[Rushmore]

[ QUOTE ]

One line that has been bothering me:

"As he did this, Emily suddenly garbled out “dada” loud enough for the entire room to hear."

After this line, we learn Jackson is deaf and hence make the conclusion that despite Emily being so loud the "entire room" could hear, in fact Jackson did not hear. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Despite third party narration, we assume in a generality as such that everyone in the room heard the cry.

[/ QUOTE ]

Remember in The Silence of the Lambs, at the end, when the cops are ringing the doorbell of Buffalo Bill's house, and they keep showing the actual bell ringing each time the button gets pushed, jump cutting to the killer's reaction to the fact of the bell? It turns out that was NOT Buffalo Bill's house, and his reaction was to the fact that Jodie Foster was ringing the bell. Of course, we have no way to know that at the time.

It is a cute and clever device, but, ultimately, it is a cheap trick. We are left to backtrack through what has just happened, and to say to ourselves, "Oh, I see."

There is something disingenuous about this. There is something about this that lessens the artistic achievement of the piece.

Although there's a bit of apples/oranges at work here, there is a similarity, both from an unintentional perspective (the quoted portion--(pre-deaf) Jackson's POV would infer that he CAN hear what the entire room hears), and from the clever surprise perspective, which, to be honest, always strikes me a someone just trying to be clever.

Think of Tyler Durden's query on the plane:

"How's that workin out for you?"

"What?"

"Being clever."

"Great."

"Well stick with it then."

Or words similar to these.

In any event, try some Raymond Carver. Nothing "clever" there.