Chapter 10

Intertextuality and Films

Objectives: In this chapter, students will understand how texts shape the meaning of other texts; and
how concepts such as pastiche, allusions, citations work in a film.

Key words:intertextuality, cult, pastiche, allusion

Background

Films are not created in a vacuum, instead they emerge from a cinematic tradition. Films are produced within a
social context and filmmaking entails the careful assembly and grafting together of pre-existing elements such
as old myths, character types, and narrative conventions.

What is intertextuality?

Introduced by Julia Kristeva, intertextuality is the shaping of one text by other texts the meaning we find in a
text is not to be located in its relationship to the mind in which it seems to have originated , but in its
relationship to other texts.According to the Russian critic MikhaelBakhtin (1895-1975), all human
communication are dialogic and heteroglossic. Every utterance is a contribution to an ongoing dialogue, which
means every word reflects what has gone before. Any text is constructed of a mosaic of quotations; any text is
the absorption and transformation of another. (Kristeva)

Cinema is dialogic as films refer to other films/texts. Films are read in the light of their resemblance to other
films/texts and tap into a shared cultural heritage. Films feed on pre-existing materials and expressive forms.

We may note that intertextuality is not plagiarism but a quotation.

Cinema is dialogic as films refer to other films/texts.Films are read in the light of their resemblance to other
films/texts and tap into a shared cultural heritage, and feed on pre-existing materials and expressive forms.
An accessible example of intertextuality is the casting of Gregory Peck in Moby Dick (Original 1956)in its
remake in 1998 ; and the casting of both Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck who played the two leads in the
original Cape Fear (1962) in Scorseses Cape Fear remade in1991.

Intertextualityand Casablanca (dir., Michael Curtiz1942)

Umberto Eco in Casablanca: Cult movies and Intertextual Collage (1984), says, Casablanca is not just one
film. It is many films, an anthology.Two clichs make us laugh. A hundred clichs move us. For we sense
dimly that the clichs are talking among themselves and celebrating a reunion. Further, An intertextual
archetype is a topos or standard situation that manages to be particularly appealing to a given cultural area or a
historical period.

Based on a play, Everybody comes to Ricks by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison, the film is a love triangle
where a beautiful woman (Ingrid Bergman) is caught between an idealistic husband (Paul Henreid) and a
cynical lover (Humphrey Bogart).

Umberto Eco maintains that Casablanca is not one movie. It is movies. He gives the following list of
archetypes in Casablanca
Music
The Magic key (the visa);
The Magic Horse (the airplane);
The charming scoundrels (Renault, the prefect);
The Desperate lover;
The uncontaminated Hero (Husband)
The Faithful servant & his master (Sam & Rick);
The damsel in white;
The villains (Nazis)

Casablanca has influenced several films down the years: Terry Gilliams Brazil (1985) has a group of
bureaucrats watching Casablanca; Herbert Ross Play it Again Sam (1972) has the shadow of Bogart looming
large over the proceedings, and Bryan Singers cult The Usual Suspects ( 1995) owes its title to a dialogue from
Casablanca, Lets round up the usual suspects.
Consider the Western, which is an abiding genre that has certain typical traits. One of them being: A lone
stranger comes into a town that has two gangs/families that are at war. He wants to play both sides to make as
much money as he can off them, but ends up getting in trouble with both rivals, and has to fight for his life.

While discussing cult films, Umberto Eco contends, in order to transform a work into a cult object one must be
able to break, dislocate, unhinge it so that one can remember only parts of it, irrespective of their original
relationship with the whole. An unhinged movie should display not one central idea but many. It should not
reveal a coherent philosophy of composition.Cult movies have a world that fans and enthusiasts can explore
independently and often borrow from other films/texts. Cult Films have limited but very special appeal to a set
of followers. Cult films are usually strange, quirky, offbeat, eccentric, oddball, or surreal, with outrageous,
weird, unique and cartoony characters or plots, and garish sets. They are often considered controversial because
they step outside standard narrative and technical conventions. They can be very stylized, and they are often
flawed or unusual in some striking way.

Some of the most recognized cult directors are:Roger Corman, John Waters, Ed Wood, Quentin Tarantino, the
Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, and Tim Burton.

In the sections that follow , we will understand how Bladerunner (1982) and The Matrix (1999) are cult films,
and the intertextual elements implicit in the two films

Bladerunner (dir Ridley Scott 1982)

Based on Philip K Dicks Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). The novel refers to Mary Shelleys
Frankenstein (1818). A postmodern classic--- quotes, alludes, and refers to other texts. In postmodern tradition,
the film resists closure.the indeterminacy of identity.Blade Runner was not an instant commercial success,
instead it was more of a cultural success. Also, worth noting is the representation of narrative space and
temporality, particularly the depiction of thenoir image of LA which was to influence the subsequent futuristic
films (BR is set in 2019, and reflects the futuristic vision of LA and its dystopia).

3 Major aspects of Bladerunner:

City-speak (language);
The Tyrell Corporation;
The replicant
According to Hampton Fancher, the original screen-writer, Bladerunner was already meant to be cautionary.
For instance, Bladerunner was shot during the dawn of Reaganism. ..the cruel politics portrayed in the film
were my rebuttal of Reagonism, in a sense.

The City as a tower of Babel

The street jargon is polyglot: Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Japanese;English, is the lingua franca, which
rubs shoulders with vernacular (Chinese, Japanese), for the petty entrepreneurs; code-switching creole; and
Esper, the talking computer network (specialized & accessible to the elite).

