>Graham Heys requests: >"Lately, I have been wriggling with the concept of an unreliable narrator. >Specifically what precisely constitutes one? I suggest that three purposes of the unreliable narrator are to 1] delineate the narrator's character through the use of irony and 2] to create a sense of foreboding when we know of the unreliability and 3] to create a sense of mystery. The Usual Suspects is an example of the last. Heavenly Creatures (1994) is an example of the other two. In HC, the narrator is a diarist whose diary entries are read in voice-over. They are unreliable as to both time and perception, time because the audience knows of events subsequent to the diary entries, and perception because they are grandiose and self-congratulatory. Together, they create the pircture of a mind out of balance. Unreliability is easily shown by a contrast between the spoken word and visual image. In HC, the narrator says: My New Year's Resolution is to be kinder to others.... while the film shows the speaker agressively expelling a young man from a party. The risk of demonstrating unreliability less directly is that it may beceome obscure, though The Usual Suspects did it admirably. There is no reason why a narrator cannot become more self-aware during the progress of the film. But such a progression runs the risk of focusing the film on its voice-overs rather than on its visual events. Sincerely, Peter Latham ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]