For most people, going to the movies is just an opportunity to escape from the concerns and responsibilities of everyday life, a few minutes when we can step into an imaginary world of excitement and fantasy. But for astrologers, the cinema also offers a virtual motherlode of symbolism that often sheds light on the shifting planetary patterns of the time.

 

For several decades now, I’ve watched in fascination as astrological configurations reflect themselves in the images and stories of popular movies, whether those be serious “art” films or the most commercial and populist of entertainments. On its surface, for instance, a movie might have the trappings of an ordinary adventure tale; yet peer just beneath the surface and you might be surprised to find a play of archetypal energies that describes a mythic drama being mirrored in the stars right at that time. In this article I’d like to explore a few examples of this.

 

Uranus in Pisces and “The Da Vinci Code”

As a simple illustration, consider the passage of the outer planets through the zodiacal signs, and how this might reflect itself in the global zeitgeist. Astrologers especially regard the planetary bodies out beyond Saturn as “generational” indicators in the way they tend to relate to broader, transpersonal trends taking place throughout the world. When Uranus’s moved into Pisces in 2003, for example, we started to witness a growing surge of interest around the world in that most Piscean of religions, Christianity—it’s origins, beliefs, political influence, moral precepts, and so on. As one market analyst remarked on TV interview at the time, “Christianity has suddenly become big business.”

 

Among the cinematic expressions of that shift was Mel Gibson’s unlikely blockbuster Passion of the Christ (which premiered precisely as a solar eclipse underscored Uranus’s position in Pisces), as well as The Chronicles of Narnia, a film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s thinly disguised re-telling of the Christ story. But as might be expected with this rebellious planet, there were also books, TV shows, and films that challenged longstanding views of Christianity. These included the publication of the long-lost Gospel of Judas, which not only upended our conventional views of this much maligned figure but pointed out how deeply astrological ideas suffused early Christianity.

 

Though by far the most controversial reframing of Christian beliefs came in the form of Dan Brown’s hugely successful book, and subsequent film, The Da Vinci Code. In addition to challenging longstanding assumptions about the role of Mary Magdalene in early Christianity, Brown interspersed a host of other controversial or “new age” ideas in his discussion, including the church’s suppression of women, the role of the zodiacal “Great Ages, and the mystical dimension of Christ’s spiritual teachings, among others. For the vast majority of mainstream churchgoers, these were surprising, possibly even heretical ideas; but for astrologers, they seemed a fitting expression of the turbulent effects of Uranus moving through the spiritual sign of Pisces.

 

The Voyager II Fly-by to Neptune

Sometimes, the synchronicities between the planets and films arise in unexpected ways. For instance, in 1989 NASA’s unmanned Voyager II spacecraft made its scheduled fly-by past the distant planet Neptune, providing us with our first close-up look at this mysterious body. It was at that point that we were treated to a litany of new stories that symbolically expressed both the constructive destructive influence of this celestial body.

 

Reflecting the darker side of Neptune, that included major news accounts of an unprecedented surge in the drug war, climaxing in an epidemic of drug-related deaths in Central and South America that became so serious that it led to president George Bush Sr. scheduling an unprecedented talk to the American public on nationwide TV, almost exactly coinciding with the closest approach of the Voyager spacecraft to Neptune.

 

Cinematically, though, perhaps the clearest expressions of this rising Neptunian energy was a spate of films throughout that year centering on oceanic and watery themes: Deepstar Six, Leviathan, The Navigator, and most conspicuous of all, James Cameron’s The Abyss. Appropriate for oceanic Neptune, this visually striking film was set largely underwater and concerned an attempt by scientists to grapple with a life-threatening problem involving nuclear materials lodged deep undersea. The movie concluded with a haunting sequence in which the central character (played by Ed Harris) performs the ultimate Neptunian act by offering to sacrifice his life for the sake of the world, plunging thousands of feet down to the ocean's bottom. At the last possible moment, he is rescued by highly advanced extraterrestrial beings who are living in a base they’ve constructed deep in the sea.

 

Planetary Patterns on the Silver Screen

Another way that astrological symbolism often feeds into popular films is in connection with the dominant planetary configurations of the day. When spacious Jupiter aligned with idealistic Neptune in Aquarius back in 2009, for example, one expression of that synergy was the popular Pixar film Up!  Employing state-of-the-art computer graphics, it portrayed an elderly man’s wildly expansive dreams of escaping to a far-off land by means of multi-colored balloons attached to his house. The elements of ascension, escape, and gaseousness all concisely reflected the qualities of both these planets in tandem, as did the aviation-oriented sign of Aquarius these bodies were transiting through at the time.

 

To my mind, one of the most dramatic planetary combinations to reflect itself in the films of a period is when Uranus moves into stressful aspect with Saturn---the proverbial “odd couple” of the solar system. For instance, two of the most critically acclaimed films of 1999 were American Beauty and David Fincher's violent masterwork Fight Club. Released within just weeks of each other, these two films featured a number of uncanny parallels, such as: both involved stories of middle-age men striving to break free of suffocating, conventional environments so that they could experience freer, more uninhibited lifestyles; both films depict their lead character being spurred into action by the inspiration of wilder, more free-spirited mentors; both movies feature strikingly similar scenes where the central character "sticks it to the system" by extorting large amounts of money from an oppressive employer (in both cases by means of ungrounded, scandalous accusations); and both films conclude with their lead characters taking a bullet in the head just as they finally attain "peace of mind"  — of a sort.

