Anna Karena's movie theatre interaction with Falconetti as Joan of Arc
in Vivre sa vie is an interesting example. Also fron Godard there is a
scene (quoted, I think, from a King Vidor (?) film) of soldiers going
trying to peek over the edge of a bathtub, bringing down the screen, if
I remember (Le petit soldat?). Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera starts
with a projector sunrise and the theatre coming alive and moves on to a
depiction of people in the theatre. Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels
climaxes with prisoner's in a church theatre, leading the Joel McCrea
character to realize that he would rather make comedies then "Oh Brother
Where Art Thou" (leaving the latter to the Coen brothers).
One of my favorite examples isn't literal but very interesting. In
Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place Bogart, playing a screenwriter,
describes a murder to a cop and his wife, and has them act it out, while
they sit facing him in the same position that they would in a movie
theatre. Its always seemed to me that this was something of a comment on
film audiences even though it takes place in a home.
John M.
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