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September 1995, Week 2

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Sender:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
Christian Kallen <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 7 Sep 1995 21:53:29 -0400
Reply-To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Uniting a couple threads, "Angel Heart" is a film about BOTH plastic surgery
and unreliable narrators -- though Mickey's unreliability is based at least
perhaps on his ignorance, since he's supposed to have forgotten everything.
(not unlike the joined-at-the-hip "Johnny Handsome.")
 
Plastic surgery also figures in "Shattered," with Tom Beringer.
 
And I think the Liam Neeson film is "The Big Man," about boxing.
 
Mike Frank and others make the observation that the camera may be itself
infallible; this is what makes the most interesting films interesting! In
fact I regard films where "it's all on the surface" as a waste of time.
Filmic reality is NOT reality; film reality is SELECTIVE; hence "unreliable"
or at least subject to evaluation, discussion, contemplation. Nearly
everything by Welles, Hitchcock, Bunuel, even lesser lights like DePalma have
this compone; even traditionalists like John Ford (Liberty Valence, one  of
the greatest films ever) have this component. don't forget it's all scripted,
shot, edited from POV. Just like reality... and of course in terms of
unreliable narrators, everything Nabokov ever wrote fits this bill (which
makes you wonder about the man, eh?)
 
This is not begging the question, or solipsistic. This is in fact what making
a movie is all about! and for the audience, it is or can be what viewing one
is.
 
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