Don Larsson says <Needless to say, the relevance of these audio cues isn't easily apparent on a single viewing (or even after several), which has led a number of commentators to remark that Coppola is engaging in a display of epistemological uncertainty, not unlike Antonioni in BLOWUP--but he's not. (At least, I don't think so!)> I think Coppola is indeed <engaging in a display of epistemological uncertainty;> that is foregrounding epistemological questions. But, as always with Coppola there is a huge ethical question. For Antonioni's hero the existential alienation is never quite broken through but in Coppola it gives way to concern for human responsibility. There is a big difference between the way they question the episteme. If we give a close reading (or close listening) to Coppola's Conversation it all adds up, it is *realistic* in that we (movie goers familliar with the Hollywood protocols) can imagine that someone might hear within hisorher head a conversation that had been previously heard on tape. And that interior conversation might be mixed with live conversation from the room next door or anticipated conversation of some time in the future. But except for the fact that we hear what is going on inside the head of the protagonist it is within the rules of physics and perception as we know it in our quotidian world. For Anotonioni (and Julio Cortasa sp?)there is the extra element of the fact that the rules of physics are broken. Tennis balls don't appear and disappear, we can't explain the sensory contradictions that had been shown at an earlier point, it is fantastic. Of course Cortaza, who wrote the story of Blow Up, was influenced by South American literary traditions of fantastic realism. But both situations are diagetic, In *The Conversation* the hero actually hears and sees those things however difficult they may be for him to understand; and in *Blow Up* the hero really sees those things, even if they are contrary to the laws of physics. In neither case are they non-diagetic commentaries seen by the audience but not the characters. [How does one spell Cortaxa? ] Edmond Chibeau ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]