Prelinger’s choice of audience discussion over a traditional voiceover narrative or soundtrack draws attention to a complication of the “intentional disparity” discussed by Baron. It is not possible upon viewing No More Road trips? to absolutely define Prelinger’s intentions. Without narrative, the meaning of the film is ambiguous, it “suggests a form of irony that does not just ‘reverse’ meaning, but rather puts it in question indefinitely” (Baron, 36). This disparity—one of the necessities of the archive effect—is further complicated by the presence of Prelinger himself. In class we watched the movie with minimal information about the film. We may have read Prelinger’s blog post about the film, or we may not have. On his blog he has specific questions that he wants him film to explore, such as: “Are we approaching “peak travel?” Is localism, which is a pretty good thing in many ways, edging out the nomadic tradition in America? Will we be staying put more than we have in the past? And if so, how will we react to diminished horizons? Is it possible that the journey TO America, which so many new Americans have made in recent years, might become a more significant part of our shared consciousness than the journey WITHIN America?” (Prelinger blog). These questions show Prelinger’s intention of the production of this film that is distant from the original intention of collecting home movies to document road trips.
But how important is the author when there is no narrative? If this film were to stand alone without any framing by Prelinger, there may be very different perceptions of what this film’s intentions are. Does it document American travel? The changes in fashion? In architecture? In automobile design? Even with Prelinger’s framing, the film seems to be distant from him. Without an explicit narrative there appears to be no author—there is, then, a third disparity: a disparity between the author’s intention and the intentions perceived by the audience. This sort of ambiguity effectively elides the author from the film. Yes, the home movies were clearly placed in order by someone—but if there is no explicit intent, then it is possible that the document was found in that order.
The danger of this ambiguity of authorial intention is that the film could be seen as a document rather than a documentary or an appropriation film. It would appear that nothing was altered. Baron notes that, to a degree, this depends on the audience: “if the viewer does not perceive this difference, as a difference within the text, the archive effect will not occur and the text will remain a document. Not a documentary and not an appropriation film”. Prelinger makes one other choice in order to avoid the confusion of his film with a document: he chooses the venues where his film is shown.
When discussing Jones’ choice to show his film, Tearoom, in only “unalienated” settings, Baron defines the term “unalientated” as “contexts in which it will be regarded through a critical lens” (Baron, 33). Similarly, Perlinger does not just post his film online—he makes sure to send his film to events where discussion will be possible. Intention is dictated by the environment where the film is shown. It privileges the collective interpretation of the audience over the author and avoids the classification of the film as document. The archive effect, then, is dependent on the audience and the environment rather than textual narrative or extra-textual knowledge of the individual.
What does this show us? This does exhibit a very clever way or removing the dictatorial control of the author and creating a democratic interpretation. Yet Prelinger still has the power to choose where and how he shows his film. I think this also points to the yearning for an open and public archive. Prelinger plays between document and appropriation film in order to realize a certain democratic influence that the institutional archive has been without. It is not totally democratic, but it does reach for that ideal.
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