I couldn't agree more that the spectral-victims shot is a problem in the film, and I don't think its nitpicking to bring it up (although none of the three people I saw the film with even noticed it). It occurs at a dicisive moment in the movie and really has to be accounted for. Also, it is part of a whole final sequence which, in my view, puts "fairness" ahead of filmmaking. I had a problem, in short, with the whole flashback sequence (which lacks the restraint you rightly credit Robbins for elsewhere in the film) which interrupts the fresh and disturbing economy of the scences around the execution. If you don't have a problem with that, though, there's still plenty of fault to find in the particular shot you allude to. Its a weirdly sentimental move given the integrity of the rest of the movie. Its interpretation, though, is kind of interesting to try to work out. What IS the point? My reading was different from yours. I saw it as a sort of an assemblage of the victims of the whole structure of violence the film was addressing rather than an approving witnessing by the murder victims. Maybe somone can offer a reading that one or both of us might find a little less problematic in the film's context. Sean Desilets Tufts University ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]