Film as "Explicador" for Hypertext

Author(s): Joe Essid

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Source: Computers and the Humanities, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Aug., 2004), pp. 317-333
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 Computersand the Humanities 38: 317-333, 2004. 317
a 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Film as Explicadorfor Hypertext

JOE ESSID
Writing Center, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173, USA
E-mail: jessid@richmond.edu

Abstract. A few ideas from film theory,most notably Eisenstein'sconceptof montage,can

improve students'understandingof hypertextsand lessen their resistanceto open-ended,
nonlinearnarratives.These structuralcharacteristics,so frustratingto many new readersof
hypertext,can also be found in popular and experimentalfilms. In particular,Godfrey
Reggio's (1983) documentaryKoyaanisqatsiprovides a good starting point for merging
hypertextand filmtheory.Koyaanisqatsi not only brokenew groundfor documentaryfilm;its
structurealso resemblesLandow'smodelfor an axial hypertext.At the sametime,techniques
pioneeredby Landow,Joyce,Guyer,and othersinvolvedin creatingand critiquinghypertext
can be used to examinefilm. Having studentslook closely at Koyaanisqatsi's composition
allows them to becomeamateurcinematographers, who now possesssoftwarefor breakinga
film down and examiningits composition,montage, transitions,subliminalmessages,and
motifs - a processthat may then be appliedto hypertext.

Key words:documentary,film, hypertext,Koyaanisqatsi,

montage,pedagogy

1. Film, Hypertext,ResistantReaders
Long beforeLuis Bufiuelbegana careerthat would makehim one of Spain's
most famous directors,he sat in darkenedtheaterswatchinga new techno-
logical spectacleunfold. Bufiuelnotes that art criticsscoffedat earlyfilms as
"more or less the equivalentof an amusementpark-goodfor the common
folk, but scarcelyan artistic enterprise"(1983, p. 33). However slight the
subjectmatter of the new form of amusement,its structurewas difficultto
follow:
Now we're so used to film language,to the elementsof montage, to both
simultaneousand successiveaction, to flashbacks,that our comprehension
is automatic;but in the earlyyears,the publichad a hardtime deciphering
this new pictorialgrammar.They neededan explicadorto guide themfrom
scene to scene (1983, p. 32).
Spanishtheaterseach employedan explicador,who stood besidethe screento
explaina film'snarrative.While such interpretersdo not seem to have been
common in the United States, they did exist in other nations. In Korea they
werecalledpyonsa("movietellers")and, notably,they stood betweenviewers
of silent films and the screen(Lew, 2002).
318 JOEESSID

While I try not to interposemyself that directly between students and

subjectmatterwhen I include hypertextin class, all too often I find myself
acting like Buijuel'sman beside the screen.I guide students,laboriouslyat
times, throughmajorlexia in a hypertext,askinghow each bit of text might
affectthe comprehensionof a narrative.This is hardlya good use of students'
critical-thinkingskillsor my time;I bringhypertextinto the classroomin part
to demonstratehow a new mediumworks and in part to encouragestudents
to considerhow narrativefunctionsin nontraditionaltypes of writing.
We begin with the obvious question - what is hypertext? - before we
confront other issues. On the surfaceat least, all media today seem hyper-
linked. We see "screen crawls" at the bottom as we watch CNN, every
advertisementprovides a URL, and the layout of many print publications
echoesWeb-pagedesign.Still, these are not exactlyhypertexts,as I point out
in class, though the natureof linked work itself is changing.Text-onlypro-
jects are harderto find now, as still and movingdigitalimageryhave become
common. Then thereis scale. Even if we limit our definitionof hypertextto
"electronictext with instantlyavailablelinks to other texts and media," as
one student recentlyput it, the entire World-WideWeb becomes one vast
hypermediaproject. For the purposes of class, however, we consider "a
hypertext"any set of lexias sharing authorship;thus an Eastgate creative
hypertextor a corporateWeb site is one hypertext.My role in class, off to the
side of the screen,is to help novice readersacquireways to read and analyze
creativeand corporatehypertexts.
While doing this, I find studentsquicklybecome savvy "ad busters"yet
struggleto get past their initiallynegativereactionsto the non-linear,open-
endedstructureof muchfictionalhypertext.Too often, afterthe firstblushof
curiosityhas faded,manyresponsescouldbe summedup as 'what'sthepoint?'
or 'where'sthe story?'Recently,one of my classesreadand critiquedJoyce's
Afternoon, Jackson's Patchwork Girl, and Amerika's Grammatron;to sum-
marizethe majorityopinion,creativehypertextremainsan interestingexper-
imentthat would neverattracta popularaudience.As one studentquippedin
an online post, "the more of these hypertextsI read,the less I like them. The
authorsseemto intentionallybe as pretentiousand 'artsy-fartsy'as possible."
Ratherthan servingalone as explicador,I began to bringin film to assist
me. Intellectuallystimulatingparallelsexist betweenthe "pictoralgrammar"
of film and the transitionsand motifs of hypertext,analogiesstrongenough
to merit close study in class. Miles (1999), who has exploredin detail the
connectionsbetweenhypertextand cinema, feels that "hypertextis in fact
cinema'srevengeon the word." I had followed a parallelline of reasoning:
for such resistantreaders,perhapscinema could come riding the rescue of
hypertext,and I trieda differentapproachfor teachinghypertextthat yielded
interestingresults.In a recentfreshmancompositionclass we began by dis-
cussing cinematography and the characteristics it shares with hypertext, and I
FILM AS EXPLICADOR FOR HYPERTEXT 319

