RESEARCH- Intertextuality

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is a term to describe the visual referencing between films. Quite literally, films borrow from each other, and you, the audience, may recognise certain camera angles, aspects of mise en scene, snippets of sound or methods of editing in some films that you have seen in other films.

An example of where intertextuality is used is in 'Psycho', directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The shower scene, where the antagonist kills the protagonist, is 'borrowed' in many other films.

Examples of films that 'borrowed' the scene:

What lies beneath 

This scene is the protagonist being killed and then taken to the bathroom to die. This 'borrows' the idea of the female victim, the male killer, the scene in the bathroom and the shower head from 'Psycho'.

Fatal Attraction

This scene is of a female killer attempting to kill the female victim, but before she can the man comes and saves her. The antagonist is thought to be killed off by drowning her but she gets back up to be shot by the female victim. This 'borrows' of the female victim, the knife, the shower curtain ripping and the scene being shot in the bathroom from 'Psycho'.