The Tyrell Corpn as a pastiche

In the architectural layout of Blade Runner the connection of postmodernism to post industrialism is most
evident. The building is one mile high (referring to Frank Lloyd Wrights never realized skyscraper project).
The corporation is the center of power in the city. Tyrell corp is responsible for pollution and creation of
replicants for free labour. The replicant is used for the DefenceProgramme, political killings, handling nuclear
material and comes with a built in obsolescence, to keep the commerce running, and the corporation uses
various kinds of sub-specialization , like the eyes shop, indicate the assembly line production.

In Philip K Dicks novel a moral question arises from the possibility that humans might be "retired" by mistake.
It is proved, in fact, that a certain "type" of humans respond to the test the same as do replicants that is the
schizophrenic. Thus replicants and schizophrenics are "scientifically" proved to be the same.

The Matrix (Wachowski Bros. 1999)

The setting is in the year 2019 and presents a dark, dystopic view of the world. The hero leads a double life as
Anderson , a company man and Neo, a hacker. Soon with the help of Trinity and Morpheus, Neo discovers the
world he previously existed was a computer generated virtual reality programme controlled by the AI machines
mankind developed years ago. Human beings are reduced to human batteries used for machines for theirenergy.
The Matrix controls the creation and dissemination of ideas, and Morpheus attempts to restore the workers to
consciousness.It is ultimately impossible to tell the difference between the real & the unreal because reality can
be simulated and improved on. It may be possible that in the future, simulated (virtual) reality will be preferable
to normal reality.

The Matrix and Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) A key concept in Baudrillard is Hyperreal, a situation where a
kind of virtual reality is produced by models of what we want reality to be, aworld in which simulations or
imitations of reality have become more real than reality itself, for example, theWatergate and the Disneyland.
For Baudrillard, consumer culture has evolved from a state in which we are surrounded by representations or
imitations of things that really exist, toward a state in which our lives are filled with simulations, objects that
look as if they represent something else but have really created the reality they seem to refer to. In such a
situation, the world of simulations increasingly takes on a life of its own, and reality erodes to the point that it
becomes a desert.

Notice the scene where Neo hides his money in a copy of BaudrillardsSimulacra and Simulation (1981).
Morpheus introduces Neo to the real world by welcoming him to the desert of the real, from Simulacra and
Simulation. The book is a criticism of the unreal consumer culture we live in, a culture that distracts us from the
reality that we are being exploited, just as the machines exploit the humans in The Matrix.

The film also alludes to Platos Allegory of the Caves from Republic. Observe how Neo is pulled from a kind
of cave in the first Matrix film, when he sees the real world for the first time. His reality, in other words, is
only an illusion. For Plato, the shadows on the cave walls and the statues that made the shadows were only
copies of things in the real world. As Neo is the chosen one to save humanity from ignorance and acceptance of
a false reality, the question arises: What is real?

Reference to Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carrolls (1865), childrens fiction has found a tremendous influence
on The Matrix. Neo is told by Morpheus to "follow the White Rabbit and Morpheus makes constant references
to being down the rabbit hole. Also, Neos first transition from the Matrix to the "real world" takes place by
interacting with a looking glass. Morpheus also directs Neo to choose a pill: a red or a blue one. Neos and the
fate of humanity depend on the choices he makes.

As in The Wizard of Oz (1939) a character in Matrix says, were not in Kansas anymore. The World of liquid
pods recalls the rings of hell in Dantes 14th century poem The Divine Comedy which finds resonance in David
Finchers Seven (1995). Again, The Matrix borrows liberally from Hong Kong martial arts films. The film is
also inspired by a Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell (1995)andrefers to world religions, oracles as well as
Internet, cyberspace & thought experiments.

Films for viewing:

The Wizard of Oz (1939), Ghost in the Shell (1995), Yojimbo (1961) , A Fistful of Dollars (1964), The Rocky
Horror Picture Show, 1975 ; Fight Club,1999 ; Donnie Darko, 2001; TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1997-
2003, Films for viewing: Pulp Fiction (1994), Last Man Standing (1996).
Suggested readings:

1. Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. 2nd ed. NY: Routledge, 2011.

2. Cancalon, Elaine D. &Spacagna Antoine (eds). Intertextuality in Literature and Film. Florida:
University of Florida Press, 1994.
3. Iamploski, Mikhail. The Memory of Tiresias: Intertextuality and Film. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998.
4. Worton , Michael & Judith Still. Intertextuality: Theories and Practice. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1990.

Suggested websites:

http://www.enquirylearning.net/ELU/Issues/Research/JRSaddendum.html
http://www.decodedscience.com/intertextuality-all-texts-are-part-of-a-matrix-of-utterances/24465
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/visualarts/r4100/inter.html
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheHeroWithAThousandFaces
http://www.uqtr.ca/AE/vol_4/gunhild.htm
http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/sem09.html

Quiz

1. Answer the following in a sentence or two:

i. Why are films intertextual in nature?

ii. What is the central idea of BaudrillardsSimulacra and Simulacrum?
iii. How many intertextual references are made to Alice in Wonderland in The Matrix?
iv. What is the nature of Tyrell Corp in Bladerunner?

2. Match the following:

i Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? a Plato
ii The Divine Comedy b Philip K Dick
iii Republic c Dante
iv Alice in Wonderland d Lewis Carroll

3. State whether the following statements are true or false:

i.Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese anime.

ii.The Matrix is intertextual in nature.
iii. Gregory Peck has no role in the remake of Cape Fear.

4. Assignment

Choosing the works of either David Lynch or Tim Burton explain how these directors

Answer key
2.i-b ; ii- c; iii-a ; iv-d
3.i- True; ii.- True ; iii-False