Most likely, I would not have thought about the movie
in these terms without this thread, but I believe that
Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives" is a great example
of unreliable narration. I just saw it again tonight
on video, and I don't buy the attempt at "cinema
verité" of the way the camera is handled for one
moment. Allen's version of that style, which is
already very baroque in of itself, is so over the top
that I'm pretty sure he's turning it into a
caricature. I can't blame him for it since that whole
cinema verité thing has been so much abused already
(think of the NYPD Blue TV show for example) but if
I'm right, then all the assumptions and objects that
come with the genre are rendered null and void in this
picture, only we don't know it unless we find out.
Another, less thought provoking but obvious example of
unreliable narration would be the underrated "Snake
Eyes" by Brian DePalma.
Cheers,
Rutger
--- Warren Buckland <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Ron T writes that
>
> "The unreliability of a narrative does not have to
> be a trick, it can
> also be derived from the fact that the narrative
> only gave us a limited
> picture of events and that we learn more, perhapsd
> from another
> perspective, as in "Pulp Fiction," or "Go," where we
> move from points of
> view to open up perspectives on the narrative that
> were missing before."
>
> But this is called restricted narration, not
> unreliable narration.
> 'Unreliable narration' is a subset of 'restricted
> narration', one that
> involves deception. If Ron T used the term
> 'restricted' rather than
> 'unreliable' in his post, then he would be correct.
> But as it stands he
> is substituting a subset (unreliable narration) for
> the whole set
> (restricted narration).
>
> Warren Buckland
> Associate Professor, Film Studies
> Chapman University
> School of Film and Television
> One University Drive
> Orange
> CA 92866
> USA.
> phone: (714) 744 7018
> fax: (714) 997 6700
> Editor, "New Review of Film and Television Studies":
> http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17400309.asp
=====
APROPOS - Rutger H. Cornets de Groot
English-Dutch Translation Services
www.xs4all.nl/~cornets
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