FIDELITY TO WHAT?

A BRIEF THEORETICAL OVERVIEW OF FILM

ADAPTATION

Old legend (folklore)

S.T. Coleridge: poetry: The rime of the ancient mariner in 1798
E. Fitzball: play: The flying Dutchman in 1826
F Marryat: novel: Tha phantom ship in 1839
H Heine: novel: Die memorien 1843
=> made into an opera bu Wagner in 1843
Gustave Dor: serie de dessins in 1878
+ AP Ryder: painting: The flying Dutchman in 1887
Film: Pandora and the flying Dutchman in 1951
Pirates of the Caribbean series in 2006
From a medium to another: oral to text, print to film
Intersemiotic (words to music, to image)
From genre to another
Adaptation closer to variation, echo, crossreferences, interrelationship
// Genette concept of intertextuality no artistic pdction is its own origin?!
Inspired by but yet independent?
Cinematic adaptation of literary works usually= negative evaluation often because of the notion of
fidelity to the text: deformation, misreading, betrayal
Why do we expect films to be faithful to adapted text? More than an opera for ex?
Fidelity used to evaluate quality of film adaptation tendency

Fidelity vs specificity
1900s: Fidelity seemed to be a guarantee of artistic worth
Film directors: J Epstein, M Lherbier, A Gance, S Eisenstein rejected all for specificity of cinema;
argued adaptation = only a minor cine genre because had to be slavesly faithful doomed to
unoriginality
1920s: Virginia Woolf commenting on art of cinema in The movies and reality in New Republic of
4 Aug 1926 the alliance is unnatural
=> show how adaptation is likely to be described as parasitic work of art
1950s: French Nouvelle Vague filmmaker as auteur?
Golden age of adaptation

Film scholars:
Bla Balsz in Theory of film: character and growth of a new art, in 1952
inevitable mutation [] a kind of paraphrase of the novel- the novel viewed as raw material
George Bluestone in Novels into film in 1957
film and novel are two ways of seeing; only thing it can faithfully adapt= its story, diegesis (plot,
characters, setting)

Brian McFarlane in Novels to films: an introduction to the theory of adaptation in 1996

Think it would reduce, confine adapt to an illustration. New dichotomies
insistence on fidelity = suppression of potentially more rewarding approaches more complex
processes of adaptation fidelity = irrelevant for the real stuff of adapt; unhelpful criteria to study ad as
a process or judging its quality
Transfer
VS
Adaptation
Narrative (story) VS Narration (discourse)
Adaptation deals with non-discursive questions: for ex, how to adapt a 1 st person narr? A past
tense? A style or a tone, an atmosphere? A rhythm, play on sounds?

Reader-response criticism:
R Stern in Film theory: an introduction in 2000
a faithful fil is seen as uncreative but an unfaithful film is a shameful betrayal of the original

A cultural and moral bias

Cine= younger semiotic system -> seen as must find ways to replicate the achievements of literature
But bias: cine=all here on the screen gives the images when lite lets imagination work
-> seen as simplified impoverished lite
Bias also: the anteriority of novel confers it authority (novel given a moral value -a better worth
especially when is a classic)
Kenneth Branham
EX his Hamlet: he claims to be the first filmmaker to have adapted whole text of play
his Frankenstein: CF the opening titles: voice-over of a woman, addressing viewers as the
reader words from an essay by her // Mary Shelleys title -> voice and name of the author
Idea of fidelity to the original -insisting reference makes MS the implicit narrator of the film
=film as only transcription of her text
Curatorial adaptation (Thomas Leitch)

To ANALYSE:
-

No hierarchy between adapted text and its adaptation

How two dfft medias can deal in their own ways with metaph, pt of view, etc two semiotic
systems
How they may interact
+ Dfft angles (dfft ages, audiences)

A BASIC GRAMMAR OF FILM

http://fr.slideshare.net/jean-yves/a-basic-grammar-of-film-11526001?qid=2a9f14ef-5da4-4d22-88539037917e4d9e&v=qf1&b=&from_search=1
Sequence
forms a distinct narrative unit (//chapter)
defined by a unity of action or a unity of purpose
Scene
describes an action that takes place in a single location and continuous time >screen time=diegetic
time (// paragraph)
Shot
a single continuous recording (//sentence)
Frame
a single still image -the most basic unit but hardly interesting

Shot scale (or Camera distance)

