Intertextuality

Intertexuality is a term used to describe the visual reference between films. This is used to create a similar feel to the movie by adding parts of a famous popular scene form an popular film to its own movie, which increases the chances of the movie getting a wider audience. An example 0f intertexuality, take the film Psycho, there was a famous shower scene, other films took the aspects of the scene and used it in their own film, for example the film What Lies Beneath and Fatal Attraction.

The famous shower scene in the film Psycho, there is a woman having a shower and a murderer comes in and stabs her to death several times, leaving her dead hanind out of the bath. The main elements form this scene was:

• The knife 
• A female victim
• The white bath, shower, white shower curtains, robs and tiles 
• Running shower
• Ripping shower curtains
• Shower curtains pulled down
• Sliding down the wall
• The stabbing motion
• Falling outside the bath tube
• Victim left in the bath 
• Dead with open eyes 
• Violin strings 

The film What Lies Beneath, in the shower scene, there is a man who wants to kill his wife, he drugs her to unconsciousness and he is trying to drown her in the bat. The intertexuality form Psycho is used in this scene, A female victim, the same white curtains, shower, bath, tiles, running shower and a bath robe. 
 

 

The film Fatal Attraction, in the shower scene is a love triangle where the mistress is trying to kill the husband’s wife so she can have the husband for herself, but the husband ends up killing the mistress. The intertexuality from Psycho is used in this scene, a female victim, the same white shower, tiles, curtains, bath, rode, running shower, ripping shower curtains and the dead open eyed victim