Archetypes of Sun & Moon in the Movies

These films, while of mostly good cinematic quality, are not chosen for their entertainment value or high acclaim. Instead, I am watching for an accurate portrayal of the archetypes to which I refer in my Quest for Authentic Love, a Mythological Path, a work-in-progress.

Each movie resonates a “rings true” adherence to an actual progress in the unconscious. The dynamics are portrayed in their correct degree of archetypal “flow.” These movies are more like real life portraying the processes and interactions of these archetypes, no matter their quality or popularity.

When the Solar Figure (tall, tanned, superior) and the Lunar (somehow "lesser" with a gimpy leg, or some fault) argue, it represents a transformational conversation, and extends from the unconscious into the well-known (and much trampled) "battle of the sexes." How do men and women battle for their aspirations, for control or power? Where does love fit in?

Most importantly, what of this alchemical conversation begins new love? And, how do modern women come to love in this age of power and wealth for the hard-working and love-starved?

The occult traditions have much to illustrate in this affair of love and power.

Howard Hawk's lengthy, leisurely paced film, RIO BRAVO is set in a small Texas border town, under siege by the evil cattle baron Russell and his dim-witted brother, Akins. When Akins commits a murder, the sheriff (the tall, tanned John Wayne), jails him to await the arrival of the US Marshall. The Cattle Baron attacks the jailhouse, and The Figure of The Sun, Sheriff John Wayne is forced to assemble an unlikely set of deputies, relying on the town drunk (Dean Martin), a cranky old cripple (Walter Brennan), and an untested young gunslinger (Ricky Nelson) for help. The Sun must align himself with the properties of "Second Citizenship" the lunar and unreliable powers of The Lesser Light. Appropriately, the town drunk sleeps all day, representing the status of the Moon.

"Swear not by the inconstant Moon," said Romeo. Shakespeare's famous love scene under the balcony makes famous what the alchemists had long held as a fact: That the light (or knowledge) of the Moon was unsteady, not reliable, at least not like the Sun's.

In Rio Bravo, the Sheriff, having no choice does his best with his doubts. In the end the Lunar Principle can throw a surprise from the dark.

Patrice Leconte presents Gabor, a circus performer with unusual telepathic talents, portrayed by BAFTA and César-winner Daniel Auteuil. Reduced to half of a knife-throwing act, he requires a willing target who preferably does not care too much about her own life. He finds all that he is searching for-and more-in Adele César winner Vanessa Paradis), the dispirited young girl he recruits after their chance encounter on the ridge.

"The life you lead, the freedom you have--will you deny my daughters the same chance?'' Not the request very mother would address to a prostitute, but Dangerous Beauty makes a persuasive, logical case for a career as a courtesan in 16th century Venice. In this story, the courtesan is manipulated by a rejected suitor and brought to explain herself in front of the Spanish Inquisition. The "council" of masculine critics is an image par excellence of the criticizing Animus figure within women. The struggle to make this conscious is the Quest for Authentic Love process.

This film follows the British tradition of light-hearted crime stories about large-scale smuggling enterprises in small coastal sea towns. This sea town is where its townspeople flout the law to benefit themselves and their community. Here, it's the ban on pot that gets flouted.

At the center of this story is Grace, a middle-aged housewife. It would be hard to imagine a less likely drug dealer. Nonetheless, when her husband unexpectedly leaps from an airplane, leaving her destitute and about to lose her cherished home, she becomes so desperate for money that she'll do anything--even sell marijuana. Her drug-dealing adventure begins when her handyman, a casual smoker, discretely asks for her expert orchid gardening advice to revive his sickly pot plants. She's so good at it, the two are soon growing kilos of the stuff. The question is, will they be caught before she can sell enough pot to save her home?

Georges Sand, whose real name was Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, became famous for taking a man's name, wearing trousers, and smoking cigars in public. That would hardly get her into the papers today, but during her lifetime (1804-1876) she was one of the most famous women in the world, and her simple refusal to "act like a woman" helped set the stage for a much later women's revolution.

Clarice Starling is a young FBI trainee hunting the serial-murderer Billy, who skins and butchers his victims. To gain some understanding of the motives of the killer, she allows Hannibal Lechter to probe her deeply emotional side, to speak from her heart the depths of its truths, and promises a nugget to tease out her investigation. She is able to get inside the mind of the killer with the help of the imprisoned psychopath, with whom she plays a deadly psychological game of of speaking from her deep emotion, a trait of the Moon.

Keisha Castle-Hughes a 2004 Nominee for Best Actress Annual Academy Awards (from the film website) In a small New Zealand coastal village, Maori claim descent from Paikea, the Whale Rider. In every generation for more than 1000 years, a male heir born to the Chief succeeds to the title.

The director of "Clerks" (Kevin Smith) turned his attention to the sexual history of two lovers, and causes them to examine feelings as opposed to a well-known history of experimentation for the young woman Alyssa, as portrayed by JOEY LAUREN ADAMS. She struggles with an attraction for wild sex and for lesbian intimacy, and her love for Holden (Ben Affleck) for whom the conflict merely grew and grew. The finish of the dénoument came as Alyssa's own inner pressure to declare (Take A Stand For Love, a moniker of the alchemical process in the Quest for Authentic Love) herself, but instead of arriving at a statement which leaves no doubt in one's heart as to her intention and depth of feeling (as in The Whale Rider) she instead becomes a banshee of anger. She is shrill, and fails in her role as an actress to arrive at the suffering, the feeling, instead vying for power and managed behaviors. It all happens in one scene, as it does for "Pai" in Whale Rider: Each one's tears engendering exactly opposite results.