----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Responding to the artist, Jajassoon wrote: > At least in many forms of contemporary >theory and criticism, we don't look at what the director tried to do or say >with the film as much as we look at the meaning making process of the >reading of a mediated text. so, jason writes in to plug telecom! fair enough! but, also, what is also often studied in many OTHER "forms of contemporary theory and criticism" just isn't primarily interested in meaning, seeing as ALL meanings are contructions. And for a critic to leap to an interpretation right off the bat is necessarily to close off many equally or more interesting channels in the work, and distorts the work to the extent that access to it can actually be closed off. The work itself is left by the wayside, and frankly it is precisely the desire to understand film that got me here, not an interest in meaning. So, Freelancer, I take analysis to be close examination of the work and understanding the principles behind its construction (social, economic, formal) NOT INTERPRETATION! -PBR