screeneda few scenesillustratingmontage,flashbacks,and cameraangles to

makemy points. My studentsknow film, at least at the level of story, as they
provedwhenwe discussedindeterminatemomentsor non-lineararrangement
of sequencesin popularfilmssuch as Tarantino's(1994b)PulpFiction.I was
pleasantlysurprisedto find that when we then readhypertext,studentswere
morecharitableabout the mediumthan otherclasseshad been. Studentsalso
used the languageof Web designand hypertextto describefilm.The common
language students employed, and the ease of moving between media
encouragedme to try it again in a seriesof upcomingclasses.
Although during my first experiment most students did not become
enthusiasts of hypertext fiction, they withheld judgment of texts and the
medium until they had read and compared several hypertexts. In fact, a few
of the students most critical of the Eastgate hypertexts and Amerika's work
went on to craft StorySpace hypertexts, trying out narrative structures they
felt might work better than what they had read. Overall the class was
receptive to considering the reasons for hypertext's emergence and for the
academic interest it generated. I attribute some of the students' acceptance to
theirever-moremultitaskedlives and viewinghabits,cultivatedby the editing
style of music video and the compositionof much contemporarydance and
rap music.Facultycan pretendto be hip, but most of us are not hip-hophip.
As Michael Joyce (2000) has noted, "in an age like ours that privileges
polyvocality,multiplicity,and constellatedknowledgea sustainedattention
span may be less useful than successive attendings"(p. 159). Given this
premiseand the recent connectionsmy studentsmade, I plan to use more
film. I will go so far as to screena few in their entirety,paying particular
attentionto Godfrey Reggio's (1983) Koyaanisqatsi.
Even if the nature of undergraduates' attention spans has changed, too
many students' eyes and ears remain untrained at picking items out of 'the
mix' of music, video, or writing. Discussing film serves as a first step in
alerting them to the roles of cinematic devices such as transitions, motifs, and
flashbacks. From there, it is a small intellectual leap to consider the analogue
for each of these devices in hypertext.The students I teach can tolerate
cinematicambiguity,at least in a cult film like PulpFiction.The movie tells a
tale of criminallife througha series of vignettesthat, while related,do not
follow sequentially;a characterdies in one sequence,then in the next the
same characterplays an importantrole. Tarantino'swork is only a starting
point, however. Other films that provide multipleviewpointsor non-linear
storylinescan servewell for grapplingwith the structureof hypertexts,such
as Kurosawa's (1950) Rashomon, Morris's (1997) Fast, Cheap, and Out of
Control,and Nolan's (2000)Memento.For a sustainedexampleof how such
teaching might work, however, I will look most closely at how Reggio's
recently re-issued documentaryKoyaanisqatsiresembles Landow's (1997)
model for an 'axial'hypertext.
320 JOEESSID

Koyaanisqatsiemerged as one of the most coherent responses to the

economic disparity and environmentaldegradation of the Reagan era.
Reggio (n.d., a59) reactsespeciallyagainstwhat JacquesEllul (1964) called
technique,an applicationof technology that "destroys,eliminates,or sub-
ordinatesthe naturalworld, and does not allow this worldto restoreitself or
even to enterinto a symbioticrelationwith it" (p. 79). To capturethe pace of
a world remadeby technique,Reggio blends Philip Glass' score and Ron
Fricke'scinematographyto createa relentlesscollisionbetweentechnological
civilizationand a landscapethat is in turn pristine,altered,ruined,and re-
shaped.This environmentalmessageremainsrelevanttoday, with our rising
sea-levelsand increasinglyapocalypticweather;the Hopi termKoyaanisqatsi
can be translated"crazylife, life in turmoil,life out of balance,life disinte-
grating,a life that calls for anotherway of living" (Reggio, 1983).
Thatwarningis onlypartof thefilm'scontinuingappeal.Yearsbeforemany
of us openedan Eastgatehypertextor sawthe words'WebBrowser'in a major
publication,we witnessedsomethingthat we would laterrecognizeas 'hyper-
textual.'Though many creativeworks could be called that, the parallelsbe-
tweenKoyaanisqatsi and hypertextarestrongin manyregards.At the simplest
level, we may substitute 'text' for 'life' in the definition of the word
Koyaanisqatsito yield negative perceptions of hypertext (Birkerts, 1994;
Oppenheimer,1997).Workingagainst such resentment,as studentslearn to
navigatethe 'craziness'of hypertext,is part of the ritual of readingin that
medium.
The parallelsbetween Koyaanisqatsiand hypertextare deeply rooted in
structuralaspects of Reggio's filmmaking;the directorsaw his work as "a
kind of direct communicationwithout the narration, without the story,
withoutthe acting"in which" it's up to the viewerto pick out what they [sic]
want"(Reggio,n.d., a25). Sucha processcan be painfulfor novicereadersof
hypertext,wherea link is instantaneous,evenwhenaccompaniedby a map of
the text (as in most StorySpacecreations).With a film,however,studentscan
dissect the 'source code' with editing software or even with Apple's and
Microsoft'sfreemedia-players,in effectseeingthe director'suse of transition
in action. In Koyaanisqatsi,frame-by-frameviews reveal how scenes and
sequences resemblelexia, and how the film's montage resemblesinternal
hyperlinksbetween scenes or external links from those scenes to current
events that tweak a viewer'secological conscience.Such close examination
resemblestaking a StorySpacetext apart to see when its author employed
guardfields or nested structureto make linkingwork certainways.

