Tze Chun describes his movie, “Children of Invention,” as largely autobiographical and reflective of his childhood. But, the movie itself is fictional. This creates an interesting dynamic, which I think is best described in Phelan’s essay. “The voice of a narrator can be contained within the voice of an author, creating what Bakhtin calls the situation of “double-voiced” discourse” (Phelan 46). The hope that Elaine feels when she is at the meeting for the pyramid scheme is false. The viewer gets a feeling that something is not right about the scheme and has knowledge that Elaine does not share without “be[ing] signaled by any direct statement.” Instead, the viewer picks up on “nonlinguistic clues as the structure of the action” (Phelan 46). The instance of the meeting characterizes the author because the viewer picks up on his skepticism of the scheme. This “double-voice” mirrors the relationship between the director, Tze Chun, and his childhood self, so that the viewer can learn from his experiences and critique the situations he is depicting.
http://www.childrenofinvention.com/dirstatement.htm
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Adrienne brings up an interesting aspect of "Children of Invention". The autobiographical nature of the film helps illuminate the appearance of part of Phelan's third principle.
ReplyDeleteThe attitudes that are portrayed in the scene that Adrienne describes above continue throughout the movie. Elaine becomes more involved in the pyramid scheme business alongside viewers who become more aware of the danger with each scene. When the scheme is discovered by the police and Elaine is taken into custody the audience again sees an instance of the principle. Elaine does not tell the police of her children because she believes they will take them away from her. The audience knows that this is most likely not the case, despite the belief of Elaine and the women with her in the jail cell.
Tze Chun lets the audience in on things that his characters do not know. Although this makes the characters almost more sympathetic; it also paints a very different picture of the way in which Elaine views the world and the audience or other characters do.