Two comments today by Don Larrson, my MN colleague, seem connected. He mentioned in one message the "communal experience" of the movie theater vs. the home video, however well projected. He also, in a different message, suggested that the greater frequency of non-diegetic sound over non-diegetic images can be traced to silent film and theater, with the current movie sound track (often non-diegetic) used instead of live music in silent film, vaudeville, opera, etc. I'd suggest this might be traced to the ritual, communal element of a chorus in ancient Greek theater--crucial to theater's "birth" according to Nietzsche, but lost as Sophocles and Euripides made their chorus more diegetic (which Aristotle liked). Renaissance opera tried to reinvent Greek drama with chorus, but perhaps not in Nietzsche's sense (until modern opera and Wagner, if then). Much of modern and postmodern theater either tries to return to such non-diegetic sound and imagery, as ritual chora (in Kristeva's sense), or repress such a disruptive womb--either for the sake of diegetic "realism" or for other non-diegetic twists (such as Brecht's A-effect). This may be stretching the film terminology too much for some on the list, but what ties do any of you see to theater's communal "womb" in the convention/experiments of non-diegetic film sound or imagery? (I apologize if the details above seem excessive, but I just finished a 300 page book manuscript on the subject.) Also, an unrelated (?) question: one of my screenwriting students wants to know what you call that black dot at the end of some Charlie Chaplin (and other) films. Mark Pizzato Univ. of St. Thomas St. Paul, MN [log in to unmask] ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]