2. CinematicMontageand HypertextStructure
To teach a film like Reggio's, and to begin uniting that instructionwith
hypertexttheory,we can returnto SergeiEisenstein'sdescriptionand defense
FILM AS EXPLICADOR FOR HYPERTEXT 321

of montage.Americansusuallycall this editingor cutting, a processdistinct

from mise-en-scene, the subjectof a shot and the mannerof composing it,
such as lighting,cameraangle, movement,and multipleexposure(Monaco,
1981). For Eisenstein(1942), montage enabled directorsto assemblea col-
lection of linked representations
to provideviewerswith an image.To get at
Eisenstein'sconcept of image,picturea stopped clock representinga single
point in time while a tickingwatch providesan image of time passing.Next,
build shots of the watch into a sequence:a shot of the watch, its ticking
dominatingthe viewer's attention;a shot of a person rushing, suitcase in
hand, throughan airport;a shot of a jet takingoff; anothershot of the watch
and its relentlessticking.Taken together,the montagetransformsthe shots,
and the viewer realizes that a would-be passengerhas already missed the
flight.
Like many documentaries,Reggio's film uses shots from one location to
form prolongedsequencesor series of relatedscenes (Chesebroand Bertel-
sen, 1996).Most filmsare not shot in sequence,althoughall shots and scenes
have some intrinsicunity, much like singlelexia in hypertext.Both hypertext
and film, however,do not usually consist of a single lexia or shot (though
Warholdid make single-shotfilms).Moreover,montagedoes not consist of
just anythingput together in sequence;as Manovich contends, "[j]uxtapo-
sitions of elements should follow a particularsystem, and these juxtaposi-
tions shouldplay a key role in how the work establishesits meaning,and its
emotionaland aestheticeffects"(2002,p. 158).Earlyfilm-makersrecognized
that montageproduces"a dialecticalprocessthat createsa thirdmeaningout
of the originaltwo meaningsof the adjacentshots" (Monaco, 1981,p. 183).
Thereis a slight differencein hypertext,as Miles (1999)claims;linkageitself
can be enough to lead readers to presume that two items are related, so the
linking device thereby transformswhat it connects. This is an important
distinctionfrom film; while we often make a similarpresumptionfor two
adjacentshots, unless the editors include a noticeabletransitionsuch as a
slow fade or wipe, a film's'links'do not commandour attentionin the same
way as underlinedor colored HTML text.
A few other important differencesbetween film and hypertext merit
attention.Whileviewingfilm does involvementallyconnectingshots, scenes,
and sequences,we generallydo not watch film the way we read hypertexts.
Readers of hypertextemploy a "practiceof reuse or repetition,"although
their "readerlycompetenciesare much less developed"than for other forms
of text (Miles, 2000). Dependingon the softwareused, readerscan annotate
or leave bookmarksbehind in a way less cumbersomethan for traditional
texts or film. And although a finite - if huge - number of potential readings
exist, the readerchooses whichlinks to follow. On the other hand, unlesswe
considerinteractivegamesto be filmsor use a DVD playerto shuffle,repeat,
or skip scenes, "film-watching" is a fairly linear process. So even for those
322 JOE ESSID

