Intertextuality

The term intertextuality describes the visual referencing between films. Have u ever thought to yourself when you was watching a movie that the scene you have just seen looks familiar, this is because films ‘borrow’ from each other. This could be a camera angle, aspects of mise en scene, sounds you’ve heard or maybe even the editing.

After watching the famous shower clip from the well known film Psycho, I watched a further 3 clips that have intertextuality. The 3 clips I watched were from the films Fatal Attraction, The Stepfather and also What Lies Beneath. All 3 clips did refer to Psycho but in different ways, some clips had more intertextuality then others.

The clip from What lies beneath didn’t have much intertextuality, the main aspect that was borrowed was the basic setting of the shower.

The second clip I watched was from the film Fatal attraction; this had some more intertextuality reference to Psycho then What lies beneath does. The main aspect that was borrowed from Psycho was the shot of the pose of the knife; also the shot where the woman was squeezed up against the door was parallel to the shoot in Psycho.

The third clip I watched was from The Stepfather this was the clip that had the most aspects borrowed from Psycho, the background music was similar, the same knife was used by one of the main characters, and the stabbing pose was the same is well. The most obvious aspect that was borrowed was the shower curtain being pulled, as one of the characters are dyeing he pulls the shower curtain, a close up shot is used showing the curtain ripping just like the shot from Psycho. Although there is a few aspects borrowed there is a big difference between the two clips, in The Stepfather the attacker is killed by a women, this is a feminist response to Psycho.