Since I'm leaving for SCS tomorrow I'm shutting off my e-mail for a week. I added the comment on Welles and Ed Wood as a means of provoking discussion on the recent fascination with the Welles image which seems to be working. Yes, both are in their way trapped by the dream-like nature of the success ideology inherent within the Hollywood system itself. Perhaps some further comments on this subject may be welcome. Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" may be a "fond pastiche" but it is also highly uncritical about the deeper aspects of the Wood phenomenom both in its time and now. Although Susan Sontag's essay on the death of cinephilia has its a-historical aspects as one correspondent correctly asserted, there is a world of difference between a time when both the "auteurs" (note inverted comments, please!) and Wood received recognition in regard to the very different levels of talent and industrial operation both functioned within. The problem with Ed Wood lies in its problematic blurring of the relevant boundaries between Wood and Welles. Ironically, during the time the film was released in Britain, virtually all of Wood's movies gained huge publicity in terms of 35mm and video release. O.K. But this is at the cost of denying audiences access to the huge diversity cinema is capable off, fuelling the tendencies within certain sectors to regard cinema as merely being a trivial, harmless, inessential quality as insubstantial and camp as Wood and his films were. I don't think the appearance of Welles in Burton's films necessarily has that problematic "sign from God" one correspondent denotes. It involves a problematic blurring of boundaries only acceptable to those following certain nihilistic aspects of postmodernism and other theories asserting that "everything is relative" and difference does not matter at all. I'll be back on March 11th, have difficulty in getting the "past postings" right on e-mail (help appreciated), and welcome any further comments sent to me personally. Tony Williams ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]