Re: White Noise and Film

James Mulholland (jsm5q@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU)
Mon, 17 Feb 1997 12:40:19 -0500

I saw a lot of film styles in White Noise and Vineland as well. The thing
that I find most interesting is the way that the visual look of film
structures both the way these books are written, and even the way some of
the charcter's think. The logic of film has colored everything, so memeories
become flashbacks, even in the way that Zoyd remembers Frenesi. He details
her entire body at a single moment, as if the camera was panning in a super
slo-mo. To me, this sounds much like the look of film. I think in both books
there is some kind of way that the way that memeopry and thinking is
constructed is different because of film. I was actually thinking about in
relation to memory loss, but can only come up with a couple of half-hearted
gestures right now. Technologies as extensions of the human mind? a film
camera stuck in everyone's head?

James