I wonder if, sometimes, audiences > are so carried away by an aspect of the film - perhaps mise-en-scene, or > soundscape or performance or some other aspect, that they stop engaging in > the plot? I suspect this happens (intentionally) in the film 'Suture', also > some/many action movies. What might a film have that compensates for a lack > in plot comprehensibility - or which contributes to acceptable > incomprehensibility? Also: you use the word 'complaint': but does it have to > be a complaint? I've given up bothering about the plots of most nineteenth > century operas - it's not what I'm there for. Ditto many films. Does anyone > else find that incomprehensibility doesn't affect their pleasure? In film club, we had this discussion last semester with Tsui Hark's _Time and Tide_. Even the people who had seen it before had trouble following the plot, but I don't think anyone who stayed to discuss had a problem with it. > re: Lou Thompson: "Pretty Woman: I tell my students the message is that the > pretty hooker marries the rich guy, but her less attractive friend hooker > has to go to college." I hate _Pretty Woman_, not that anyone cares... Scott Andrew Hutchins Examine The Life of Timon of Athens at Cracks in the Fourth Wall Theatre & Filmworks http://mywebpages.comcast.net/scottandrewh "To destroy an offender cannot benefit society so much as to redeem im." --L. Frank Baum, _The Flying Girl_, 1911 ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite