Molly Olsen 06/24/97 10:41 AM Mike Frank wrote: >if, as recent coments on PILLOW BOOK and APOCALYPSE NOW /H.O.D. seem to hint, we're >embarking on a thread dealing explicitly wtih the problematic of >adaptation, let me foreground one of the critical [in both senses] >issues involved in thinking about the translation of words to moving >images . . . and let me do so by offering, for the sake of argument, a >no doubt controversial claim > >i'm tempted to say that, at least within the parameters of the moving image as we now imagine >it,ther simply cannot be any first person texts . . . that is, no film can be narrated/enunciated by >one of its diegetic characters [although a film may certainly have an "implied narrator," which is >a very diffrent kind of animal entirely] . . . That is a controversial claim -- what about a film like GOODFELLAS or SLEEPERS or any documentary film where the filmmaker is also the narrator (i.e. SHERMAN'S MARCH) -- are these not "first person texts"? I suppose you could argue that, for instance, because the camera is pointed at Henry Hill several times in GOODFELLAS, we are not seeing the action through his eyes and ears -- but we *are* seeing Hill's interpretation of the action, skewed as it may be, and recorded after the fact, so that he does become a diegetic character in the story he's telling. The same can be said of most first-person texts in literature and film. Molly Olsen [log in to unmask] ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]