What interests you about intertexuality in film?

Intertextuality is the inclusion from one source of an idea, scene or text in another. In terms of film, this means borrowing one idea and using it in another film. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966.  William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence”. This is also an example of intertextuality, the mentioning of quotes and the explanation of intertexuality itself.

The use of intertextuality can some times be seen as a negative thing, a lack of ideas or uniqueness. However, it shows inspiration, it is quoting a film within another.I think the interesting thing is sometimes, for a certain type of audience, an audience highly interested in a particular genre, when watching the film will recognise a particular scene from a previous film they have seen.

In class we looked at how four different films, 'Whart lies beneath?', 'The Stepfather', ' Fatal attraction' and the student thriller, 'Succubus' link to the movie, 'Phsycho'. The mise-en-scene, the setting, and the characters all play a big part in intertextuality. Most scenes happen in a bathroom or kitchen, the music changes just for that particular scene, their is always two actors, and only one is in control of the knife at a certain time.

It allows the audience to give themselves a clear idea of what is about to or happening.

Here are four different shots, one of each of the movies mentioned, including 'Phsycho':

 'What Lies Beneath'

 

'Fattal Attraction'

 'Phsyco'

 'The Stepfather'

 'Scubbus'