Sarah Higley replies: On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 23:05:09 -0500 "Sarah L. Higley" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Yes...thanks; but remember that we're interested not in the mere use of > this term in film, but the equation of this term WITH film; i.e., AHD's > third definition. Do the Topper films and these other titles use the term > ectoplasm in ways that connect it to filmmaking? > > Another colleague has suggested to me by private email that the reason the > third definition was removed in the fourth edition of the AHD was that a > lexicographer had misread the Ellison passage. In other words, Ellison's > protagonist is not saying that he is not a "projection of an image on a > movie screen" (Meaning #3 in the AHD), but that he is not a ghost, in > either Poe's sense or in the sense of the Hollywood ghosts in popular > horror films (i.e., "Hollywood ectoplasms"). He is invisible in a > different way. But film essentially and literally produces "ghosts," > "apparitions," but also "visible icons," the opposite of an invisible man > as Ellison means it. So the equation, while it might have been imperfectly > understood by the dictionary makers, is still a fertile and complex > metaphor in his novel. > > If my private emailer is right, and the AHD definition solely refers to > this passage, then that's one thing. But if film images are referred to > as "ectoplasms" in film jargon somewhere, somehow, that would be really > useful! Are they in any of the films you mention? None of the films that I mentioned use the term in that way. I also suspect that it was a misreading of Ellison, although there might be some specialized use like that one within spritualist writings--or maybe surrealists? Good luck. Don Larsson ----------------------------------------------------------- Donald F. Larsson, English Department, AH 230 Minnesota State University Mankato, MN 56001 ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html