Mike Frank comments--about "authority" in film versions: " . . . what, to me, is sinister about this is that it throws a powerful inquisitorial light on the whole enterprise of criticism . . . the uncertainty and instability that results is appealing to some people . . . unfortunately because of some no doubt terrible flaw of character i myself really don't like it very much at all . . . i do hope that steven will forgive me for the hubris of sharing my own peculiar idiosyncratic weakness with the list, perhaps in the desperate hope that someone out there shares it with me" I don't see that the problem of multiple versions has to throw out the very notion of criticism, but it does mark some types of criticism as provisional at best. It' s not just soundtracks, of course, but all manner of "texts" that deviate from one another--the screenplay source, the shooting script, the master print (presuming one exists), and all the variations for foreign distribution, tv and video distribution, etc. There are longstanding questions about these issues in literary textual criticism--consider Shakespeare alone, if not the Bible. Which version of a text is "authentic"? Which variant spelling or phrasing should be used? How should the variations be interpreted? It seems to me fairly clear that auteur critcism first arose (around the same time that the New Criticism in literature was beginning to fade) as a way of marking that kind of textual certainty, to say that the film belonged to the director, and not the studio, the screenwriter, or anyone else. " Director's cuts" videos and re-releases are a continuity of this sort. But in the case of film, which as product can vary from the individually- produced and directed experimental or independent film to the complex agglomoration of commericial and artistic intentions that mark most commercial films, doesn't it make more sense to treat the very notion of "authenticity" as marked by historical and economic context? In other words, it *is* possible to have some films that have "authentic" versions; others that have several versions due to changes of mind or heart by the director (as we have different endings to GREAT EXPECTATIONS or several of Henry James' novels); and to have some texts (perhaps even a large number, especially of current releases) that are multiple and that have to be engaged with in terms of their release, distribution, and the contractual issues that surround them, as dull as some of those details might be. Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN) ---- 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]