Sondheim on Bettlelheim, and Lapine on Narrators

So Into The Woods didn't snag any of the awards they were nominated for at The Golden Globes on the weekend, but the movie (and fairy tales) are still very much being discussed, especially as the cast (and media) continue to promote the various overseas releases.

I keep seeing references to Sondheim and Lapine using Bettelheim's philosophy when writing Into The Woods, (as in the original musical, which they both then adapted for the Disney movie), however it's not quite as black and white as that. 

We'll start with a summary so you have a better idea of the thought processes behind the writing of ITW, from an interview with Edward Seckerson, published by Stage and Screen Online in 2006. It seems to make it pretty clear the pair were anti-Bettelheim, but as I said, it's not so straight forward so keep reading:

Sondheim: "[W]e took a Jungian approach. You know, this whole thing about how we based it on Bruno Bettelheim is nonsense — it’s nothing to do with Bettelheim. In fact, I don’t know if James read the book, I didn’t." 

And when Sondheim was interviewed by James Lipton for the TV series Inside the Actors Studio, Lipton brought up Bettelheim: "There seems to be a philosophical war in that musical between the theories of Bruno Bettelheim and Jung." 

Sondheim responded, "It’s interesting you say that. Everybody assumes we were influenced by Bruno Bettelheim. But if there’s any outside influence, it’s Jung. James is interested in Jung—Twelve Dreams is based on a case Jung wrote about. In fact, we spoke to a Jungian analyst about fairy tales."

And from Sondheim's book, "Look, I Made a Hat" comes the following quoted paragraph:

"And, ah, the woods. The all-purpose symbol of the unconscious, the womb, the past, the dark place where we face our trials and emerge wiser or destroyed, a major theme in Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment, which is the book everyone assumes we used as a source, simply because it's the only book on the subject known to a wide public. But Bettelheim's insistent point was that children would find fairy tales useful in part because the young protagonists' tribulations always resulted in triumph, the happily ever after. What interested James was the little dishonesties that enabled the characters to reach their happy endings. 

... James was also skeptical about the possibility of 'happily ever after' in real life and wary of the danger that fairy tales give children false expectations. As his play Twelve Dreams has demonstrated, he was drawn not to Bettelheim's Freudian approach but to Carl Jung's theory that fairy tales are an indication of the collective unconscious, something with which Bettelheim would be unlikely to agree. James and I talked about the fairy tales with a Jungian psychiatrist and discovered that with the exception of 'Jack and the Beanstalk,' which apparently is native only to the British Isles, the tales we were dealing with exist in virtually every culture in the world, especially the Cinderella story. African, Chinese, Native American - there is even a contemporary Hebrew version in which Cinderella wants to dance at the Tel Aviv Hilton." 

So the answer is more like "No, they didn't base it on Bettelheim's ideas" but also "those ideas weren't exactly ignored either."

OK, that's all good then, but here's the thing that bothers me, personally, though: Lapine (who wrote the "book" for the musical, as well as co-wrote the screenplay for the current Disney movie adaptation), is reported by Performing Arts Journal in 1988 as saying this (emphasis in bold is mine):

"The Narrator is what the fairy tale is about. I tried telling the stories without a narrator and it just doesn't work. A story needs a storyteller, and the storyteller is the ultimate figure of authority. Originally we wanted a public figure, not an actor, to play the Narrator: Walter Cronkite, or Tip O'Neill—someone who disseminated information and points of view. Then when we got rid of him you would see that the news was now being reported by the newsmakers, not the news reporter; decisions were being made by the people, not the politicians. Ultimately, we defined our narrator as a kind of intellectual, a Bettelheim figure; I wanted to get rid of Bettelheim!"

If this is the case, why was the Narrator's pivotal role so greatly downgraded in the movie? It makes a huge difference not having The Baker's father as the Narrator (especially as we then lose the impact of the change of POV in story telling when he's removed). Having The Baker be the Narrator all along didn't work quite like the bookend I (now) believe it was intended to be (as in, he was telling this whole story to his child.) When watching the movie I was a little confused as to why the Baker was telling us all of this in the first place, the WAY he was telling it (especially how the telling started, then ended...). 

A last but important note: I want to be clear on one point. I am in favor of the movie, in general. I fully expected it to miss the mark - widely - but the material is more faithful than I expected too. The fact that it uses fairy tales at its center is actually what helps transcend the things that bother me about the movie. What fairy tales are, how they live in people's minds, how the stories communicate and pass themselves on, is what does it. The stories themselves, and all the history they bring with them, the social legacies and various personal contexts etc work to overcome the movie's shortcomings, simply because their essential forms (wonder stories/Märchen) are kept intact. The beauty of certain iconic images (created by Rob Marshall et al) and catchy, beautiful tunes that remind us of certain story phrases, support this too. Everything else is peripheral and people can take what they want to (or need to) from the movie as a result. It's kind of magical in a way.

So there you go - my two cents for the day. ;)

Additional sources: "Look, I Made A Hat" & HERE. All movie screencaps created by Turn the Right Corner. Go HERE to see many more.