On 8/15/96, Chris M. Worsnop asked: >Why is it that all American houses in sitcoms seem to be designed with a >front door that enters directly into the living room, and a staircase that >comes down into the living room? I guess I just don't get it. What's so unusual about this? In the vast majority of American homes, the front door opens into the living room or a foyer/hallway, and if there is a second floor the staircase comes down into the living room or the foyer/hallway. It's only in trailers where you find the "front" door leading into the kitchen. >Why is it that central characters in TV and movies can always find a parking >spot directly in front of the building they are going to enter? Would anyone want to waste time showing (or watching) someone looking for a parking space and/or walking from car to building unless the searching and/or walking was somehow important to the narrative? >Why does it never rain in movies unless someone is feeling miserable, or >being burried? SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is a major counterexample. In any case, the so-called "pathetic fallacy"--climate and setting reflecting the mood of characters--is a lot older than Hollywood or the the cinema. >It might be fun to collect a master list of such questions, print them up, >and offer them to teachers as fruitful topics for investigation in media >education. Roger Ebert in 1994 put together a book of movie cliches, EBERT'S LITTLE MOVIE GLOSSARY, which lists all sorts of things like the above. --Richard Richard J. Leskosky office phone: (217) 244-2704 Assistant Director FAX: (217) 244-2223 Unit for Cinema Studies University of Illinois 2117 Foreign Languages Building 707 S. Mathews Avenue Urbana, Illinois 61801 ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]