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Fearful Symmetry : The World Looks at Northrop Frye Looks at The World

Accession number: 
1971.0011

Producers:

Directors:

Actors and Participants:

Production Years: 
1971

Languages:

Film Properties: 
Length (minutes): 
27
Holding Institutions: 

University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario: 16mm.
"In this film a discussion with Northrop Frye on his literary theory is interspersed with a collage of images that support what Frye believes to be the increasing brutalization of western society—the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Korea, the Chicago and Peoples' Park riots, and the assassinations of several political leaders. Frye discusses his theory that myths repeat themselves in all kinds of art and action, citing Oedipus, Hercules, and Narcissus, which is the prevalent myth in advertising. Myths lead to our division of literary genres. Stating that the Christian concept of God seems to him the most valid (because the Christian God suffered and died for humankind), Frye explains that Old Testament myths such as the Expulsion from Eden, the Exodus, David and Goliath, Barabbas, Moses and the Promised Land, etc. repeat themselves as our civilization progresses. Our modern cities, for example, resemble the city of captivity like Babylon or Egypt, and our urban sprawl is a manifestation of a new kind of wilderness, speeding towards apocalypse. However, the academic in the university has to come to terms with living in and with the city."

University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario: 16mm. VHS.