“Finding your Bliss” in Joseph Campbell

I sometimes teach a class called “Modern Mythology” which is (let’s be honest here) just an excuse to introduce kids to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth by showing them the original Star Wars Trilogy. I spend nearly a month in class covering the basics of the Campbellian “Hero’s Journey,” reading texts from around the world and getting students to identify how these tales match (or don’t match) Campbell’s outline. By the time we get to Star Wars, the students are able to clearly see Luke as an archetypal hero, complete with the Call to Adventure, Wise and Helpful Guide, Heroic Deeds, Loss of the Mentor, Rescue of a Maiden from an Labyrinthine Fortress, etc. When I get to teach that class again, I’ll likely get to skip that whole introduction and just show parts of the newly-released film Finding Joe instead.

I thought that Patrick Solomon’s Finding Joe was going to be a documentary, perhaps even a biopic about legendary Mythologist Joseph Campbell, but I’m not sure “documentary” is close to the right word for it. Solomon’s feature-length film gives a pretty basic overview of the Hero’s Journey, gives practically zero information about Joseph Campbell himself, and is almost entirely made up of interviews of famous pop culture icons (Deepak Chopra, Mick Fleetwood, Tony Hawk, Laird Hamilton), notable scholars (Sir Ken Robinson, Alan Cohen, David L. Miller), and ostensibly-important unknowns (or maybe they’re just unknowns to me). The interviews are put together in such a way that there is a naturally-progressing understanding of the Hero’s Journey, but not anything I would consider an advancing story.

Solomon wrote that he hoped to make Campbell’s theory relevant to a modern audience who might be bored with the dated Bill Moyers Power of Myth. With that stated goal in mind, Solomon has hit the mark: the interviews are varied and well done; the interstitial skits which help us visualize the material are effective and … “engaging” is too strong a word, but I’ll stick with it; the clips from feature films reinforcing the Monomyth’s dominance of the screen are effective in reminding us that the Hero’s Journey does indeed work well.

However, Finding Joe is not an analysis of Joseph Campbell, the monomyth, or of how the Hero’s Journey affects modern films. Finding Joe is a feature-length motivational sermon on “finding your bliss” and giving yourself permission to seek the life you’ve always wanted because all of the great tales are metaphors for the human struggle for self-fulfillment. Parts of Finding Joe will find their way into my Modern Mythology curriculum, and when I find an opportunity to run a self-actualization seminar, I might use this film as a starting point.

If you’re looking for an updated Power of Myth or an in-depth look at the life of Joseph Campbell, this isn’t it, but if you enjoyed Happy or Tom Shadyac’s I Am or if you need a good pick-me-up in the midst of crisis, then you might really love Finding Joe.

Finding Joe is in limited release in theaters right now, and you can find tickets and more information about it on its website home and at IMDB.com’s listing for it.