Vividly remember being asked to write a paper on Chris Landreth’s “The End”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY-TRd9VujA
The most revealing part of this animation was the voice on the phone. Probably a character familiar with intertextuality as a literary theory.
Bruce Meyer’s explanation:
Intertextual writing demands that the reader come armed with an extensive knowledge of what literature is, who the main authors are, how principal works have influenced the collective imagination that operates in literature, and what literature’s key stories and themes have been.
Literary intertextuality is an author’s elegant, if sometimes pedantic, way of locating his or her own work in the rankings of what is important and what is not important, and of acknowledging the debt owed to earlier writers. From an author’s point of view, intertextuality is a form of tribute. It is a way of pointing to those who have informed his or her vision. In its most subtle form – allusion – intertextuality is a polite way of admitting the influence and the importance of a forerunner. In a more aggressive stance, where writers quote directly from an earlier work, it is an admission that they cannot improve upon the way something was said in the past. But in its most overt form, when the former writer appears in the new works as a character, intertextuality is more than a tribute: it is the open acknowledgement that the great works of literarure are actually a guide that can help one navigate the labyrinth of the imagination.
From the golden thread
Intertextual cinema should be easier to understand because text is now surrounded with images and sound. But for such a film to break-even at the box-office, this has to happen:
In my view, a critic performs a useful purpose only when he is able to build a bridge between the director and the audience. That is his main responsibility. A critic has to be a connoisseur since he makes a living out of making appraisals. However, unless a viewer is prompted by a personal motive, there is no reason for him to want to become a true connoisseur. Where a film is simple as well as good, the critic’s responsibility is diminished because the viewer can appreciate its excellence without the critic’s help. But there are some films which can be understood and appreciate only if the viewer has the necessary knowledge and perception. In such a case, a critic has to step in and perform the role of a teacher
Satyajit Ray Speaking Of Films – A Critic in the Eyes of A Director (1965, 133).
A reviewer being this bridge is a long shot because of the time-space issue ( i.e. unless you really have good knowledge of literature and film-making, it would be hard to explain a film like Poi using only 500 to 750 words). So most reviewers are going find it easier to blame the director and the producer than to explain a film like Poi.
