>Tricky Tricky question, and a question that is centered in the film's
>narrative. Forgive me for picking up the gauntlet, but the question
>intriques me. I would say (am saying), that the picture in the room is a
>reflexive signifier. By the end of the film, Fink, the Clifford Odetts
>character, the hyper-realist who longs to capture reality in fiction (an
>inherently paradoxical quest), is _in_ the picture. He has been "framed" by
>the narrative,  just as the film's narrative of him is "framed" by the film
>and restricted by the physical boundaries of the film's aspect ratio. In an
>ironic twist, the writer who longs to make his fiction "real" (and, in a
>pun, make his fiction [the plays] into reel [i.e. film] in
>Hollywood)becomes an image in the photo, a part of the picture; his real
>[reel] life has become a fiction, an image, a representation. So, the
>question raised is, if the fiction is not real, and the  reel is not real,
>and Fink's life is reel not real, then where is the "real" that modern
>realist dramatists were seeking. The answer: The real is just another
>story, just another reel. The writer's narrative, Fink's narrative, is
>trapped in a series of reels (tee hee).
>
>In other words, it's a pun movie.
 
Thanks for this.  here is what I came up with (thanks to a short article I
read elsewhere).  The painting and the crashing waves link Fink with water.
In contrast, his neighbour hsi constantly linked with fire (he is
constantly sweating and later burns the hotel down). In nature, water and
heat create condensation which makes wall paper peel.  Thus, Fink is so out
of his element in the hotel his whole world is literally becoming unstuck.
 
Chris
 
 
                   Chris Kubiak
                   Education Coordinator
                   Waikato Students' Union
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unsafe." -- Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia.
 
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