Re: Non-diegetic narrator/chorus I agree with Don Larsson that the diegetic world of film or theater is constructed by the viewer--as well as by the performers, directors, and and different technological devices. But I don't think a clear cut distinction can be made between "mimetic" and "diegetic" in film, the way Aristotle tries to do with ancient Greek theater, as imitation vs. story-telling. Doesn't film tell its story primarily through mimetic images? Even the most "narrative" film relies on theatrical performance to create its diegesis, no? Still, the narrator/chorus comparisons Don makes, between certain films and plays, are very interesting. Another good example would be EQUUS: onstage the chorus plays a crucial (Nietzschean) role, acoustically and visually, in evoking the passions of the scene. How is this done in the film version? By the sound-track, odd camera angles, tinted scenes...? Such devices "tell" the story emotionally--even though the psychiatrist Dysart narrates much of it verbally (sometimes as VO in the film). Is Burton's Dysart non-diegetic when he tells the story to the audience directly (or in VO), becoming a narrator-chorus in those moments, instead of just a character in the mimesis? As in the OUR TOWN example Don Larsson gave, the stage Dysart functions as both narrator and character. This, in fact, shows his dilemma: to join in the passionate Equus chorus or analyze at a psychiatric distance. Perhaps this illustrates two ways, or different directions in which, such non-diegetic, non-mimetic devices and figures shape the audience's reconstruction of the diegetic scene, onstage/onscreen: 1) emotionally or 2) conceptually. At certain moments, Burton's Dysart does both, but his function is more to explain--like the narrator figure which developed out of the Greek chorus in theater. Theater itself developed out of a narrative chorus, according to Aristotle. But as Nietzsche stressed, that dithyrambic chorus was also Dionysian, i.e. a passionate lens shaping the audience perception of the scene onstage. Might we make a similar distinction between Apollonian/Brechtian (more conceptually narrative or interjective) and Dionysian/Artaudian (more passionately choral or disruptive) devices and figures in film, which are "extra-diegetic," yet shape the diegesis? I hope other interested voice will join this conversation, too. Mark Pizzato [log in to unmask] ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]