This weekend while re-watching one of my favorite movies, Elephant, I noticed that it contains several elements of hypertextuality. Elephant is a Gus Van Sant film that follows several high school students separately through an average day that leads to a violent school shooting.The video below shows an example of 4 scenes that are shown separately in the actual film but have been edited to show how they actually occur simultaneously in real time .
Warning: The video contains graphic violence.
“>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ7aAuGukps]
The way in which each character is shadowed by the camera throughout the film reminds me of the winding paths that are created within a hypertext. At times the film even loops back to the beginning and shows the entire day from a new characters viewpoint and then catches back up to the origin character and picks up where they had left off. There is also something to be said about the way in which Van Sant takes film on the way a writer does hypertext. Fresh eyes and possibilities, wide open spaces and a definite feeling of movement that can be used to push along and support written word or moving image. It would be interesting to further explore the hypertext possibilities within the film. The chains of events could be separated and linked. Possibly a DVD special feature a la “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel ?This really gets me thinking about the ways hypertext can lead to and interact with “hypermedia”.
Jess, since studying and writing hypertext, I found myself reading books with the element of hypertextuality right there alongside pace, metaphor, symbolism, plot, etc. in what I noticed in the writing. Eventually it gets so bad that even reality is affected by this knowledge and awareness of your surroundings and day to day dealings is a constant “what if?” But do not worry, there’s medication that helps you cope.
The medication enduced state is just another Lexia as it is! I suppose that resistance is futile.