-

Extreme Long Shot = generally an establishing shot (figures, objects, settings often an
exterior) an overall context (object/character little, lost in decorum)
Long Shot = shows entire object/character and placed in relation to surroundings and body
Medium long shot / Three-quarter short / American shot = naturalistic way to see, from the
knees up
Medium shot = from the waist up -more face more psycho function
Medium close-up = head and shoulders -conveys intimacy, psycho
Two-shot = combines the last two (1 subject in MCU in foregd; 1 in MS in back)
Close-up = takes whole frame (face, bodypart, object)
Extreme close-up = frame tight with only a fraction of the obj -stylises something instead of
just showing -> often symbolical metaphoric function

Insert or Cut-in
covers action already covered in the master shot (detail chose out of the whole)
+ emphasizes a dfft aspect of that action

Depth of field
the distance between the nearest and the furthest object that appear sharp, focused (clearly)
long: serve descriptive purpose and + cf Orson Wells Citizen Kane
short: emphasis on either fore/background
Camera angles
guide the audiences judgement about the objects and characters in a shot
- Overview angle (as in Birds) an unusual God-like position
- High-angle shot -effect = ironical or pejorative (character looks smaller, swallowed up by
environment)
- Eye-level shot =positioned as human observing; very neutral, natural unnoticeable
- Low-angle shot =increases height of objects -> makes audience look up //glorifies; plus
insecurity and fear, dominated (claustro even) by figures + sense of confusion (setting)
- Canted / oblique / Dutch angle -point of view; uneasiness

Camera movements:
-

Dolly shots or Tracking shots

camera moves in or out, or sideways; gradually focusing in/out; real movement feeling; slower
rhythm
+ the steady-cam brought more smoothness to this movement
Panning or Pan shots
scans a scene horizontally (follow moving object kept in middle of frame)
+ when vertically called a Tilt
Hand-held shot
ruggy effect without smoothness; realism; internal pt of view

Editing
Combining shots into a coherent whole
Dfft techniques:
-

Long take / single shot / sequence shot

= a whole scene without any cut; several minutes, inserted as is in film continuity
Suffocating, slows down rhythm, increase tension while telling story
(ex The rope Hitchcock; ex The touch of evil Orson Wells; ex Professione Antonioni)
Cut
abrupt change of shot from one location to another
Vary point of view, ellipse, chge location
Matched cut
logical relationship between two shots: temporal, spatial, thematic
Jump cut
when two shots dont match
a flaw not smoothing the discontinuity)
Or to suggest fragmentation etc (ex JL Godard)
Fade and dissolve
gradual transitions (fade in, fade out to blank or dissolve merging into another image)
Eye-line match
link shots through a look (raccord point de vue)
Shot / reverse shot
action linearly logically, often discussion (champ / contre-champ)
Cross-cutting
actions occurring at same time in dfft locations; simultaneity + suspense, to draw parrallels or
reveal contrasts dichotomies

Types of relationships link between shots: time/spatial/thematic

Functions: Ensures continuity + organizes separate units into a discourse+ creates rhythm
Editing can change viewers interpretation of a whole scene, aesthetic core
cf The Kuleshov Experiment

ADAPTATION AS AN INTERTEXTUAL PROCESS

Genette definition =Explicit or implicit relationship (quotation, allusion) with other texts
Refocus on overall cultural symbolical system, out of which specific text has been constructed
1. Monstrous intertextuality in Frankenstein
-

An instance of hypertext

= A text based on a hypotext which it transforms, extends, elaborates etc.

Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus
-> Myth of Prometheus
-> Creation myth (about generations rebelling, giving place to others)
-

The architexts of F (the genre)

Political satire Mary Shelley liberal, but mixed feelings abt French revolution and consequences
(terror, napoleon)
Novel of exploration and scientific discovery
Philosophical novel
Gothic novel (cf Mysteries of Udolpho by Radcliffe 1794) ->landscapes, transgression hybris
-

Metatextual relationships

= Expl or impl references to another text on which it comments

Ideas of Hobbes and Rousseau constantly discussed in novel
-> viciousness as in Leviathan 1651 inborn violence
-> society turns creature into monster as Discours origine inegalits 1755

At a crossroad of various intertext processes. => Paradoxical nature of the novel

Never quite correspond to the hypo/architexts on which is patterned!
ex: creation myth but ends up in chaos
fire brought back is blessing to men but here science only destruct
Gothic ingredients missing: supernatural appearances
An assemblage of subtexts which it contradicts and which contradict each other
// monstruous construction of the creature

2. Branaghs adaptation: stitching together Fs subtexts

Cf ch.4 : Victors Promethean quest for the secrets of nature; plans to pioneer a new way, explore
unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation
a new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would
owe their being to me
I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you
expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be: listen patiently until
the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead
you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me,
if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and
how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to
become greater than his nature will allow.
Cf Sequence video

