Mister Sandman bring me a Dream
Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman" is coming to Netflix. This is a massively difficult undertaking given the experimental, non-linear, broken-up, dream-like structure of the source material and the fluctuating nature of the main character, Morpheus, the lord of Dreams. Adapting it for the screen is fraught with dangers.
At its core, it is a story about stories and their power. It deals with dreams and nightmares, wonders and horrors, myths, legends and reality. It takes a deep uncritical dive into the darkest recesses of the human subconscious but doesn't lose sight of the potentially redeeming qualities of human nature. It takes place in the present, the past and the future. It is about motivations, life choices and consequences. It is a study of broken things and of how, even when put back together, they will never be the same. It explores impermanence and loss with remarkable honesty and on a very personal level.
"The Sandman" can be complicated and confusing at times and it is certainly not for everyone. It packs far too many influences and molds them anew, creating a complex interweaving tapestry of stories that are all aspects of the one main story.
It flows very much like a dream and, at times, a nightmare.
1 comments:
"Working with different artists, Gaiman goes on excursions through story form that borders on the anthropological. The book takes in high fantasy, low fantasy, sci-fi, modern horror, baroque horror, romances, road stories, revenge stories, the myths and fables of several cultures, and it does so with more stylistic flair, depth of reference, and homages than the average grad student can decipher.
What makes this approach so brilliant, apart from appealing to readers uninterested in superhero comics, is that Gaiman truly understands all of the stories he's telling and re-telling. He knows what myths and dreams and archetypes have to tell us about ourselves; he speaks symbolic languages learnt from Campbell and Jung. Among the primary themes of The Sandman are the necessity and danger of dreams and dreamers, the power of stories, and the struggle for freedom from forces both external and internal.
These themes and motifs are recited through cultural story structures and the comics form so subtly that one barely notices the connective tissues linking everything to the overall narrative; that intricate and deliberate plot revealing itself in the periphery. And despite the constant presence of the fantastic, The Sandman somehow stays grounded in the mundane."
https://comicsalliance.com/tribute-gaiman-the-sandman/
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