Response 1

Peeping Tom involved a struggling protagonist Mark ,who worked through his internal unrest by killing females with his tri-pod. Devices used in the film reflecting it as metacinema were when the viewer was able to look through Mark’s camera lens while he was attacking his victims. He was working on a documentary and for the audience to view his work as a director it adds to the complexity of Marks disorder. The scenes where Mark would be looking into Helen's window mirrored the camera lens view because of the window frame. The window scenes pushes the audience to look at Mark in his natural creepy state. Instead of him examining his tortured victims through his camera lens we the audience examine him from our comfortable place, on the other side of the window. I was wondering about his documentary he was working on and if the audience was going to get to watch a greater duration of it. I was expecting that would be the case tying in a bit more of metacinema, being that the audience seemingly had a part in its creation. Since that wasn't so the biggest use of metacinema comes from the camera lens view. This was a choice that had the audience wondering and configuring how Mark was killing these women. Did it really matter how they were being killed? Probably not, but the fact that I was very intrigued over this makes me think this small camera lens view was used to engage the audience in more then just a gruesome murder scene and was used to probe the audiences curiosity about what is so fantasying about capturing violence on film?

Sherlock Jr. used a variety of metacinema devices over the duration of the film. This silent comedy was directed by Buster Keaton who also starred in the movie as the projectionist, which added a sly addition to the meta quality by imposing the director directly into the film. There is a bit of build up till Keaton exposes the camera in Sherlock Jr., this may have been intentional to allow the further metacinema devices to be easily understood, otherwise if the first scene was Keaton transitioning into hard core awesome detective alter ego the film would be confusing; which is ‘real’ and which is ‘fake’ would be hard to distinguish.

So, Keaton (the projectionist) falls asleep while working in the theatre and slowly the film that patrons are watching swiftly turns into another version of Keaton’s reality. The subtle transition challenges the audience to think and adjust; it happens so fast at first it is easy to miss, but then Keaton (the projectionist) parades through this dream fake reality into multiple diverse places and scenes, falling between a busy city street and then nearly tripping off a cliff in the next consecutive brief clip. I question why these quick clips are necessary in the film. Possibly because Keaton as a director wanted to ensure that the audience was on the same page as him, so he could have a film inside of a film without it being mistaken for just better dressed actors and a more upscale home. As the projectionist seems to stare directly into the camera he once again asks more from the cinema in front of him to help him fulfill his dream of getting the girl by watching a romantic scene and mimicking the actions of the actors. These devices of having a movie inside of movie and the projectionist escaping into dream world and eventually seemingly acknowledging the camera are what makes Sherlock. Jr metacinema.