None of the scenes are taken from the novel

But echoes some of the novels subtext:
-promethean: ex one with professor Waldman + with Victors transgressive hunger for forbidden
knowledge creation of life, his break-in the office and graveyards
-philo approaches to human nature: uses body of criminal hanged + of the very finest brain = already
two conflicting discourses
Adaptation: infers diegetic not based on the text but works on the novels subtexts
It plays around with them
EX:
In the novel: Victors quest motivated by irresistible craving for knowledge and emancipation from
divine authority ->hybris
In film: no general claim, but events triggering, personal reasons =private affected response to death
of loved ones (mother, trauma prof mentor) //desire to resurrect them
cf quote to allow people who love each other to be together forever
=> Questions old myth for 21th century audience; post-modern age

Adaptation is no imitation of the text, no simple transposition

It enters into real intertextual dialogue with the text to critique or even update it.
EX 2:
The process of creation lasts for several minutes in the film he elaborates upon allusions made in the
book.
In the novel:
A churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat
of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and
progress of this decay, and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel houses
Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the
grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? [] I collected bones from charnel
houses; and disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human frame. In a solitary
chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery
and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation;
In the film: emphasis on the graphic aspect -> gore scenes

Frankenstein is not only Shelleys novel but something that includes a much larger context: has been
adapted many times
-

James Whales Frankenstein (1931)

And sequels (Bride of F, Son of F, Ghostof F, F meets the
Terrence Fishers The curse of F (1957)
Jack Smights F
Mel Brooks Young F (1974)

= The Frankenstein epitext

Brannaghs Gothic scenes do come from the Whale version for instance:
-> the graveyard digging; the gallows stealing; the brain motif

 Connection of the novels hypotext to the newer epitexts

Brings together and blends into a composit body, intertextual assembling of heterogeneous
parts //faithful to the spirit and letter of the text

3. Adaptation as augmented interpretation

The intertextual process tends to produce enriched interpretations of the adapted text rather than
reproduce its received reading.

EXAMPLE (ch.4 the birth of the monster)

It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost
amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the
lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes,
and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow
eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains
and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful.
Beautiful!Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was
of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid
contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were
set, his shrivelled complexion, and straight black lips.
The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for
nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of
rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the
beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of
the being I had created, I rushed out of the room, and continued a long time traversing my bed-chamber, unable
to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured; and I threw
myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. But it was in vain: I slept
indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in
the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her; but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they
became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my
dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the
flannel. I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb
became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the windowshutters, I beheld the wretchthe miserable monster whom I had created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and
his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate
sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out,
seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed down stairs. I took refuge in the court-yard belonging to the
house which I inhabited; where I remained during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest
agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if it were to announce the approach of the
demoniacal corpse to which I had so miserably given life.
Oh! no mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not
be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then; but when those muscles
and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing such as even Dante could not have conceived.
// FILM

Brannagh => procreation: enormous bags, phallic, coital position, electric heels into a container of
fluid, naked infant
// balls, spermatozoid, womb, breath out of water, unable to walk
Choice consistent: story of monstrous birthing, of self-generation, of Vs horrified realization of

unnatural association of life and death in the monster (this guilt comes from moral and religious
preoccupations //camera angles high-low play)
BUT Shelleys answer is more oblique
through Vs dream: monster is as the illegitimate child he had with his dead mother (replacing his
lover eliz in dream)
Horror associated with motif of vision (focus on the eye)
-> horrified by gaze of his creature/son as he is fathering him + condemns it
cf psychoanalysis: is a primal scene
Mirror effects: suggests creature and V are to of a kind, like father like son (cf purple section)
In film, V not horrified but triumphant when he opens his eyes -> why?
Shots do draw parallels (out of tank; in amniotic fluid both)
But mostly contrasts: V evolves in dance-like moves / creature stitched and unable to walk
In film, V is a mix of procreator-father and re-animator, electrical resuscitation
=> Elements from cinematic epitext of F included (Whales: ascension and vertical, the close-up on
the hand, the Its alive quote)
Ambigous adaptation draws upon both, add

Manqu cours du 5 MARS

WHY ADAPT OLD BOOKS?

Heritage film and the case of Ivorys The remains of the day

1 Definition notion of heritage and the heritage industry

Heritage film is a critical term as opposed to a film genre label used by the film industry or filmmakers
themselves. It initially referred to a cluster or cycle of late 20th-centuryBritish films that were argued to
depict the England of the pre-World War II decades and past centuries in a nostalgic fashion.
However, this original polemic use has broadened out, and the term is now also used more loosely to
refer to period films with high-quality visual production values, including those produced in France,
other European countries and beyond.

