> I agree completely. There seems to be a large gap in film scholarship
> between the filmmaker's intentions and the audience's reading. The viewer
> as active participant is too often ignored.
>
The anecdoct about "Beauty and the Beast" brings to mind my
experience with Hitchcock's "Psycho".
A friend told me that she went to see it at a matinee with her new
husband just after it came out. She really didn't pay attention to
film and television at the time and didn't really know what the film
was about. In a darkened theatre with only a half dozen other
people, she said that the film disturbed her a great deal for some
time with nightmares.
I went to see it about five years ago with a college audience that
laughed all the way through it. In this case, perhaps the audience
reading of the film changed and the viewing circumstances were
different. I know I find the film a little disturbing when I see it
alone and humorous in a crowd.
I'm still waiting for a small dilapitated theatre in a small rural
town to run "The Last Picture Show" on the last night they're open --
now that would produce an interesting audience reading of a film.
RAND
-------------------------------------------------
Randy A. Riddle, Winston-Salem, NC
[log in to unmask] -- http://www.infi.net/~rriddle
-------------------------------------------------
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]