“I expect fairy tales to yield not merely gems of wisdom, but an entire, ecapsulated, metaphorical history of the potential of human spiritual transformation.”
Jungian Analyst David L. Hart, from his book “The Water of Life”
( Psyches Cinema December 2024 Art and Healing)
Inner-work with fairy tale films
Dear subscribers, friends, supporters,
Life speeds by. I’ve been preoccupied with my recovery from long-term Bell’s Palsy. The recovery is slow and requires lots of attention and thought. I have many juicy themes to munch on: my evolving persona, the medicine of symbols, and attending to the origin of an impulse. I’ve been writing about these in essays. (Story Sanctum Magazine will print a longer one in the new year!) The Bell’s has stopped all of my corporate teaching work and I feel more and more held in a daily embrace of inner-work, writing, and art-making. It’s been a wild ride.
Playing in the basement. Our current project – adapting Rumpelstiltskin! (Working title- Rumpeled)
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” C.G. Jung, from Psychological Types
Carl Jung, possibly in Maine.
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung describes his life in 1912. He had broken ties with Freud and was seeing patients and writing. But he also sought to reconnect to creative forces in himself, that he linked with his childhood. He began to build childlike structures on a lakeshore (the Obersee (upper lake) basin of Lake Zürich). Jung says of the period –
The small boy is still around, and possesses a creative life which I lack. But how can I make my way to it?” For as a grown man it seemed impossible to me that I should be able to bridge the distance from the present back to my eleventh year. Yet if I wanted to re-establish contact with that period, I had no choice but to return to it and take up once more that child’s life with his childish games. This moment was a turning point in my fate, but I gave in only after endless resistances and with a sense of resignation. For it was a painfully humiliating experience to realize that there was nothing to be done except play childish games….
I think of this often, to give myself permission to keep playing in my basement in Chicago. My “cast” waits patiently, in provocative poses, as I walk by with a load of laundry.
I live with the symbols in a fairy tale for months as I create a film. The symbols in the original tale, and in my doll’s enactment generate many meanings and new meanings for me over time. Much of my growing understanding remains beyond my full awareness. Often I’ll discover an “obvious” theme in a script or film years after it was made! I’m sure there is much I still don’t see in my films and there are many other interpretations possible of both the original story and the film.
The cast assembles for Rumpelstiltskin
Most everyone smiles when I tell them of my current project. Rumpelstiltskin is a beloved tale. Why? Perhaps the small, magical man lives within us and we recognize his avarice and his loneliness. The powerful archetypes of “spinning” and gold also resonate. I look forward to sharing our discoveries with you!
Diving into the symbolism of our film, “Snow White and Rose Red” and our adaptation.
Previously I’ve shied away from sharing any of my own interpretations but I’ve been told that sharing my own analyses may be helpful to some. What I offer below is not meant to be definitive or to change anyone’s understanding. Here are some ways I see this film/story -as if it was a dream.
In my adaptation, I see Snow White and Rose Red as parts of a single psyche. We all have different parts within us. Rose Red is the wilder part. The part that doesn’t fit the gender expectations placed on her. She doesn’t want to sew or be girly. At the start these two parts have learned to get along, each pursuing their own passions.
When an aggressive impulse comes forward (the Bear), Rose Red welcomes it but Snow White is terrified of it and hides. The two parts are more separate now but still related to each other.
Rose Red tries to learn the language of her instincts (the Bear). It is winter, the time of going inward.
But then Spring comes and outward activity resumes.
Snow White/Rose Red go out into the world and meet the greedy little man. He’s an image of the Capitalist from the Monopoly game. He has cut down the forest and has gotten trapped under a tree. (While I have updated the characters, the basic plot points remain the same from the original story. In the original Grimm tale, they find the Dwarf caught under a tree.)
The Capitalist exploits nature but he is also part of nature and cannot escape being caught within his own traps. He demands that the women help him. Rose Red senses the abusive nature of these demands but Snow White wants to be good. She wants to fulfill the directives of her mother, to “be nice.”
For a second time the sisters meet the malicious little man and again he berates them with demands. Again the parts of the psyche struggle between the desire to trust instincts and the desire to “be nice.” The film wonders also if the collective training to be nice is partly responsible for abusive institutions and systems in the world.
In the third encounter the Capitalist is being pulled off the earth by the giant bird (after stealing the golden egg). He is perhaps, carried off by an inflation. Snow White, still trying to help, is threatened with being carried off into the air also. Rose Red pulls them both down to earth. And then the Bear returns and ends the tirades of the little man.
This brutal, abrupt killing in the story still shocks me. But Jung’s collaborator, Marie Louise Von Franz, says it is necessary to “kill off” abusive parts of the psyche. The naïveté and innocence of Snow White as not a healthy mindset for an adult. Von Franz interprets many of the Grimm tales this way – heroes need to “grow up” by confronting evil or aggression in their inner or outer world.
As in the Grimm story, the sisters each marry a bear. Rose Red’s bear turns into a prince. This part of the psyche has integrated her aggression and it has turned into a royal husband. Snow White’s husband is still in the bear state. This part of the psyche is still working on her relationship to aggression.
I haven’t analyzed every choice I made in this film. I hope you find other “Easter Eggs” hidden there. There are also many other possible interpretations of this story and film. I’ve shared some of Von Franz’s analysis of bear symbolism on the film’s page.
Exploring our own inner fairy tale is part of my vision for these films. Here are some questions for reflection. They are great for use individually or in groups. (We’ve found that many additional ideas are generated in groups.) (For an analysis of our film, Dumpling, here’s a link, Thank you to Dr. Joanna Gardner)
Phone Gal was screened on November 8-10 at the Revolution Me Film Festival in Brooklyn!
Join us on zoom for this wonderful conference! I’ll be practicing symbolic thinking with our film, The Telling Tale. We will have a lovely group discussion.
I’m thrilled to share two journals that have published some of my poetry. My poems explore the same themes as my films – psychology, mythology, spirituality.
Thank you for watching our films. Thank you for leaving comments on the website! Please share this newsletter and our films with anyone you know who is interested in Jungian psychology, inner-work, imagination, and subversive homemade art.
Love the depth of your interpretations. Thanks Laura!
Thank you! Fairy tales are such gifts.
I am so touched by your work and spirit!
Thank you! I spend most of my time alone, creating, so affirmations like yours help me to keep going!