2 The Merchant-Ivory model

cf A room with a view
Howards end
1980s 90s films by those filmmakers are seen as prototypes of the heritage film bcse nostalgic desire
utopian non-historic England celebrated (heritage formula)
Filmed largely on location: natural landscapes, mansions view of good old gentrified rural England.
Preserve the feel-good utopia of nicer england
The remains of the day: cf departure for the hunt scene illustrates it clearly:
Darlington hall the aristocratic house named after long line of lords
+ a foxhunting party; upper class people
+ the footmen unconditionally at the service of their masters
+ the English countryside
-> shots inspired by neo-romantic late 19th century ideal in painting VS industrialization and
revolution rising in Europe (ex: The earl of Darlington fox-hunting by John Sartorius; Gone away
by George Wright)
Voice over comments = nostalgic tone (abt revived good old day lost)
Theme recurr in heritage novels (Brontes, Austens) or films: the loss of the family mansion
cf: the opening scene -at auction, risk of loss altogether, heritage unclaimed BUT Lewis
American buying the painting =also buying the mansion -> saving the heritage
+ programmatic: parallel with American film director Ivory allowing audience to get heritage back
and enjoy it through film!

Quest for authenticity at the cinematic level

Novel: this is a genuine grand old English house, isnt it? And youre a genuine old-fashioned
English butler, not just some waiter pretending to be one. Youre the real thing, arent you?
// Direction: film on location, quest for authenticity, put into a historical frame
cf: scene: period cars and costumes, a real house
Aims at avoiding dissonance and distraction with anachronisms. Almost archeological work in this
genre of the period film
=quest for visual and historical perfection
// Stevens epitomized quest for perfection + associated with the notion of Englishness
proud English man proud of his heritage

Thematic level: Landscapes restraint and What is the perfect English butler?

Cf novel extract (P36) memory of his fathers story

Cf film: at dinner all staff chatting: Dignity core value quoted + same story of tiger
Situation dfft but word for word transcription of the novel
Expresses fundamental idea of book and film

The language, the values

Stevenss language is too characterized by restraint and self-control; dominant linguistic regime= the
understatement
// Formal stylistic devices make the film as controlled as his narrative and lgge
cf: scene:
- Stevens opening the shutters
- cut to an extreme long shot with long depth of field, embedded frames =reframing
(window+door+door) and symmetry
=> sense of systematicity and sense of Order conveyed
+ play on the threshold motif (passage one world to other past-present)
- a dissolve makes men in foreground gradually vanish // understatement reveal/conceal
- reframing ds couloir + dissolve again
- Stevens always walks up to the camera
- Symmetry between the shots too (same length, same action, same lines constructed)
Formally speaking, dominant sense of symmetry can be interpreted as structural equivalent; obeys
same rules as the world it pictures
Organize the material visually same way Stevens organized Darlington hall and controls his narrative
(meticulously)

BUT
the novel rejects the heritage formula: cf argument
(Stevens wasted his life, deluded himself about his masters respectability, wasted his sentimental life
for his fantasized duty)
Reading through the lines, behind the smoke screen of his narrative, understands it all
Film goes against that? Missed the point by giving misproportionate importance to heritage
costumes decors etc? in spite, hurting drama
Cf critic: transform narrative space into heritage space

3 Undermining the heritage formula

Cf sequence: hosting of international conference to make GB, Fr and USA accept policy of
rearmament for Germ; Stevenss father dies of a stroke; carries on with his work
Music party conforms with heritage formula
YET he undermines it in that segment
how the whole risk of being distracted by the sheer wealth is inverted, prevented by Ivory? how does
Ivory undermine the Heritage formula? (How does he prevent the viewer from being distracted by the
show of wealth and beauty?

Underlying notion of false appearances: heritage elements (beautiful sets, music, light) hide inner
Contrast between the festive atmosphere and the more intimate darker deathbed scene; opposite moods
Both cover up and reveal Stevens feelings => inversion of private and public: S shows no emotion in
front of Miss K or in the bedroom; but registers the shock and distressed in the common room
Importance of intra-diegetic music: melancholy song reflecting Stevens inner state
Viewer easily see through appearances (unlike the guests)
Outside the drawing room: more intimate frame: we expect more intimate feelings to be expressed
-but a shadow-play technique (ombre chinoise) that Ivory resorts to plus Hopkins style of acting
prevent emotions to be perceived
In bedroom: he sends doctor to gentleman in pain whereas He is in pain -> putting on a mask of
perfect English butler
But viewer suspects what lies behind the mask // see under the rhetoric of Ishiguros narrator
Aesthetical choices foreground notion of unsubstantial appearances
- shot: shadows are images, no flesh real -focus on beautiful appearances
- music group scene: cf Cardinal or Lewis looking around (vs all others in one direction): as
warnings -conceal a lie
German singer as a Lorelei; the meeting of those countries not innocent!
Dichotomy strong contrast between Appearances-surface / Depth
What is said/showed is not what really is
Englishness and Perfection: actually dangerous illusions Are out of touch with the real
world outside room

