Subject: bending time's arrow Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 23:08:26 EDT From: "Robert J. Winer" <[log in to unmask]> I came across this query while emptying my e-mail INBOX on a school holiday; this may be too far off-base, but I would like to suggest that you take a look at Fritz Lang's 1921 "Destiny" (Der müde Tod). It has a complex story line that involves a 'suspension of time' during which three stories are played out that are far-removed both temporally and geographically from the frame narrative. While the emphasis is on the inexorability of death (fate) in each case, this is of course inseparable from the passage of time and the causalities at work, which all involve a forbidden love. Only the frame story does not offer an explicit causality for the death of the young woman's lover, but visually it is linked with the simple fact of the lovers' passion and devotion to each other. (In the end, self-sacrifice and death prove to be the morally acceptable choice through which the woman can be reunited with her lover, - surprise!) jls ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite