Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889–1977) is considered one of the first movie stars ever and made film history with his acting and his works. He is also one of the few artists who managed the transition from silent films to sound films.
Because of using archetypal imagery and symbols in his films, it is natural that the moon could also play a part somewhere. We found four references:
Fitting into the Christmas period, we are hanging up a virtual mistletoe and calling upon all lovers out there to kiss each other! The custom has a long tradition in many countries. The symbolism of fertility and vitality play as much a part as the search for the possibility of making the kiss in public socially acceptable. The mistletoe helps to overcome the inhibition, which can stand especially between two people before their first kiss. And incidentally, for every kiss one berry of the bush is plucked – until no berries are left.
As is generally known, the moonlight is actually sunlight reflecting from the surface of the Moon and reaching us here on Earth. You ask yourself the question, whether the moonlight may have a different colour than the sunlight, especially since a nightly scenery usually appears to be bluish. Also movie scenes, are portrayed in blue and so are many pictures and photographs. We would like to forestall the answer: the moonlight is nearly white. The night appears blue due to other reasons.
Nena and her band belong to the most successful artists in German music history. With »99 Luftballons« from 1983, she made a name for herself internationally and also reached 2nd place in the US charts with the English version »99 red balloons« [*]. This has only been accomplished by very few German musicians.
In the song »Vollmond« [full moon], also from 1983, Nena sings about the silver Moon and describes the romantic longing and restlessness, which can capture us during a full moon:
Chang’e is the Chinese moon goddess. She does not symbolically represent the Moon, like for example the Greek moon goddess Selene, but Chang’e lives on the Moon and is befriended with the well-known rabbit that is very familiar to us. But has she always been up there?
The legend says that she got there some thousand years ago. There are different versions of the story, which we don’t want to elaborate on. In any case, her husband Hou Yi plays a central role, who came to help because of his skillfulness in archery, when ten suns threatened to burn the Earth and he shot down nine from the sky.
The American-British space thriller »Gravity« of 2013, offers next to its extraordinary suspenseful action, breathtaking images of space that show apart from the Earth and the Sun also the Moon. The director of the movie is Alfonso Cuarón (who also directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). The movie is commercially very successful and has already brought in the multiple of its production cost, shortly after its release.
The terminology »void of course« Moon (VOC), refers to a specific duration of time in astrology, during the Moon’s passage through the signs of the zodiac. To this, the basic conditions are created by the so called »aspects« of the Moon, which refers to its connection to other planets in the sky. For example, when the Moon and another planet are opposite to each other, it is called »opposition«. Further important aspects are »conjunctions« (next to each other), »square« (angular distance 90°), »trine« (120°) and »sextile« (60°). So when the Moon passes through a zodiac, various of these aspects surface. After approximately 2.5 days, the Moon changes into the next zodiacal sign, to create new aspects again. The phase between the last aspect in the current zodiac and the transition to the next zodiac is called »void of course / VOC«. The length of this void of course can take anything from two minutes up to two days.
In the Ancient Roman Empire, lunula amulets were often worn as a lucky charm, but also as protection against evil forces and demons. Special crescent-shaped jewelry pieces were made for girls, to grant them the protection of the goddess Diana. Diana is the goddess of the Moon and also of hunting in Roman mythology. Artemis is the equivalent among the Greek Gods.
Let us still stay with the music for a little while and let us bring our attention to a grand musical genre of theatre, the opera. We recently saw TOSCA (from Puccini) in Madrid and lo and behold! In the first act, we suddenly heard »luna piena«, which is Italian for full moon. A real highlight!
Then we had the idea to rummage through some libretti (opera lyrics) to find out if the full moon motif may also play a part in other operas. For this purpose, one can view the libretti online. We were interested in particular in the actual mentioning of it, as these were created by the composers themselves, whereas the appearance of the full moon on stage was usually the part of the stage designer.
We figured it would be obvious to look for the full moon in the works of England’s most famous poet William Shakespeare (1564–1616). Surprisingly, the »moon« is to be found more often, however the word »full moon« appears in the original text only once, namely in »King Lear«.
The text of the comedy »A Midsummer Night’s Dream« (approx. 1595), contains the moon a whopping 52 times (28 times in the last act alone) and it can be assumed that Shakespeare was thinking of the full moon when he wrote these lines. Although it is not described as the »full moon«.
Again and again it is spoken about the Moon in the night sky, and the visible size for us here from Earth and we would like to recall some details or outline and summarize them again:
The Sun and the Moon about the same size in the sky
The full moon in the sky appears to have almost the same size as the Sun by day, because the Sun is approx. 400 times as large as the Moon, but also 400 times further away. So it balances itself out and this is how these two very different sized orbs appear to be of the same magnitude to us.