And speaking of the Joseph Campbell thing...

I realize that Joseph Campbell is kind of screenwriter/ filmmaker cliche. I mean there's a picture of Luke Skywalker on the cover of Hero With a Thousand Faces for crying out loud (as my Mom used to say.) But there's a depth to Campbell that goes far beyond Hero. Even beyond The Power of Myth, which is the Bill Moyers interview with him that basically amounts to a Reader's Digest version of Campbell, there is a tremendous depth to his work and reading his stuff always get the synapses in my brain firing at an incredible pace. Right now I'm reading The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology, which is part 2 of a four part series. It's pretty rich stuff - not light reading at all. But there is insight in it and even when he's talking about civilizations that are thousands of years old. And most of all - most relevant for the world of film - it's really all about stories. Especially the first book, Primitive Mythology, which is about story at is most primal level.