Thanks for the helpful responses. While I'm here, anyone remember whaere the
passage is in LOM? I know, I should know this . . .


Dr. Wesley Britton
Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles
www.drwesleybritton.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wolfgang
Hochbruck
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 5:08 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Life on the Mississippi passage

...actually, I feel like i should chime in here because Joe said "Zoom in"
first, and then "establishing shot", and he is right on both counts, only
that narratologically "establishing  shot" is the general category,
including also bird's eye, pan(orama) shot etc.  The really wild thing is
that what Twain uses here - and what Belasco adapted for the theatre
-- is really a cameratic technique before any camera could do something like
it. Like with a number of other developments, the technology here followed
the writer's imagination.

best  wishes,
w

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hochbruck
Department of English /
Centre for Security and Society
Albert Ludwigs University
15 Rempart St.
D- 79098 Freiburg

Am 25.08.2016 08:18, schrieb Joe Alvarez:
> Establishing shot, that's probably the closest one yet. The description
from=
>   Life on the Mississippi reminds me of the opening--establishing 
> shot--of Al= fred Hitchcock's Psycho.
>
> Joe Alvarez
> 900 Havel Court
> Charlotte, NC 28211-4253
> Telephone: 704.364.2844
> FAX: 704.364.9348
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>> On Aug 25, 2016, at 1:47 AM, Peter Salwen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> =20
>> What you called the"birds-eye view" might also be called an 
>> establishing shot Not by Twain, though.
>> =20
>> On Aug 25, 2016 1:27 AM, "Joe Alvarez" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> =20
>> How about "zoom in"? That is what is happening in your description.
>> =20
>> Joe Alvarez
>> 900 Havel Court
>> Charlotte, NC 28211-4253
>> Telephone: 704.364.2844
>> FAX: 704.364.9348
>> =20
>> Sent from my iPad
>> =20
>>> On Aug 24, 2016, at 8:33 PM, Wesley Britton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> =3D20
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>>> I have a question about one passage in Life on the Mississippi. I 
>>> suspect=
>> i=3D
>> t
>>> will be very familiar to many of you.
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>>> It's the passage where we first get a birds-eye view of a place 
>>> along the= river before Twain narrows his focus to one town, then 
>>> one street, then
>> on=3D
>> e
>>> house, then a sleeping man on a porch.
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>>> Back in grad school, a professor used a term to define this 
>>> technique of moving from the general to the specific, but I can't 
>>> figure out now what term he meant.
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>>> Any ideas?
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>>> Dr. Wesley Britton
>>> =3D20
>>> Author, Beta-Earth Chronicles
>>> =3D20
>>> www.drwesleybritton.com
>>> =3D20
>>> =3D20