in response to my admittedly provocative assertion that films can't be/have first person narratives [at least not first person narratives about a diegetic character] molly olsen asks: > . . . what about a film like GOODFELLAS or any documentary > film where the filmmaker is also the narrator (i.e. SHERMAN'S > MARCH) -- are these not "first person texts"? it's a good question . . . i'm not prepared even to try to answer the part about documentaries, about which i've thought much too little [and to sloppily] to have anything useful to say -- perhaps there indeed are first person narratives in documentary film [although i would guess that in these films the film-maker/narrator is not also the subject . . . but perhaps i'm wrong about that] in any case i was talking [or meant to be talking] about "fiction" films and i think GOODFELLAS is a good example of what i mean . . . for it seems to me that GOODFELLAS is far from a first person narrative . . .it's not only because > 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 . . . although that is at least part of it . . . it's more that as i watch the action of the movie i'm NOT constantly aware that what i'm seeing is essentially a picture of henry's mind [what bruce kawin calls a "mind-screen"] . . . instead what i register is that i'm seeing a transcription of the "real world" [the fictional diegetic real world, of course] and that i'm invited to consider how this world imposes itself on henry's life . . . to some extent first person novel are ALWAYS and primarily about their narrator and only indirectly [or instrumentally] about the world she describes . . . while in film, the world being depicted is just too much with us . . . the camera is always showing us "stuff," while the novel is inescapably giving us nothing but words mike frank ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama.