Zen Noir vis-à-vis Myers-Briggs Personality Typology: Semiotic Multivalency as Grounds for Dialog

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)IntroductionMarc Rosenbush's film, Zen Noir (2004), is at first glance a film thoroughly ensconced in the themes of Zen Buddhism. Set in a dark and brooding film noir atmosphere, the film depicts the story of a deeply troubled detective who finds himself at a Zen monastery in order to solve a murder. But once there, he realizes that things are not quite what they seem. As the film unfolds, we find that the world Rosenbush has created is wildly symbolic, and it becomes clear that the monastery is a symbol of the detective's psyche and that he is not investigating a murder, but his own fear of death and loss. If we recognize this introspective, psychological element of the film, the Buddhist themes become conflated with Western allegories of navigating the psyche. My contention is that when the psychological themes of this film are investigated, we will find that the alleged Buddhist theme of enlightenment must compete with a symbolic depiction of MyersBriggs Typology and Jungian individuation.1The argument this paper presents is two-fold. First, it argues that the themes of the detective's psychological growth in Zen Noir can also be understood through the hermeneutic of Myers-Briggs personality typology (MBTI)-an expansion of Jung's personality typology-and Jungian individuation.2 Second, as a baseline with which to compare this psychological reading, this paper introduces a traditional visual medium from Zen Buddhism that symbolically depicts enlightenment; the Ten Ox-herding Paintings.3 Through analyzing the symbols in this film using two different schools of thought, "semiotic multivalency" arises, or the state of (at least) two distinct interpretations of one set of symbols.The first argument of this paper is that each character is better understood as a symbolic manifestations of the detective's psyche which he must confront and overcome. To explain, in MBTI, each type is broken down into four personality characteristics. In this case, as will be explained in detail below, it is argued that the detective is an Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judger, or an "ESTJ." If each character represents an aspect of the detective's psyche, the first character, Ed, represents the detective's extroverted thinking (Te) and introverted sensing (Si). Taken at face value, this character comes across as a tired Zen cliche as he is elusive, antagonistic, and perpetually answering questions with questions. But when taken psychologically Ed becomes a symbolic depiction of the detective's own defenses that keep him distanced from the issues that trouble him. The detective's resolution with Ed leads to the first meaningful interaction with the master of the temple, or in the context of this argument, the detective's extroverted intuition (Ne). This is expressed in the film by the master helping the detective recognize interconnectedness {pratityasamutpâda) and the inevitability of death.4 The final character, Jane, represents the detective's introverted feeling (Fi). This is the facet of the detective's psyche that he suppresses as we find out early in the film that his mother died when he was seven and that his wife died during childbirth along with their unborn child. Jane represents both the detective's inability to trust and love and as such the detective's rejection of Jane is symbolic of his rejection of his own feelings.If the case is sufficiently made that Zen Noir can be accounted for through MBTI we are left in a position wherein we must deal with the tension that arises between Jungian themes of individuation and Zen enlightenment. The second argument of this paper is made by introducing the Ten Bulls (+Ψ), or the Ten Ox-herding Paintings. This visual depiction of Zen enlightenment is comprised of a series of paintings wherein a young boy establishes a progressively deeper relationship with a bull or ox, which represents his own Buddha-nature, just as the detective seeks to establish a deeper relationship with Jane in Zen Noir. …