films that wildly violated audienceexpectationswhen first released,such as

Salvador Dali's and Luis Builuel's An AndalusianDog, we tend to watch
them as they were 'cut.'
In time what once shocked or baffledfilm audiencesbecomes common-
place. As Bufiuelclaimed,we rarelynotice montage today; even long ago,
when he and Dali filmed their most notorious sequence- a cloud moving
across the moon cutting, quite literally,to a razor slicing an eyeball - the
shots draw their power from viewers'understandingof montage. The tech-
nique became common enough that when Arthur Penn (1967) dropped it for
a bank robbery in Bonnie and Clyde, audiences were shocked (Menand,
2003). Hollywood'sProductionCode had previouslymandatedmontagefor
gunplay: a gun fires in one shot, cut to victim being hit (Menand, 2003).
Normally,such transitionsprovidean impressionof part of a film;Reggio's
entirefilm is one long montagecontrastingtwo incessantand warringforces:
technologicaldevelopmentand earth'scycles of change. In sequenceupon
sequence,Reggio buildsfirstupon what is majesticin natureand humanlife,
then how humans and their machinesat best crudelymimic, and at worst
destroy the rhythmsof the naturalworld. As the Hopi with whom Reggio
had lived told him, the modernway of livingoutsidetheirpueblo is "insane"
(Reggio, n.d., a81). Through footage and music alone, Koyaanisqatsicap-
tures the frenziedpace of technologicalcivilization,enablinga dialecticthat
Eisenstein(1949)saw arising"fromthe collisionof independentshots - shots
even oppositeto one another"(p. 49). Miles (2000)findsa similardialecticin
"those hypertexts that emphasize linear discontinuity ... able to be explored
by the juxtapositions generated by highlighting the disjunction between
episodes."
Hypertextlinks in such cases marka point of collision, and as such are a
new form of punctuationin our writing, the first to emerge in centuries
(Johnson, 1997). Although texts have long extended or transcended
orthographythroughillustrations,unusualtypography,pop-upartwork,and
more recently, photography, it was never before possible for a simple element
of text to signal a pause, then summon forth instantly a wholly different text
or image in its entirety. Granted, each time an event in a story reminds us of
another text or image we recall it, but the "linked item" is not literally there
before us unless we physicallygo to get it. Hyperlinks,moreover,make for
odd punctuationindeed;I often describea link to my studentsas simulta-
neously 'and/or/but,'a relationshipfor which our alphabetlacks an elegant
word or symbol. CommercialWeb sites have internallinks that, of course,
signify one type of relationship("want to see your new Mini Cooper in
another color?").The relationshipbecomesmurky for the links in creative
hypertext,even for externallinks at commercialsites ("Wantto hear more
about otherBMWproducts?"is not rare;"Ratheruse publictransit?"would
be). And while the new punctuationof the hyperlinkdoes signalassociation,
FILM AS EXPLICADOR FOR HYPERTEXT 323

it need signal little else. With hyperlinksno "relationshipof hierarchyis

assumed"betweenmaterialconnected,somethingthat violates centuriesof
assumptionsabout text, until a "hypertextreaderis like Robinson Crusoe,
walking across the sand ... leaving imprints that, like computer hyperlinks,
follow from one found object to another"(Manovich,2001, pp. 76-78).
The trail one follows in some films can be similarlydisjointed.Though
pioneersof cinema such as V.I. Pudovkinpreferredto think of montage as
simply "linkage"(Monaco, 1981),Eisenstein'sdepictionof montage-as-col-
lision best describesthe editingtechniquesReggio uses and that dominatea
reader'sattention at key spots in creativehypertext.In Afternoon,Joyce's
(1987)earlylexia with its teasing"Wantto hearabout it?"is followedby the
blunt "I want to say I may have seen my son die this morning."This jux-
taposition,one that must be read to continuewith Afternoon,jars otherwise
resistant student readers into looking for more information about the
quandaryfacing Joyce's narrator.For other hypertextsmy students con-
centratedon details that to me seemedcurious but incidental,such as the
narrator'sdetachedfoot in one part of PatchworkGirl.This detail shocked
studentsand becamethe focal point for an entireclass discussion.Lexia like
Joyce'sand Jackson's,or Reggio'smemorablescenes,becomelandmarksfor
the remainderof a reading/viewingexperience.As my class explores these
texts ("explore"itself capturingthe experienceof reader-as-Crusoe) we look
hard at the choices or lack of them given by authors' links. Thus we
encountera connectingdevicethat embracesEisenstein'stheoryof montage-
as-collision,Miles'juxtapositionand disruption,and Johnson's(1997) sense
of linkingas a synthesisof otherwisedivergenttextual elements.
From Reggio's similaruse of montagewe get his film'smost remarkable
scenes,ones that disturbby collision.As this articledevelopedKoyaanisqatsi
becameavailableagain, so I begandiscussingthe filmwith manypeople who
had not seen it in two decades. Certain sequences juxtaposing wildly different
shots have remainedstronglyembeddedin these viewers'memories.Several
recalled a long sequencelinking independentshots of mesas, clouds, and
mountains. This tranquility ends by cutting to a shot of Lake Powell
gleaming in the desert, drowningstone arches and the remainsof ancient
culturesin Glen Canyon. An even darkersequencecuts from a mushroom
cloud - the clenched fist of the Cold War - to footage of a power plant on a
beach where,in the foreground,a motherand child sleep on the sand.
In moving betweenshots, Reggio did not use the most common form of
montage,continuitycuttingused to trimexcess footage without disorienting
viewers (Monaco, 1981). Instead, each scene and extended sequence in
Koyaanisqatsican standalone like hypertextlexia, yet each buildsupon what
came before and alludes to scenes and ideas elsewherein the film. This
montage, of cinematicflashbacksand foreshadowing,sustains the 'and/or/
but' punctuationbut also functionslike 'one-to-many'or 'many-to-one'links
324 JOE ESSID

