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Songs as intertitles

  • Writer: Amanda Riddell
    Amanda Riddell
  • May 10, 2025
  • 1 min read

That's what I did in These Words Are Meant For Someone, and The Dakumentary has a similar effect, even though they're not strictly intertitles. Intertitles = the silent film text boxes where they add dialogue, context etc. - Why? I'd begun recording the song cycle songs and adding images, and after a while those were what I put together with Barbie's footage to make the film. The Dak clips of the black screen + images are a mix of interlude and intertitle. Either way, they're a critical part of the effect of the film, not something to remove. Makes people think imo.

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2 Comments

Amanda Riddell
Amanda Riddell
May 10, 2025

The interesting thing from a musicals perspective is how this alters diegesis. Unlike the teleological form of traditional musicals (ie songs are part of the action), we have songs that are diegetic and ones that are extradiegetic (ie outside the action). I sometimes refer to it as limbo in the context of The Dakumentary.

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Amanda Riddell
Amanda Riddell
May 10, 2025
Replying to

It's a quintessential Sondheim technique, and those who saw the version with his tape would know that he was a massive collector of music and movies.

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