Intertextuality

Quite a long time since I last posted due to a whole load of internet problems, but over the next few days I'll be posting some stuff I thought about during and since the lectures I've had since my last post on semiotics.

So one lecture we had was based around the idea of intertextuality, which basically seems to describe the way in which one text, for example a film, is influenced by one or multiple other texts that came before it. Ivan took us through some examples of films that have heavy and deliberate instances of intertextuality; for example, he showed us the way that the remake of Planet of the Apes has a scene in which Charlton Heston, who was also in the original, says the iconic line "Damn them! Damn them all to hell!" that he first said in the original. However, there's a twist on it, because now he says it whilst portraying a character on the ape 'side' whereas in the original he was one of the humans. We were shown how this was a deliberate ploy by the director to give older viewers who remember the original a sense of satisfaction and almost superiority because they see the link.

This idea really got me thinking about how important intertextuality is to one of my favourite film generes - parody. Somebody asked me the other day what was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. As in, out of anything, ever. So I thought about it, and decided that the funniest thing I'd ever seen was the parody film Hot Shots: Part Deux. So my friend asks me why I chose it, and it was at that point that I really realised the importance  intertextuality has on the parody genre. Anyone who has seen any number of 80's action movies cannot fail to laugh at Hot Shots. Anyone who has seen Rambo: First Blood Part II will most likely come close to dying of laughter at Hot Shots, because they lampoon it almost scene for scene in places, mimicking iconic shots and actions and then spoofing them brilliantly. Intertextuality is what really makes this so hilarious; because I recognise what they're spoofing, I find it funny on a second level beyond just the idea of "its funny because it is".