in hypertext (Landow, 1997, pp. 13-14). For example, after seeing the
movementof cloudsovercanyonsearlyin the film,viewerslaterwatchclouds
passing over cities, billowing from power plants and bombing ranges, or
reflectingin the mirroredfacadesof skyscrapersas touristsgawk upward.In
places, the mise-en-sceneis so close to force a recollectionof an earliershot.
As Johnson(1997)and Miles (1999)have observedabout hypertextuallinks,
Reggio's cloud sequenceslikewisehave both associativepower, by showing
the majesticshapes and motions of all clouds, and disassociativepower, by
starklycontrastingunspoilednaturaland pollutedurbandeserts.
Reggio uses Glass'musicas a linkingdeviceas well.Whenpowerfulscenes
in Koyaanisqatsiclash with what comes immediatelybefore or after them,
Glass' score, 17 piecesof music and five movements(Reggio,n.d., a11), may
change radicallyor even disappearfrom sequenceto sequence.A striking
exampleof this occurswhen the viewerconfrontsa solid minute of frenetic
cuts betweentarget-rangeshots of aerialbombing,with fireballs(a motif that
begins early in the film) swallowingold militaryvehicles.The last explosion
cuts without a transitiondirectlyto completelysilent, time-lapsefootage of
midtown Manhattan. The only visible movements in this shot are the
shadows of clouds across tall buildings(a forceful link to earlierlong-dis-
tance shots of mesas and clouds). In such montage:
Thejuxtapositionof thesepartialdetails ... calls to life and forcesinto the
light that generalqualityin which each detail has participatedand which
binds together all the details into a whole,namely, into that generalized
image, wherein the creator, followed by the spectator, experiencesthe
theme (Eisenstein,1942,p. 11).
The sequencesin Koyaanisqatsican be mappedas an axial hypertext(Figure
1), a model Landow (1997) sees in footnoted scholarlywork, online ency-
clopedias,and other referenceworks. For this axial model, the movementof
the film begins with a shot of cave paintings engulfed in a fireball, then
proceedsin a straightforwardmannerto imagesof natureeverymore firmly
under control, startingwith untouchedcanyons and desert, next the con-
quered,industrializedlandscapesof Lake Powell and factoryfarms,then the
blastedterrainof power plants, factories,and finallydoomed, unsustainable
urban sprawl.
With an axial hypertext,the movementof the readingflows, to employ
one of Guyer's(1996) metaphorfor hypertextas an all-encompassingmed-
ium that moves like a river. The progressof the film, returningagain and
again to moments of destructivechange and similar images in different
contexts, resemblesa river that bends so viewerscan see where they have
been and guess wherethey are going. The journey,of course, is not entirely
pleasant: the viewer's 'ride' calls to mind Deliveranceas much any other
archetypalriverjourney.Map-making,usingboth Landow'saxialmodel and
FILM AS EXPLICADOR FOR HYPERTEXT 325

Scenes Sequences

CAVE
PANTINGS

Explosion
Apocalypse:

I
Clouds WILD
NATURE

Rowsof
Mines,dams .
SApocalypse:
powerlines
I
Rowsof TAMED
NATURE
crops
1
Rowsof
.Apocalypse:Urbansprawl.
buildings

Clouds BIGCITIES
I
Rowsof
cars,tanks War,decay
*Apocalypse:

PROPHECY

Figure 1. Reggio's Montage as axial hypertext, with links between repeated scenes and
sequences

Guyer's metaphors, opens vistas for students studying (or constructing) film
and hypertexts.
As with the many-to-one linking that permits returning to key hypertext
lexia, Koyaanisqatsi uses similar repetition to guide the viewers on a journey
through changing landscapes. First there are simple and recurring visual
elements, such as the clouds and rows of created objects - cornfields, Soviet
tanks, hot dogs, high-rise apartments - in a human-altered landscape. Sec-
ond, each sequence in the growth and eventual collapse of humanity's
influence on the land is marked by an apocalypse, each transition evoking
earlier destruction while leading to a new stage of technological development.
One sees canyons flooded and mountains blasted for their utility as com-
modities, highways and power lines crossing farmland or bordering resi-
dences and beaches, urban life moving at an ever faster pace until war and
demolitionobliterateour concretecanyons.The filmends whereit began:the
mysterious explosion that swallowed up the cave paintings is repeated,
morphing into a failed Atlas missile launch. That too yields to a Native
326 JOEESSID

Americans scene again, the Hopi Prophecy of the end-times: "Near the day
of purification,there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky"
(Reggio, 1983).

