not to mention my
parenting woes. So in the end, I'm hoping it will appeal to any
readers who recognize that good movies truly do help us deal
with life.
PageOneLit.com: Do you have an all-time
favorite motion picture director and why?
Jeffry John Stein: As I already expressed,
I am constitutionally unable to single our favorites. I must
say, however, that I am partial to directors who are willing
to risk their necks dealing with social consciousness. In the
list of these would be found Frank Capra, Mike Nichols, Lawrence
Kasdan, Spike Lee, Peter Weir, and Oliver Stone (despite the
disrepute that pundits now hold him in). And, of course, Steven
Spielberg. There are many more that would easily fill out this
list such as William Wyler and Robert Altman, who hold a number
of things in common. Among these are a breadth and body of work
(not just one or two glowing examples) whose use of the technical
wizardry of movie-making is subordinate to their mastery of story-telling.
And this mastery of story-telling is made evident through their
imaginative empathy with our human conundrums. Their works are
layered with profundity because their characters are made real
to us in even the most bizarre situations. Look at the secondary
and even tertiary characters in a Capra, Altman, or Spielberg
movie and you can see that they are whole individuals, and not
just cardboard dressing. And ultimately, these directors understand
that most of us go to the movies to find a way out: not just
through escapist fare, but via a spiritual ladder to a more satisfying,
if not higher, state of being.
PageOneLit.com: Why do so many of us wait
to see the film rather than read the book? As the old saying
goes, "The book is better than the movie" – Obviously
this is true in some cases and not in others but what is our
fascination with the big screen rather than the small page?
Jeffry John Stein: These are questions that
I also deal with in detail in my book, especially since a majority
of the movies I have selected are adapted from books. I also
happen to teach adapting other sources to the screen as one of
my courses at Watkins College. One premise that I try to instill
into my students is that prose and cinema are two different mediums,
and that a creative filmmaker should be liberated to take the
message s/he gets from the source material and run with it however
s/he wants. A great example of this is provided by another fine
screenwriter/filmmaker, Charlie Kaufman, in the aptly named ADAPTATION.
Though THE ORCHID THIEF provides him with a fascinating source
subject, he is not impossibly tied to rendering it verbatim to
the screen. Movies should be their own creations, not slavish
homages to the originals. They provide a visual and dramatic
immediacy, and sensorially immersive experience that books cannot
offer. This explains why many people in our increasingly non-literate
and attention deficient society would rather see the film than
read the book. The experience is hot and brief, and you don't
have to be there in the morning. Nevertheless, for those who
find real attachment to these strangers of the night, I suggest
that the morning after of discovery can be heightened by reading
the books. That way the virtues of literature can be enjoyed
on their own without a sense that the movie destroyed the book.
If we are able, we should judge both movies and books on their
own, just as we should not try to judge a springboard diver in
the same category as a figure skater, even though they may use
the same music for inspiration.
PageOneLit.com: Has every story been told
on film? Are there new areas for film in the future other than
blue screens and what is your perspective of technology and special
effects? I once heard someone say that if Alfred Hitchcock had
today's computers and cameras he would have used what was available?
Your response?
Jeffry John Stein: When I was a young aspiring
writer at Dartmouth College, William Golding, the author of LORD
OF THE FLIES, told me (among many others in the auditorium) that
everything had already been written. It's not what you write,
it's how you write it that counts. Though it was a message I
didn't like in my callow years, it is one that life has proved
to me to be true. The same holds for movies. The messages and
the stories have already been told. STAR WARS has in common with
DUNE the mythology of antiquity that Joseph Campbell explicates
so well. Brilliant new works are continually re-explaining ourselves
to ourselves in entertaining new ways. Morphing, CGI, and Green-screening,
etc., are just tools to tell the stories. The tools have become
more sophisticated, allowing miraculous visualization capabilities,
but the stories are still what counts. If these visualization
capabilities are not meaningfully integrated and supportive and
non-obtrusive to the story, then they are gratuitous. The story
can move us deeply without them, but they cannot appeal to us
by themselves anymore than the titillation of fireworks. It
appears that many directors are eager to incorporate every new
technology that comes down the pike, while others are wary and
slow to implement them. Presently, the push is to bring digital
media up to the textural qualities of film. I have no doubt
that the industry will ebb this way. Interestingly this will
present an age-old problem of archiving. Digital media rendering
is becoming obsolete even faster than the old nitrate films are
deteriorating.
PageOneLit.com: What do you hope to achieve
with LIFE, MYTH AND THE AMERICAN FAMILY UNREELING? What do you
hope readers will take away after reading LIFE, MYTH AND THE
AMERICAN FAMILY UNREELING?
Jeffry John Stein: Please refer to my answer
above regarding what distinguishes my book and how people might
benefit from it. In brief, to add to that answer, it would be
grand if readers would use my book in conjunction with movies
to come to terms with their lives. Parents with parenting and
children. Individuals with life challenges and changes. Story-tellers
and filmmakers with tools to elevate their works. And anyone
who wants to understand more explicitly how movies transform
us (briefly) in timeless atonement with ourselves and the wonder
of it all.
PageOneLit.com: What's next?
Jeffry John Stein: Many things. I've just
completed a short film adaptation of Edwin Arlington Robinson's
poem, MR. FLOOD’S PARTY, which is presently entered in a
number of festivals. I plan to follow this up this coming year
with another short adaptation. As well, I recently completed
a screenplay entitled THE RESURRECTION OF AUGUSTINE ST. CLARE, which brings characters
from UNCLE TOM'S CABIN into our current world of corporate supremacists.
I am particularly taken with this effort (one of 20 screenplays
I've written) and plan to develop it within the next two years.
And this year, in conjunction with the producing class I teach
at Watkins College, I plan to develop another of my screenplays
entitled BURYING TRASH, which can be made in and around Nashville
on a lower budget (as a warm-up for RESURRECTION). I wish there
were time enough and (of course) money to do all the projects
I have waiting in the wings.
PageOneLit.com: What was the last film you
saw?
Jeffry John Stein: The problem is that time
recently has curtailed my ability to see as many films as I would
like. And my family tends to make a lot of choices for me.
My daughter wanted to see MR. AND MRS. SMITH, which I considered
a gratuitous shoot'em-up with an entertaining premise regarding
the decline of marital romance. Not a great movie. We also
rented MONSOON WEDDING and MOTORCYCLE DIARIES. Very worth seeing.
PageOneLit.com: Do you have any hobbies?
What are they? How do they enhance your writing?
Jeffry John Stein: Raising a family, writing,
teaching, and movie-making are pretty all-consuming. There was
a time when I skied, played tennis, back-packed, and scuba-dived.
I even used to do a lot of building projects around the house.
Now the best I can muster is hiking and biking. These get me
out into nature, help me clear my head with the wonder of this
world, get some needed exercise, and come to my projects with
some new points of view. My wife, a wood-turning artist, also
keeps me hopping with all the art shows and engagements in her
social circle. I am also active in environmental and education
advocacy organizations. The encounters that occur through all
these connections, and more, filter down into my work. The world
is full of characters (as I am one), and every character is a
story.
LIFE, MYTH, AND THE AMERICAN FAMILY UNREELING can
be previewed online at: www.universal-publishers.com/browse.php.
Click on Entertainment, Music & Drama and sort, if necessary.
Or order anywhere.
Interview Date: July 8, 2005
