When I wrote that I wondered if some version of split screen
technique would become a more permanent part of the mainstream cinematic
vocabulary, I wasn't trying to credit Greenaway with any innovation.
Obviously, DePalma is significant here, too, along with Godard, but can't
one go back to Abel Gance?  Further, there are other examples in early
cinema of constructing physical profilmic sets which created a sense of what
later became split screen.
        My point wasn't that Greenaway is original in this way; he arguably
is not.  "Arguably" because one might say he uses the technique in a
different way than, for example DePalma.  If my memory is correct, DePalma
uses a split screen in *Carrie* or *Sisters* as a kind of alternative to
cross-cutting:  in order to show different, related narrative spaces at the
same time.  Thus one can interpret the use of the device by setting up a
paradigmatic equivalent.
        Greenaway uses frames-within-the-frame (which is not exactly split
screen) to show different diegetic or perhaps even non-diegetic levels:
e.g., in *The Pillow Book* we see the author of the titular text and/or
visualizations of various of the things she wrote.  This seems more like a
substitution for non-diegetic or commentative techniques like those
developed at the level of editing by Eisenstein and the Soviet school.   (My
point about this is not to stress the equivalence but rather to suggest that
an analysis could be carried out by asking what substitutive equivalent we
might find on another plane of combining moving images--such as editing
"proper", i.e., the successive combination of images rather than their
simultaneous deployment.)
        Thus I didn't necessarily want to argue for Greenaway's originality:
this particular technique is probably not very "original" at the technical
level.  It may, though, represent an interesting and rarely-used way of
incorporating almost-nondiegetic material into a narrative film.  Certainly
this use of multiple images suggests interesting analytical issues.  But my
question was whether or not this technique of putting multiple images on the
screen at once (without trying to create a single diegetic signification, as
when multiple images or combined in 'special effects') would become a more
common part of the cinematic vocabulary.  Indeed, if not, then why not?
        And on the topic of previous uses of split screen:  do you suppose
Greenaway is referring in *The Pillow Book* to *Pillow Talk*?  Might Ewan
McGregor be our new Rock Hudson?  Once a text starts to seem meta-textual,
the "meta-" part sort of spins off on its own....
Sincerely,
E. R. O'Neill
 
At 06:10 PM 6/19/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Just a quick thought -- Greenaway isn't really as inovative as one might
>think -- Godard was using split-screen (albeit with primative equipment)
>as far back as Ici et ailleurs and Numero Deux (1974-5).
>
>________________________________________________________________
>Glen Norton
>Graduate Programme in Film and Video
>York University, Toronto, Canada
>
>THE PANTHEON: http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/3781
>
>"When you see your own photo, do you say you're a fiction?"
>                                              -- Jean-Luc Godard
>----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>On Wed, 18 Jun 1997, Edward R. O'Neill wrote:
>
>>         While I enjoyed *The Pillow Book* I have to say my aesthetic
>> judgment of the film is not at all what Mr. Daniels' is.  For me it is
>> interesting as a Greenaway film:  one could spend hours pointing out devices
>> which the film shares with his other films:  sex and violence, art and the
>> body, etc.  I, however, found the multiple screen techniques less successful
>> than Mr. Daniels did.  It *is* exhilarating to see this kind of technique,
>> since one wonders if it's going to become a permanent part of the cinematic
>> vocabulary.
>>         I do agree that Mr. Greenaway's idea of "adaptation"--if that is
>> really the word--is quite interesting.  Greenaway seems to construct a kind
>> of paratext which both cites and replays issues from the text he's
>> "adapting"--using?  relying on? operating upon?  This to me seems like a
>> very rich topic within the hoary old topic of "cinematic adaptation," as
>> well as within the newer, trendier topic of "postmodernism."
>>         I found *The Pillow Book* less emotionally engaging than some of
>> Greenaway's other films, such as *ZOO* or *The Cook, the Thief....*
>>         All this for what it's worth.
>> Sincerely,
>> Edward R. O'Neill
>> UCLA
>>
 
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