FADE IN --

EXT. THE AFRICAN BUSH, 7,000 B.C. -- DAY

Everything begins with the impulse to tell a story. This is not a luxury, but an essential part of our genetic makeup. We need stories. They give us a context; they locate us within ourselves, our society, and our global village. In some cultures, like that of the ancient Kalahari Bushmen, a person's story is considered his greatest treasure, his most sacred resource. Without stories, how would we live? In fact, it is only by developing personal and cultural mythologies that we are able to lead our lives.

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INT. CAVE, LASCAUX, FRANCE, 4000 B.C. -- NIGHT

Storytelling is a part of us, programmed deep within our DNA. Look at the ancient cave paintings in Lascaux, France. They are not static portraits but moving images, the first movies, the first recorded signs of man's need to tell stories, to empower himself and perpetuate the race. His survival hinged upon it. Simply put, if caveguy number one could convey to caveguy number two how he slayed the animal that was his primary source of nourishment, he could hoist his children up onto his shoulders instead of forcing them to stand on the ground and start from the same place he did decades earlier. Stories give us a proverbial "leg up" and represent the building blocks of society. Progress, forward motion, human betterment -- they are all cultural myths, stories we tell ourselves.

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EXT. MOUNTAINTOP ALTAR, 2100 B.C. -- DAY

In Pagan times, when things weren't going so well, your average pagan priest attempted to appease the gods by a ritual sacrifice of a few virgins. For a while, this seemed to work... However, soon populations started to dwindle and there were no virgins left, so there had to be a better way to solve society's worst problems.
Enter Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people. In fact, many Hebraic scholars argue that the pivotal moment in Western civilization occurred in the book of Genesis when God instructs Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead of a boy who happened to be Abraham's son, Isaac. This is the first recorded instance of the use of a scapegoat, and the birth of the precedence of symbol over object. This marks the moment of the ascendancy of the symbolic sacrifice over the murderous urge, when the power of image, of the symbol, of the myth becomes primary and the aggressively violent death urge is put to rest along with other primitive human ways.
And so, this is no less than the beginning of modern man, a man of language, of words, and of symbols that take the place of actions.

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EXT. GREEK AMPHITHEATER, 400 B.C.-- DAY

Theater/storytelling is about magic, transformation. There is a religious aspect to going to the theater/movies. Good dramatic action serves a shamanistic, cathartic, priestlike purpose. We get enwrapped in the action and reach an almost religious fervor. In ancient Greece, the theater was part of the culture's religious ceremonies and everyone went. The problems of the cultures could be acted out on stage and in doing so, the theater become the scapegoat, the surrogate place where the culture could be cleansed.
Today, we go to the theater or the movie house to sit in a dark womb with a bunch of strangers and vicariously experience this human transformation. Like the Greeks for whom theater was a communal and religious gathering wherein the fears and desires of the culture could be exorcised and expressed, modern day plays and movies let us come together to create a new sense of the community we have lost and in doing so, perpetuate a new set of myths that can provide answers to the hard questions of being alive. Humans want to grow, and we will pay to see the transformation of other human beings. By watching someone experience an epiphany and change, I too am transformed. All in two hours for a mere eight dollars, while most therapists charge at least a hundred an hour.

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INT. NIETZSCHE'S HOUSE, 1883 -- NIGHT

In the mid-nineteenth century, the modern era jump-starts itself to life with Nietzsche's pronouncement of the Death of God. Nietzsche's proclamation marked the end of the Jesus metamyth and the beginning of the search for a new story which would help us structure and lead our lives. But, no matter what metamyth we subscribe to, we realize that classical story structure is not arbitrary; it mimics life and nature:
Act I -- Birth, spring, innocence, vitality;
Act II -- Summer and fall, maturation and disillusionment;
Act III -- Winter, death, despair.
And sometimes, there is an epilogue or
Act IV -- a new Spring, rebirth, resurrection.

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EXT. AUSCHWITZ CONCENTRATION CAMP, 1944 -- DAY

Viktor Frankl, in his seminal post-Holocaust work, Man's Search for Meaning, demonstrated convincingly that man cannot survive without a reason for living, a personal narrative that provides him with meaning. Ironically, it was Freud, the atheist, who inadvertently brought God back to life. You see, in studying the psyche of the individual, Freud provides us with a solution to finding meaningful stories in our cynical, nihilistic age. Freud proposed that "The path to health involves the de-repression of hidden memories and the reconstruction of the individual's personal history," (for more on this see Sam Keen, To a Dancing God). Thus, the crucial history that must be recovered is familial, not communal, and in this act of retrieval, the human drama, played out as a specific story, transcends the individual to speak to society as a whole. In other words, in the story of one person is the story of all people, and so when you tell your story, you are telling the story of humanity, endowing life with meaning and a sense of the divine.

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INT. PROF. KREVOLIN'S HOUSE, L.A., 1999 -- DAY

In keeping with this discussion, and as a sort of final step on this historic timeline, let me illustrate my thesis on storytelling by relating yet one last tale.
Once upon a time, many, many years ago, everybody believed that the sun revolved around the Earth. You need only look up at the heavens to see how easily one could be convinced of the truthfulness of this story. This story lasted for thousands of years and was well-told by Ptolemy and others before him. Then, in the 150Os, Nicky Copernicus appears and says, "Whoa, hey kids, let's re-evaluate this. Call me crazy, but I've got a hunch that maybe the Earth revolves around the sun and we can't tell because we're moving along with it. Maybe, just maybe, you and I aren't the center of the universe after all!"
Then, seventy years later or so, Galileo peers through his homemade telescope and collects even more proof of Copernicus' theory. Unfortunately, as a result, Galileo was labeled a heretic, put on trial by the Spanish Inquisition, and imprisoned. In order to save his hide, Galileo had to recant his findings and do all the things that writers have to do for producers and studio executives if they want to stay on the project. But on a more positive note, many years after Galileo died, poor, humiliated, and blind, the church changed its mind, enshrined him for his courage and admitted that maybe, just maybe, the Earth does move... a little.

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INT. A SCREENWRITER'S HOUSE, THE GLOBAL VILLAGE, 2000 -- DAY

You start to tell your own story...

FADE IN on your myth...

(Prof. Krevolin can be reached at Krevolin@usc.edu or his website at www-rcf.usc.edu/~krevolin)