the--on my system at least--anonymous contributor of the following [excerpted] message . . . (The camera is not human !) The sound track by > contrast is language, and spoken language presupposes a human > source, hence its potential unreliability. For movies and theater to > invert the scale of reliability, the visual image would have to be > presented as the perception or act of imagination of a specific > character (which means the camera would be humanized) and > the sound track would have to be the voice-over of a 3rd person > narrator. . . . is, i think, EXACTLY right . . . the inversion would require making the camera human while presenting the sound as objective/omniscient/foundational (though none of those terms are exactly right) . . . but the larger question, philosphical perhaps or ideological rather than strictly narratological, is why this doesn't happen, or doesn't happen with any regularity mike ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]