Intertextuality, Hybridity & Genre

We did this research as a group exercise to begin with. We didn’t get very far as it was quite difficult to read intertextuality into our clip without much research.

There are several different types of intertextuality:

Intertextuality is the presence of signs within a piece of work, where these signs will be quoted from other works in order to give context to the current text.

Paratextuality refers to written texts, such as titles, captions, footnotes, etc.

Architextuality refers to genre identification.

Metatextuality is the critical commentry of other texts.

Hypotextuality is another text or genre that is transformed by this text.

Hypertextuality refers to direct connections to other texts.

In terms of The Conversation, intertextuality can be a difficult thing to observe from the opening scene. However it is there, most prevelantlty in the mime artist, in which his presence refers to the beginning and end of Blow-Up. The opening scene, a single shot slowly zooming in and following two characters – the mime, then Harry Caul – is possibly a reference to the opening of Orson Welles’ 1958 film Touch of Evil.

Harry Caul references Harry Haller from Hermann Hesse’s book Steppenwolf, but this is not made apparent in the opening scene – however Steppenwolf is in this scene. Jazz is an important part of the book, and the music we hear throughout the openening scene is just the kind of music from it. And we later learn that Caul plays the saxophone, just like one of the characters in Steppenwolf.

Touch of Evil video clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4 – accessed on 27/11/2010
Steppenwolf, written by Hermann Hesse, published by G. Fischer Verlag in 1927 (Germany)