There is still some life left in this horse, I believe. I find the problem of interest as a film teacher and it comes up often in class discussions, and I think the problem is basically one of Knowledge--who knows what, from what perspective do they know it, why are they priviliged to know it and not others, how is this Knowledge an expression of psychological or social political issues. Is it legitimate to say that Walter Neff's narrative reliability hinges on his sexual attraction to Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity--has his perspective, that is, been clouded by sexual desire, a desire which has made him as a savvy insurance man disregard so many obvious pitfalls. Like Oedipus, he sees what he wants to see, motivated as he is by Phyllis' sexuality?  These questions I believe associate unreliability to other more pertinent issues currently under discussion in film theory--issues of masculinity, gender, gender and Knowledge and power, and a host of other psychoanalytic and social problems.

    The unreliable narrator as someone said must be an embodied person within the narrative and cannot simply be a voice over describing events. Very often though narration comes in and out and is often used for expository reasons, "Cry of the City," I believe is one such example where the narrator is the hero's (Victor Mature)  girlfriend. She is not really privy to much information and only comments on events as they relate to her relationship, and one does accept her words as reliable because nothing in the narrative contradicts her observations. But to have a woman serve as a narrator is itself I believe a significant matter.   It ties the narration into so many issues that have become centerpieces of current cinema theory. It makes a difference who is narrating. The narrative could actually have been told from Brian Donlevy's point of view, who knows more and understands more of the hero's criminal activities.   But to have Mature's girlfriend function as a narrator is I believe of significance more than on a simple narratological/narrative theory level. Analyses of narration both reliable and unreliable must take into account so many other subtle pertinent issues. A mere  catalogue of unreliable narratives that try to name and list different unreliable narrators I personally believe would miss the opportunity to explore more complex and subtle issues.

    At the end of John Huston's "The Dead" Gabriel comes to an epiphany that he has never loved his wife the way her dead boyfriend had, and at very end of the film Gabriel's voice can be heard describing how the snow falls on all the living and the dead.  In Joyce's story, it is not Gabriel who has these lines but some external voice which is perhaps trying to represent Gabriel's epiphany in poetic philosophical terms. Gabrial as a pedant bourgeosie self-absorbed man could not possibly have such poetic musings, although the film gives him this privilege. Is this a form of unreliability?

The words could not possibly come from this man's mind, and yet they are spoken by him nonetheless. Are these words unreliable in a different narratological sense as misrepresentations of this character's mind. This problem came up in class when we compared the story to the film. Gabriel's epiphany does not accurately represent his personality and is therefore totally wrong, but the words themselves may not be philosophicaly wrong--it's that they are wrong coming from that character. My question is, is this a form of unreliable narration--unreliable because the words do not go with the character's persona?   Ron