Ivory critical of the heritage formula: the kind of Englishness it advertises is not only a beautiful
faade but a fraud, even a dangerous utopia.
Film and novel compare it to Germanity

Adapting old English classics: a sort of escapism, denial and withdraw

Meta-discourse on a certain type of adaptation, play around formula (intertextual process)

POINT OF VIEW IN FILM NARRATION

Challenge addressed by screenwriters: what gaze nforced? Who sees what appears on screen? How
film convey description informed by a point of view in a novel? How to adapt first-person narr?

1. Narration in film: a brief theoretical overview

-

Who is the narrator in a film?

Identity and presence more difficult to detect Is only the implied author?
Le grand imagier (Albert Laffay) the designer at once present and invisible, the collective
intelligence that puts the film together
David Bordwell argues: no implied author behind - he applies to film and litt another concept (not
the usual view of communication of message from enunciator to receiver)
=> process more complex: an organization of a set of cues for the construction of a story (like a
jigsaw puzzle)
-

Diegetic VS Mimetic approaches (Telling VS Showing)

Litterature primarly linguistic -> film narr is special kind of enunciation then (// Laffays theory)
grand designer is the story-telling enunciator
Narr as spectacle -> an implied viewer witnessing show of events and is engaged with content and
meaning of the narr (// Bordwell) ->only audience interiority
In any case, possibility to have an internal point of view seems ruled out?
Movies are good at action; they are not good at reflective thought and conceptual thinking. Theyre
good for immediate stimulus (Pauline Kael)
Film cant show characters interior -so is first-person narration

2. Technical approaches: from narrator to focalizer

-

Common techniq: the point-of-view shot (camera replaces gaze) / eye-line match

= witness the scene through the yes of the character + sees his reaction and gets an idea of what hes
thinking
BUT not same effect as 1st pers narr in book: only catch glances
Less frequently, tried to sustain 1st p throughout the movie:
ex: Lady in the lake by R. Montgomery (1964): camera is the character BUT even if were trapped inside, dont see his face (close up show interiority), he seems more
external witness than teller of the story
-

A voice-over

Device often criticized as uncinematic, too literary even there gap 2 narr instances (sound/image)
ex: Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder
Combined to other techniques to convay intimacy: point-of-view shots with eye-line matchs, close-up
shots, while the voice-over makes enter secret thoughts (not just words but tone, grain of voice,
rhythm as a form of music)
BUT always tell story different angle -shots seen by extra: third-person narration techniques

 Techniques cannot be sustained all the way through a film = Several points of view
collaborate to narrate in a film!
Film narration = Polyphonic (cf Mikhail Bakhtin -doc)
How reality appears to a multiplicity of instances (narr, charact)
Characters merely as internal focalizers (cf Henry James)

Interiority: how to convey characters inner feelings?

CF Bakhtin doc CF Exercise analysis passage (P67 and on)

EISENHEIM THE CINEMAGICIAN

A meditation on theoretical issues concerning filmic representation

Short story reaches beyond representation towards the unrepresentable

-> how achieve it on screen, go and represent the unrepresentable in a rep media?
Set in 19th century. Evolution of Eisenheim master of illusion in Vienna attracted increasingly
captivated audience
Millhauser draws an implicit parallel between the illusionist art to another artistic form:
In the last years of the nineteenth century () the art of magic flourished as never before //
Invention of film (1891 Lumire)
travelling conjurers equipped with the latest apparatus enchanted audience with elaborate stage
illusions with ghostly apparitions and sudden vanishings
on a darkened stage, a large blank canvas was illuminated by limelight + magic lanterns
Eisenheim was a close student of photography and the new art of cinematography
Oblique allusion to graphic cine technique
Caracteristic feature (emph by narr):
-

Reflection
Symbol of a claim of subjectivity, and fluctuation mvmt
Key feature of fantastic litte: dobbles
Reflexion ambivalent: duplication of image AND thinking
Specularity (speculum latin) : speculation (hypothesis), visions almost hallu
Psyche (greek): mirror AND soul

Disobeying and killing the mimetic principal

Blurring the distinction between reality and representation