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The Phantom of the Movie Palace

Page history last edited by William Patrick Wend 12 years, 8 months ago

 

Biography 

  • Born in1932

  • Professor of Literary Arts at Brown university

  • Writer of fantasy and metafiction

  • Many of his works involve alternate histories like The Public Burning and The Universal Baseball Association Inc. (Professor Wend says it's interesting that Coover wrote a book about his childhood in the eighties back in the sixties)

  • The Public Burning deals with the execution of the Rosenbergs. Chapters alternate between a mythical Uncle Sam and a communist Phantom, and an alternative version of Richard Nixon. Coover also writes about Nixon in Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears

  • Coover is one of the founders of the Electronic Literature Organization. (Professor Wend's undergraduate mentor was the other one!) 

Journal

  • Compare and contrast the shifts in plot that take place in The Phantom Of The Movie Palace and The Garden of Forking Paths. How are they different? How are they similar? What does this story say about the traditional plotline?  

About

Summary

  • A movie projectionist falls asleep while showing a film and dreams about being in the film.
  • There is a lot vivid imagery and a lot of random and confusing things happen.
  • He seems to exist in a compilation of all of the movies he’s seen over the years.
  • The projectionist’s awareness of reality gradually decreases as the dream progresses.
  • In the story, there is no real distinction between reality and fiction. The only real character is the projectionist and everything else is fiction.
  • The images and people are rapidly changing; it becomes a sort of metamorphic montage of disturbing and bizarre scenes.
  • At one point the protagonist projects more than one film at a time. “Two or more projected images across each other like brushstrokes, painting each with the other.”
  • The main character falls deeper into this fictional world of film until his existence is solely in this world.
  • He is trapped in this ever changing realm of adventure, action, comedy, suspense, romance, and horror.
  • At the end of the story, the projectionist is beheaded when a woman says, “It is all in your mind.” He had crossed the boundary between the imaginary world and reality and it symbolized that those boundaries may only exist in a person’s mind.

 

A More Plot Based Summary

  • Exposition

    • The main character is introduced as a projectionist that's been caring for the movie palace for years or even decades.

    • To help deaden his loneliness, he entertains himself with splicing different movie scenes together.

 

  • Rising Action

    • Complication is introduced when the projector jams on (pg. 235 par. 2)

    • He starts "the gang movie with the little orphan girl" and the ingenue is no longer in the film. He investigates only to find strange holes punched in the screen.

    • There he finds holes punched into the screen spelling out: Beware the Midnight Man! (transition into CLIMAX)

 

  • Climax/Crisis

    • Everything falls apart and the haunting begins.

 

  • Falling Action

    • Does not exist! The rising action and climax are sustained throughout the story with no real falling action or resolution 

 

 

  • Resolution / Conclusion / Denouement

 

  • Conflict

    • The projectionist has trouble separating his life from movie fantasy.

    • The projectionist deals with life through his movies and collage creations.

    • Even when provoked by the hauntings he repeatedly compares his experiences with movies that he's seen.

 

  • Flashback

    • The narrator describes the last time the projectionist put up letters on the outdoor marquee. We're told that he didn't have enough "D" letters to complete the title. This was to illustrate that once the movie palace had good business, but has since been abandoned.

 

  • Foreshadowing

    • The way this movie creation play out, rising action then climax and back to rising action, give hint to the rhythm of the entire story.

    • He mentions the gum, condoms, hair grease, broken combs, and such. The fact that he no longer resents it but in fact welcomes those burdens gives incite to the loneliness that drives him mad.

    • References are made to the ingenue early in the story making her a potential foreshadow. 

Questions?

  • Talk about the differences between the film section and projectionist sections...how do they differ in tone, style, etc (scary v "scary")

  • How does the plot affect your reading? 

  • How about the projectionist? He spends his days randomly replaying films and trailers...and fragments from other films...

  • The projectionist's world as a metaphor or allusion?

Analysis

  • Media fragments reality...people are able to "stay on their island"
  • About media consumption  
  • The projectionist escapes into the fantasy world because he couldn't deal with people in the real world. However he eventually longs the company of others.
  • The projectionist is trying to relive the glory days of the theater.
  • The empty theater could symbolize the void and despair of life.
  • The story is a metaphor for changing of times and shifting of values.
  • Story as tribute to old hollywood. 
  • Coover is using film to symbolize traditional plot structure. Coover acts as the projectionist does, mixing and matching the rules and structures of traditional plot.  

  • Based on Keaton's Sherlock, JR.

  • Different non-linearity from A Rose For Emily

  • Combining films leads him to his death...relate that to Borges

  • What is the projectionist trying to do with the films (breathe life...ala Frankenstein)...

  • Boundaries between dream and reality...how does that affect plot and POV? 

Characters

Symbolism

Gender

Point of View

Irony

Ending

  •  

Adaptations

 

Bibliography 

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