3. Teaching Out of Balance

The average film-goers in 1983 may not have cultivated the type of atten-
tiveness needed for Reggio's combination of film and music, a combination
we constantly encounter now, often without any transitional devices or
narration in television commercials. Today we and our students are more
comfortable with rapid cuts between images and, by extension, with Joyce's
concept of 'successive attendings.' Starting shortly before Koyaanisqatsi
premiered, new editing techniques and artistic influences began to migrate to
film from music videos. Music videos' jump-cuts, themselves pioneered by the
directors of the French New Wave (A. Miles, personal communication), and
other experiments had profound effects on other media and on viewers'
expectations of narrative. Concurrently, a sizable audience began to enjoy
experimental and independent films, despite their often nontraditional nar-
rative structures. In 1983, for instance, it would have been hard to imagine
widespreaddistributionfor ChristopherNolan's (2000) Memento,a film in
which the protagonist:
is a man with no short-termmemory.He hasn'tbeenableto formmemories
since the night his wife was murdered.Now he's on a hunt to find the
murdererbut with no way of rememberingthe names, dates, places, facts
and faces. ... The initial revenge killing is the end of the story, and, like a
personwith no short-termmemory,you neverknow what happenedbefore
the current scene ... you might get frustrated because you don't know
what's going on .... Just sit back, try to relax (Itlrags, 2001).
This story bears a passingresemblanceto events in Afternoon,wherePeter,
the protagonist,may have witnessed,even caused,the injuryor death of his
son in a trafficaccident.Peter then sets out, without clear direction,to dis-
cover what happenedthat morning.After a studentpointedout the parallels
to Memento, it sent me running to rent Nolan's film. Granted, the audience's
taste for ambiguitymay be a simple suspensionof criticaljudgment. The
audience does find out something in Memento's final scenes. For Afternoon, it
can be a muchhardertask to "sit backand try to relax"untilthe cruciallexia
"white afternoon," where Douglas (1994) finds closure in the narrative.
Many studentswill not read that far, nor have I after threelengthysessions
with Afternoon;closurecomes only after delving "five layers below the up-
permostlayer of the narrative,the one throughwhich readersfirst enter the
text. ... after a lengthy visitation of fifty-seven narrative places" (Douglas,
FILM AS EXPLICADOR FOR HYPERTEXT 327

1994,p. 172).Yet even here,in a linkedtext that studentssometimestake as

mere randomness,if one reads long enough the lexia ultimatelyconvergeto
one point, thus fulfillingJohnson's (1997) descriptionof "association,not
randomness"(p. 109).
With film helping me as explicador,such as screeningMementobefore
tacklingAfternoon,I hope to coax studentsinto a more sustainedconsider-
ation of Joyce's subtle psychological'thriller.'Studentsthen can apply the
same method for unpackingelementsin other films and hypertexts.I have
not tried this yet, but after a classjudges the veracityof the testimonygiven
by the four people in Rashomon,they may be betterpreparedto judge which
story (of at least three)in ShelleyJackson'sPatchworkGirlhas the greatest
power. Through 'director'scut' editions of films re-releasedon DVD, even
through the low-tech means of a printedscript, classes now have access to
dialogue and footage cut from the final release. These out-takes can com-
plicate,if not radicallychangeinterpretation,much in the way that multiple
paths through a hypertextcan lead to a completelydifferentreadingexpe-
rience. Tarantino's(1994a) original screenplayfor Pulp Fiction, subtitled
"ThreeStoriesabout One Story,"includestwo versionsof the finalscenein a
restaurant,where two armedrobbersconfrontJules, the hit-manplayed by
Samuel Jackson. In the first version, Jules guns down both enemies in a
bloody gunfight, then fires his pistol straight into the camera lens. The
muzzle-flashof Jules' .45 marks the cut to the next version, the only scene
used when Pulp Fictionopened in cineplexes:Jules negotiateswith the rob-
bers without shooting them. Tarantinogives no indicationin the screenplay
that eitherversionof the scene is 'what reallyhappened.'Had the film been
releasedas depictedin the screenplay,the viewerwould left to decidewhich
scene was 'true'and which took place in Jules'mind. In a class that viewed
Pulp Fiction, we discussed the alternativeendings. Students preferredthe
'closure' offered by Tarantino'sfinal version to the "choice" given in his
screenplay,a reaction not unlike other classes' reaction of the branching
choices offeredby many fictionalhypertexts.I have yet to bringPulpFiction
together fully with a text like Patchwork Girl, yet when I do so it will be
intriguing to pair students' reactions to cinematic ambiguity with their
sortingout which stories are most crediblein hypertext.
In the classroomor online, instructorsor studentscan disassembleshots
and sequencesto create their own compressedmontage. This quickly dem-
onstratesa director'stechniques,even polemic:in effect,such viewer-created
montage createsa new piece of axial hypermedia.Studentsnow have pow-
erfultools at theirdisposalto untanglea director'scompositionof a sceneor
use of montage, a process that hones analyticalskills needed for isolating
crucialtextualand structuralelementsof hypertext.DVDs permitreviewing
scenes in any sequence.This ability has been decriedas violating directors'
intentions, especially for older, pre-digital films (Rafferty, 2003), but
328 JOE ESSID

