Original message: > > Let's take MFrank seriously for a moment. > > It seems to me that nearly all film storytelling uses narration which is to > some degree unreliable. Ambiguity, visual and otherwise, is used to tease > the audience in one direction or another. And don't the best of stories > usually end with an unanticipated twist? > > Surely only small children believe (or would want to believe) that what the > camera shows them is the whole truth. > > Are there any examples of well-known films in which visual trickery isn't > used? > i'm delighted to be taken seriously, even if only for a moment, but find it hard to think about the questions reaised in this message . . . would it be possible to get, from the writer or others on the list, examples of the kind of "visual trickery" that is used in "nearly all film story-telling" . . . . . . for my part, what i THINK i'm concerned with is the extent to which the camera in a film (or editing, or cinematography, or mise-en-scene. . . that is, all the things that the film-maker controls to shape the finished work) must be theorized as similar to the language in a novel, and thus equally subject to fallibility mike frank ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]