Reading Response for April 12th

1. Rhodes places a distinction between intertextuality and allegory by defining them as such: intertextuality is a mode of consumption where filmmakers make references to, name, or point to films or styles of the past, such as Tarantino's Pulp Fiction with its clever references, but allegory is not just a means of consumption.  It is also a mode of production in filmmaking, which means it is ingrained into the filmmaking process itself as a way of making films not just consuming them.  Allegory allows for metaphorical representations within films, such as the AIDS epidemic in Haynes' Safe, which is accomplished by means of recombination, as we've learned about with both Soderbergh and Van Sant.  Allegory is important to Haynes because it is the way in which he makes films.  It allows his films to be more serious and complex while still making references to other films/filmmakers of the past through recombination.  

2. Haynes uses elements of the mis-en-scene to alienate Carol from her house.  False beams on the inside of the house and sectional sofas within the house act to isolate Carol from her own living space.  The house gets the overhand because it is meant to be overpowering in the shots where Carol is composed within it or around the outside.  This is similar to Sirk because he used similar tricks in his films.  Sirk's domestic spaces, meaning houses, were more disorienting than overpowering, however.  Haynes' use of the overpowering house is an allegorical reference to Sirk's disorienting domestic spaces of the past.

3. Rhodes means that using the allegorical filming method is the only way that Safe could have efficiently and effectively represented the AIDS epidemic it was meant to discuss.  Haynes uses a demographic (white, middle class) that is not usually thought to be plagued by the AIDs epidemic.  The differences and similarities in Carol's illness, as it is compared to AIDS in the viewer's mind, brings about thoughts of the epidemic as well.  Haynes adds little touches, such as the year in the film being 1987 (an integral year in the fight of the AIDS epidemic), in order to keep the audience thinking about the allegory he has constructed.  Had Haynes just come right out and discussed the AIDS epidemic directly, he probably would not have been able to reach his audience in the ways that he really wished to reach them.

4. One: The free-indirect surrogate for Haynes as a storyteller and the audience as fact-finding spectators.  Two: A full participant in the glittery genderfuck and  camp identity aspects of the film.  Three: He is the beacon of sexual coming into being within the film.  Arthur is similar to Thompson in Citizen Kane because they are both investigating the backgrounds of their subjects of interest.  They are different because Arthur takes an active role in the investigation while Thompson remains solely an outsider.


5.  The dialectal relationship of Arthur and Brian within the film and their inter-relations are connected through the film's narrative.  Brian influences Arthur's dress and make up as he enters into the world of glam rock.  They're linked when Arthur becomes sexually aroused and masturbates to a picture of Brian.  Their connections to the media through Brian's glam rock background and Arthur's journalism background connect them, as well.  Experiences by one character influence or are similar to the narrative/visual aspects of the other character.  They are further connected dialectically through fantasy.  Brian's character represents the performative fantasy and that of impossible fabrication.  He does not define himself in contradiction.  Arthur is simply a more subtle version of Brian.


6. The links and filler for gaps within the non-chronology of the sequences and shots.  There is no content to explain the intervals of time.  The information about the time between seventies glam rock and eighties corporate culture is lacking as the film transitions between the two, even with the historical markers that the film presents to the audience.