Star Wars at the Brooklyn Museum
I should have realized it was no ordinary art event when a museum publicist yanked me away from the Princess Leia display so that a television crew would have a clear shot.
Welcome to “Star Wars: The Magic of Myth” at the Brooklyn Museum—no ordinary art event to be sure. This is the show that drew more than a million visitors at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. So, you can sort of understand the museum’s point of view. Who wants a bunch of critics rubbing their chins when the point is to get out the visual message that Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are in town?
Actually, only their costumes are in town.
The Brooklyn Museum keeps trying to be just a little hipper than the other art institutions. A few years ago, it mounted an exhibit on obscenity, the purpose of which was to examine the, uh, “art history issues” surrounding art labeled obscene. The lines to get into this one backed up to Grand Army Plaza. Then there was the sensation over “Sensation,” with its elephant dung and its sliced-up pigs. Another big hit. And Jesus as a nude black woman a little while ago.
And now, Jabba the Hutt and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I know, I know. What’s so wrong with an exhibit that kids and the average moviegoer can relate to? Does everything in a museum have to be high culture? Lighten up, why don’t you?
But there’s a point in this exhibit—about two minutes into it—where you feel that this is really just a pretend exhibit. Its true identity is an extended Hollywood promotion. The show’s run in Brooklyn coincides with the release May 16 of the latest “Star Wars” movie, “Episode II: Attack of the Clones.” You don’t want to be in the way when that publicity machine revs up.
Of course, this is not supposed to be just some memorabilia exhibit. This show is about “myth,” and “archetypes,” and “the human unconscious.” The Brooklyn Museum has even gathered up a batch of its own artifacts, including a marble head of Cleopatra, an African mask, a Polynesian club, and a Rembrandt etching of Faust to show the art history continuum that runs from ancient Egypt through the European Baroque to George Lucas.
There are two mythologies here. One is the mythology within the movie, all that Joseph Campbell “Hero-With-a-Thousand-Faces” business, in which Luke Skywalker is found to be a sci-fi version of Prometheus, King Arthur, and Beowulf all wrapped into one (not to mention Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed). The other mythology is the impression the show gives that all these Jungian archetypes percolated up into the “Star Wars” saga in the same way they did in the ancient stories.
In fact, Lucas used Campbell’s studies of mythology as an instruction manual, a template for the “Star Wars” saga, methodically hitting on every stage of the hero’s quest, from “The Call to Adventure” to “The Labyrinth” and the “Rescue of the Princess.” In the system of Jungian archetypes, Darth Vader is “the Shadow,” Yoda is the “Wise Guide,” Han Solo is the “Hero Partner,” and Princess Leia is the damsel in distress (although feistier than most fairy-tale princesses).
Finding myth in “Star Wars” is like shooting fish in a barrel. No system has been neglected: Zoroastrianism, Greek and Roman mythology, Arthurian legend, Egyptian, Navaho, Norse, biblical—you name it. One, maybe two mythical strands suffice for most works of art. In “Star Wars,” Lucas strings together myths the way he strung together oldies in “American Graffiti.”
But the costumes and the film clips are fun, right?
Well, truth be told, Darth Vader and the Imperial Stormtroopers look much more impressive on film. Detached from all the supporting special effects, the empty costumes look like something you might rent at Ken’s Magic Shop, although it’s interesting to learn where some of the design ideas came from. Vader’s headgear combines World War II German army helmets with those worn by medieval samurai. Han Solo, with his vest and his holster, is none other than the American cowboy.
The 25-minute film about the making of the movies looks like something from an Academy Awards tribute. And it’s a little difficult, after Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs,” to listen to actors reverently invoking the great moment in the beginning of the first movie when a spaceship the size of Rhode Island passes overhead.
In reality, those gargantuan spacecrafts fit quite comfortably inside a museum case. And what a variety of souped-up space jalopies there are: the Imperial Star Destroyer, the Millennium Falcon, the Rebel X-Wing Fighter. They remind me of the plastic models of battleships and bombers I used to make as a kid. Despite their futuristic inventiveness, they have that heavy, dented-up, scorched, World War II rusted steel aesthetic that Lucas liked.
Their construction is amazingly detailed, and yet, like the old plastic models, you can see how sections are made from sheets of plastic on which the hardware—pipes, coils, hatches, transformers—and all the rest of that cool stuff—have been stamped right on. And someone has had a little in-joke on the Millennium Falcon, where, if you look very closely, you can see a tiny decal that advertises a popular spark plug.
There are modest diversions to be found in the concept drawings that show how various characters evolved. In Ralph McQuarrie’s drawings of Yoda, for example, the diminutive green guru originally had a much different demeanor, less cutesy, more reptilian. The Yoda alcove in the exhibit, by the way, is named “The Sacred Grove” because it explains another mythic motif, the forest enclosure, a place where magical transformations take place and a symbol of the unconscious mind.
And so, on we go, into the “Belly of the Beast,” through the “Father Quest,” and down the “Path to Atonement,” until we come to the final path and the end of our journey at—where else?— the mother of all gift shops.
The Brooklyn Museum
2002
