Interesting - why did cinema fall into the hands of the middle and lower class citizens and not the higher classes, as was present in America? Would this possibly have something to do with the literacy rate amongst Arabic people or at least the interest in literature in these classes? I have no idea but it seems to me that the Arab world is overall a more literary society than America, so I would be interested in knowing if this was the correlation.

This is a lovely thought that manages to begin to explain why films can be so touching and enjoyable. While the stories don't exactly have to be true or realistic, all they need is a universal human truth to be admired and understood. When this type of humanity is given to a work, it becomes something wonderful that reaches out beyond the screen, page, or whatever else. It's just interesting to see the way that Wollen was able to connect what critics believe as the equation to success for a film and what keeps humans interested and involved in a work.

This sentence and the paragraph that follows (couldn't highlight) are definitely very applicable to our discussions. It suggests that intercourse with texts or films is not necessarily a bad thing and that unoriginality, in that sense, isn't the end of the world. The comparison to linguistics is beautiful and a helpful aid in understanding this part of the theory. This reminds me of the text we read on intertexuality and the way texts are often inherited and how, sometimes, even the meanings are changed. Still, this is not a bad thing - it simply lengthens the reach of the hypotext.

Wollen defines a great director as having to be more than a one trick pony when it comes to the types of film they create. This means a truly talented director would be able to make excellent films across varying genres, themes, and audiences and still have some sort of underlying consistency without the repeated use of the same motifs. This is hard to come by in directors, and Wollen implies that this is the only way the director can be considered the true auteur. Is it fair to discredit the director of films that do not do this as a lesser player than the screenwriter or cinematographer? Or is he implying that all directors can hold this kind of consistency, consciously or subconsciously?

This is interesting. While Wollen seems to be going in the direction that repeated underlying motifs in the same director's films tell the viewer about the director more than the film itself, he adds this in, allowing the reader to understand that a deeper analysis of these "odd films out" is needed in order to fully understand the director's style and overall message. This makes the seemingly off-brand films even more important than the typically styled ones as they uncover something that is somewhat subconscious in the director.

Very good point. It's important to expect this before watching an adaptation. However, how much recontextualizing can an artist do before it changes the very message that was originally sent by the creator of the hypotext? And is that necessarily wrong?

This can be said of the differences between For Bread Alone and Ali Zaoua. Why did Ayouch make this story so much less severe? Why did he put the emphasis on the violence between children and not from a parent to child, as seen in For Bread Alone?

Agreed - films should be considered autonomous, even if they take concepts or storylines from a novel without staying 100% true to it. This is especially important for films that do take the liberty to expand the story to make it more modern or relevant, i.e. Jane Eyre's Emma to Amy Heckerling's Clueless.

This is a good point - who's to say that just because it's the first telling of the story, it should be the best? This goes back to Stam's issue with fidelity. Venuti provides an interesting explanation as to why fidelity to (or a translation of) the original is more important than creating great art by pointing out that being the original author is, indeed, a "romantic" feat to many readers/viewers.