Jane Q. User [love that sig!] comments: "While spectacle can be excessive, it can be used to help the narritive in creating a sense of wonder within the audience which makes them easily manipulated by the filmaker. Where this stops is when the spectacle overtakes the narrative and the resultant product is only a shell of what is ought to be. What it boils down to is, the person watching the film starts to enjoy the sets or effects more than the characters. (George Lucas has interesting comments on this.)" Then again, there are filmmakers whose "message" lies in the visual aspects of what they represent rather than in the core of narrative events or the definitions of character traits more typical of classic Hollywood narrative--Bresson, Dreyer, Ozu are among the more obvious, but I think a film like 2001 (and perhaps most of Kubrick's work) stands here as well. A useful concept here is David Bordwell's discussion of narrative "modes" (see NARRATIVE IN THE FICTION FILM for a full unpacking). Since Hollywood narrative is typically driven by goal-oriented protagonists and stylstic effects are subordinated to getting the narrative across, viewers who are not familiar with or ready to accept other modes are going to find them "boring" or inept. In short, one cannot watch 2001 in the same way that one would watch STAR WARS. As an example, people have often complained that watching Dreyer's GERTRUD is like watching wallpaper. Yes, I reply, but what *interesting* wallpaper! Don Larsson, Manakto State U (MN) ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]