scrambling DVD segments provides a radical new pedagogical tool for

teaching film, and it is only the start of our newfound ability to dissect media
in the classroom.With video-editingsoftware,those screeningKoyaanisqatsi
can isolate, one frameat a time, Reggio'soriginaltransitionsand subliminal
prodsat the audience.Theseelements,suchas a 'Dead End' signthat appears
in a briefflashof clips fromtelevisionshows,may pass too quicklyfor careful
studywhen viewedconventionally.In isolation,however,this segmentof the
film strikesviewerslike a hammer.The simpleexpedientsof softwaremedia-
players' 'pause' buttons and a computer'sright-and-leftarrow keys have
allowedmy class to isolatepowerfulshots or play them forwardor backward
frame by frame. Shortly before the final apocalypseand the appearanceof
the Hopi prophecy, slow-motion shots dwell on people in Times Square:
high-strungbusinessmen,teenagers,vagrants.This world looks eternaland
complete, if chilling, yet behind two men rapt in conversation,a huge bill-
board spells out, one neon letter at a time, the title of a Styx album, Grand
Illusion.That message makes for a powerfulconnection to both Jackson's
Patchwork Girl and Amerika's Grammatron, works I plan to pair with
Koyaanisqatsi.In each case, a creator's hubris leads to a potentially
destructivemonsterof concrete,flesh, or software.
Atomizing and re-splicingscenes such as the Times-Squaresequences
turns studentsinto amateurcinematographers,much as constructivehyper-
texts enable them to become co-authors of a text. For example,only with
softwarecan one explorehow some of Reggio'sinter-scenetransitionswork
polemically.Rapidcuts betweenfamiliarand mysteriousimagesassaultus in
a few scenes, but a frame-by-frameexaminationof the cave paintingsvan-
ishing in the explosion shows how carefullyReggio had splicedhis images.
The shape of the explosionwells up carefully,as if from the rock on which
the imageswere painted,to ultimatelydestroythe artwork.In other places,
such close analysisrevealshow shots of politicians,pundits, and TV evan-
gelists are inter-cutwith a framesof Nazis, an exotic dancer,the dead-end
sign, Thomas Dolby's MTV video for "She Blindedme with Science,"and
various consumer products. When watching frame-by-framereplays of
scenes I had digitized, it became even harder for me to accept Reggio's claim
that viewers should reach their own conclusions about the trajectory of our
culture. Reggio makes links from the subliminal images to shots showing a
culture running in political, sexual, and material overdrive. For the longer
shots cameras track along or zoom in on assembly lines where Hostess
Twinkles, Chevy Camaros, mainframe computers, and hot dogs are made.
This synthesis can be heavy-handed, but Reggio may have felt that a mass
audience needed heavy-handedness. Viewers are bombarded with constant
repetition of image and a hypnotic score by Philip Glass.
Hypertext can be linear and quite didactic, of course - Mark Amerika's
(2000) Grammatronhas a similarly earnest message about our sometimes self-
FILM AS EXPLICADOR FOR HYPERTEXT 329

destructiverelationshipwith technology. For the high-bandwidthversion

"the machine reads you," then uses HTML 'push-pages'to lead readers
through78 screensof narrative.A readeris trappedby the hypertextand has
no spots to click - the movement is automatic, inexorably advancing to
Amerika'snext lexia. A browser's'back' button only delays the relentless
progress of Grammatron.Reggio gives us a similar set of push pages that
move us along the main axis of the film:state of existence,apocalypse,new
state of nature. These movements are accompaniedby several Glass leit-
motifs,with a fast tempo for hummingtraffic,a slowertempo for clouds.The
processdrawsthe audienceon from the cave paintingsat the startof the film
to the finale of the explodingAtlas, a moment that today evokes the Chal-
lenger and Columbia disasters.
Even before the emergenceof the Web as a viable tool for economic
activity and teaching, scholars of computersand writing such as Kaplan
(1991) linked the use of computersto issues of power, politics, and institu-
tional imperatives,with a goal of sharpeningteachers'and students'sensi-
bilitiesas criticalusersof technologies.From early on hypertextseemedone
of the best ways to break through the boundariesthat linear printed and
electronictexts impose upon readers.A transformationof knowledgecan
result,and Joyce(1995)proposessucha "lookingat materialin new ways"as
a "litmustest we should use in judging both exploratoryand constructive
hypertexts"(p. 43). Looking at the familiarin new ways was also one of
Reggio's goals for his trilogy, and it is a decent test for many works with
didactic purposes. We can encourage students to read with or against that
didacticism to get at underlying ideologies. For Koyaanisqatsi, the film's
environmental epiphany and its seductively axial arrangement of ideas make
it simple to discuss Reggio's biases, the ideological underpinnings of his
celluloid 'software,' or the broader concepts of inappropriate technologies
and possible solutions. Students can follow 'external links' created from the
film by studying reviews, comparing environmental and industry Web sites,
and considering Reggio's interviews, where he espouses neither a Luddite's
nor technophile's philosophy:

In this case, it's more amorphic. The amorphic form that is used allows the
viewer to project onto this what she or he wants to do. ... Even if I had the
right answer, if everyone heard it and followed it, it would, for that reason,
be stupid and fascistic.If everyonedoes the same thing at the same time,
that's the essence of fascismfor me. (Reggio n.d., a66).