 

Not too surprisingly, the dominant astrological pattern of that period was conventional Saturn in Taurus squaring unconventional Uranus in Aquarius. The tension between the two lead characters in both movies acted out this planetary configuration to perfection. But as with all such instances, it’s important to remember that cinematic synchronicities like these actually reflect a struggle taking place in all our personal lives as well. In this case, the square from Uranus was likely pointing to fundamental changes taking place with our own inner "Saturns" at that time  — i.e., our accepted perspectives and attitudes towards tradition, authority, and society. In the lives of my clients and friends during that time, for instance, I noticed major changes and challenges coming to the fore in ways that echoed those of these cinematic characters in surprisingly similar ways.

 

Citizen Kane and the Great Taurus Line-up

Of all the configurations I’ve studied in connection with cinematic trends, one in particular stands out for me, due to the unique blend of planetary and zodiacal influences it embodies. I’m referring to the epic alignment of planets that climaxed between late April and early May of 1941.

 

 

What makes this period so special? To begin with, throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s Uranus was entangled in a creative trine with Neptune, a combination partly responsible for the impressive run of classic films released during those same years: Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and The Grapes of Wrath, among many others. Also worth noting is the slew of popular performers born during that same period who went on to electrify the 1960s, including John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, and Mick Jagger.

 

 

While that trine between Uranus and Neptune completed exactly at several points during that entire period, it arguably reached its clima between April 30th and May 8th of 1941. That’s when a series of other planetary configurations came together as well, reinforcing the power of that trine many times over. During that roughly one week-long window, Jupiter entered the picture and conjoined Uranus while simultaneously trining Neptune, making for a cosmic trifecta of Jupiter conjunct Uranus, Jupiter trine Neptune, and Uranus trine Neptune—all at the exact same time! And as we'll explore in more detail later in this volume, that three-fold pattern unfolded in the context of a powerful multi-planet lineup in Taurus, which included such other planetary aspects as: Saturn conjunct Jupiter, and Saturn conjunct Venus, and Saturn conjunct Uranus! Taken all together, this was a planetary and zodiacal period like few others in recent history.

 

 

As it so happened, that window of time saw the release of a film many critics have since dubbed “the greatest ever made”—Citizen Kane. Premiering in New York on May 1, 1941, Orson Welles’ tour de force daringly told the story of a wealthy media mogul from multiple perspectives, employing technical innovations and a nonlinear storyline that prefigured the later movies of directors like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Altman, and Stanley Kubrick.2 Considering the Taurus emphasis in effect during the film's release, there's something fitting about the fact that a primary theme of the movie is that of materialism; indeed, the movie's lead character is depicted as having been adopted at a young age by a bank! But reflecting the more aesthetic side of Taurus, Welles' movie also features many strikingly beautiful moments. Here is what critic Jesse Zunser had to say in the now-defunct Cue magazine, employing some surprisingly Taurean nature-metaphors to do so:

 

 

     You come away limp, much as if you had turned into Broadway and suddenly beheld Niagara Falls towering           behind the Paramount Building, the Matterhorn looming over Bryant Park, and the Grand Canyon yawning         down the middle of Times Square.

 

 

 

 

(optional: include illustration here for the horoscope of May 1st, 1941, 9 PM EST New York City, the horoscope for the premiere of Citizen Kane (the 9PM starting time is conjecture, based on published accounts of other New York premieres from that period).

 

 

A side note about planetary cycles: at the time I began writing about Citizen Kane in 1999, I started noticing a number of other references to Welles in various media sources. For instance, HBO premiered its made-for-TV film on the making of Citizen Kane, titled RKO 281, and not long after that, Tim Robbins' film about Orson Welles, Cradle Will Rock, made its way into theaters. 1999 was also when United States Post Office released a 1940's commemorative stamp featuring Orson Welles in the role of Charles Foster Kane on it.

 

 

What accounted for this sudden surge of Wellesmania, I wondered? Turning to Welles' birth chart, I discovered that he was undergoing his Uranus return exactly as all these developments were taking place. By this point, however, Welles had been dead for some 15 years! But as I mentioned in Chapter 1, one of astrology's true peculiarities is the vexing fact that horoscopes continue to live on long after their owners' do!

 

 

In other words, media events sometimes reflect activations of horoscopes from long before. That's true not only for people, incidentally, but for historic events. For instance, James Cameron’s film Titanic appeared 84 years after the tragedy itself, bringing that historic event back into the world’s consciousness in dramatic fashion. In a similar manner, Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis was a box-office flop when it first appeared, but slowly developed an audience among film fans through the decades. Shortly after its release, its running time was severely cut by both the studio and distributors, so that what audiences saw was only a pale shadow of Lang’s original work. But to the delight (and surprise) of many, much of the original missing footage turned up in South America and a restored version of the film was finally re-released on the movie’s Uranus return, in 2009!

 

 

These, then, are just a few examples of how films can express the shifting energies of the zeitgeist. The next time you go the movies, perhaps take a few moments afterwards to consider how the story and its symbols might shed light on the dominant planetary patterns of the time. There are many ways to learn about astrology and its influence in our world, including even the stories we enjoy up on the silver screen!

 

Reprinted from Dell Horoscope, Nov. 2012