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• THE LEGEND OF TARZAN MOVIE

Burroughs' Darwinism is hardly sophisticated. Seeking his own set of origins, Burroughs followed Darwin's lead in Origin of Species. Finally, what are we at the bottom? After the Bomb has fallen, after we have been stranded on an island, in extremis? What would we really be like? Burroughs finds his answer-at-the-bottom in the realms of Darwin and Freud.Īs much as Burroughs borrowed from legends about the Wild Child and from Kipling's Mowgli stories, he made an important departure from tradition when he had Tarzan raised by apes instead of wolves. Here is unchecked and untrammeled egotism. From the pettiness of office politics and civilized bureaucracies. And that means freedom! From restrictions, rules, and concern for others. Rationality is only a fragile lid covering a more potent and fundamental stew of drives, impulses, and passions. Beneath politics and good manners lies sex and the wish for dominance. And that means apocalyptic truth! Frank admission of the fact that, at bottom, we are basically animals-fiercely competitive, concerned only with our own survival. Burroughs offered to take us Back, to the fierce Origin, to the "wild" and "hairy." That means loincloth nakedness! Strip away the accretions of civilization. Surveying all of American culture, scholar Russel Nye concluded, "Tarzan remains the greatest popular creation of all time."īurroughs' private dream spoke to millions of readers and became a shared dream, a public dream, a myth. The statistics are staggering: by 1970, for example, there were more than thirty-six million Tarzan books in print in thirty-one languages in addition, there have been more than fifty Tarzan films (from the countless Saturday matinees where Johnny Weissmuller let out his famous Tarzan yell to the more recent incarnations like “Greystoke” and “George of the Jungle”). In the years which followed, readers would demand some twenty-five sequels from Burroughs. Among those who have singled it out for special praise have been Ronald Reagan, Ray Bradbury, Gore Vidal, and Arthur C. Jerry Griswold considers the Tarzan Myth in his Audacious Kids: The Classic American Children’s Story, from which the following remarks are excerpted:įirst appearing in All Story Magazine and then published as a book in 1914, Tarzan of the Apes immediately jumped on to the bestseller lists and has remained an enduring favorite.

THE LEGEND OF TARZAN MOVIE

Directed by David Yates and starring Alexander Skarsgård as the ape-man, The Legend of Tarzan (Warner Brothers) is a movie meant for the Summer of 2016 but it is also one more incarnation of a timeless and familiar story.