This statementapproachesGuyer's(1996) sentimentthat "Hypertextworks

tend to be so multiplethey revealwhat is individual,ourselves,writersof our
own story"(p. 442). This multiplicitycan be maddening,of course,but it can
also lead to powerfully collaborative learning.
330 JOE ESSID

4. Acquiring a Vocabulary for Complexity

A teachermayhaveto be a bit of ajugglerto balanceissuesof cinematography,
writingprocess,hypertextuality,and environmentalpoliticswhile presenting
Koyaanisqatsias hypertext.Thoughchallenging,sucha role is moreliberating
than that of Bufiuel'sexplicador;we can allow film to share that role. Our
multimediaacrobaticsalso answerthe call by Joyce and others for a multi-
disciplinaryapproachto hypermedia,where the teacher"has the important
roleof constructingan actualculturewithherstudents"(1995,p. 121).In such
a classroom,teacherand studentsare all cast into the role of amateurcine-
matographer/readers who cancomparetheirinterpretationsof a scenein a film
or a lexiain a hypertext.My studentscan arguewithme andeachotherfor half
a class period about the contents of MarsellusWallace'sbriefcasein Pulp
Fiction; is it the gangster'sstolen soul? His stash of gold bullion? More
importantly,why would it matter?Tarantinoneveranswersthese questions,
thoughthe questfor the stolenbriefcase,a Hitchcock-style'McGuffin,'propels
most of the action. Under such circumstances it becomes difficult to impose a
'correct'readingon a scene or lexia. For Koyaanisqatsi,to fall into binary
oppositionsabout criticalenvironmentalissueswill not do since such an ap-
proachrunsthe risk of becoming(in Reggio'swords)'stupidand fascistic.'
Many studentsvent their frustrationsat mysteryand open-endednessin
hypertext,so I do not recommendending the process of analysis with a
simple'here'smy reading,there'syours.'A recursiveprocessof examination,
such as writing an initial review, then reflectingupon a film again after
consulting various scenes and outside materials, has helped my students
suspendjudgmentabout theirnext hypertext.In a compositioncourseI have
asked students to write at length about a favorite scene in a film and its
relevanceto the entirework, then applythe same techniqueto a favorite(or
simply powerful) lexia in a hypertext. Such a process can begin on the
popular end of the spectrum,with Pulp Fiction, continuingthrough more
'highculture'and experimentalfilmsuntil studentshave both a commandof
filmtechniqueand an appreciationfor narrativecomplexity.Both tools could
then be applied to hypertextby substitutinga few terms from hypertext
theory for those familiarfrom the study of film.
As the technology in the classroom gets easier for novices to use, it be-
comes possible for students to craft their own hypertext and hypermedia. For
a recent literature course, for instance, our university provided digital cam-
eras and video cameras to my students for a final assignment: an experiential-
learning project combining their own 'road trips' overnight with those
covered in our novels and films. Only a few chose to shoot video (though all
took photos), and only one had the skill to write a piece of hypermedia that
included video of his own, clips of films, photos and other souvenirs, and an
interface that looked like the dash-board of a car. Others still made the
FILM AS EXPLICADOR FOR HYPERTEXT 331

hypermedialeap in simplerways, such as handingin a Mini-DV tape with

voiceovernarrationplus a paperwith photos and Web-links.Severalstudents
made pop-up books and traditionalscrap books with text, images,material
objects, and (withoutexception)printedhyperlinks.While the pop-ups and
scrapbookswere not electronic,the seamlessinclusionof linking,promising
'and/or/but'connectionsfor readers,shows that these undergraduateswere
alreadythinkingabout the potentialof hypermedia.
Studentscreatingtheir own material,especiallywhen they are equipped
with a languageto describecomplexity,can better question their own first
impressionsof a film or text. Despite Reggio's relentlessapproachto envi-
ronmentaldecay, students can discuss how Ron Fricke's cinematography
revealswhat Reggio (2001) calls "the beauty of the beast":the elephantine
ballet of 747s taxing on a runaway,surfacingfrom waves of heat to appear
magically before the camera, or the silent play of light and shadow on
midtownManhattan'sskyscrapersafterscenesof choreographeddestruction
as fighter-bombersdestroy surplus vehicles. Reggio also filmed planned
demolitionsof skyscrapers,images that now evoke new, and terrible,con-
nectionsfor viewers.The scenesalreadypossessedan eeriebeautybeforethe
tragedies of September 11, 2001: Reggio not only reveals the waste of
dynamitingtall buildingsthat still could be used, but he also remindsviewers
of how vulnerable,and transient,our urban landscapesmight be. Finding
languageto capturethe randomnessand the apocalypticspirit of our times
will be difficult.Understandinghypertext,then writingour own, may give us
words and more than words:we may advancesomethingnew in the play of
text and image to become today's cave-painters.

Acknowledgements
Sean Gilsdorfgave invaluableadviceabout earlydraftsof this article.Adrian
Miles provided generous and insightful help later, and my readers for
ComputersandHumanitiesintroducedme to the workof WalterLew and Lev
Manovich.I would also like to thank the Institutefor RegionalChangefor
permissionsand advice as this articlegrew from a presentationgiven at the
Computersand WritingConferencein May 2002, held at Ball State Uni-
versity. Special thanks to ever-vigilantEric Knight for our conversations
about montage in Bonnie and Clyde.

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