Lang Thompson inquires: "I've been wondering how many examples there can be of the film equivalent of the unreliable narrator. (This was prompted by a recent movie that i won't name so that its surprises won't be spoiled.) I'm not thinking just of voice-over narration but something a bit more encompassing where scenes that are presented as "real" turn out to be either imaginary or misinterpreted. In literature, this device is fairly common; the most notorious instance may be Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd but also The Blithedale Romance and Browning's Sordello are standard examples." In addition to films already mentioned by others, there's NO WAY OUT, the remake of THE BIG CLOCK, with Kevin Costner. The story is framed as a flashback, but a revelation in the final scene of the frame requires one to rethink everything that has come before--not in terms of its veracity but in terms of the main character's motivations. The question itself, though, raises the more problematic question of what constitutes the film " narrator" in the first place. Is it the implied organizing and presenting consciousness? Is it an anthropomorphization of the "camera" (which usualy also means editing and sound)? Is it the apparent focus of the main character? Is it to be confined to the much rarer instance of a first-person voiceover narrator? See Seymour Chatman's STORY AND DISCOURSE and COMING TO TERMS (as well as David Bordwell's take on Chatman in NARRATIVE IN THE FICTION FILM) for some of the difficulties raised by these issues. Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN) ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]