About Filmserts

Since the beginning of cinema history, directors and screenwriters have been putting other films into their own films – in many purposeful ways and with powerful results. While a film might appear on a television set in the corner of a room and the film's characters fail to take notice of it, most are being looked at by the director’s camera and, ultimately, by us, the audience. They generally have a great deal to tell us about a scene, the characters in that scene, or the entire film.

"Filmserts: Film Appearing in Film" is devoted to the fun and fascinating phenomenon that been around as far back as Buster Keaton.

Sit back and join in on the Filmserts community and submit your own to our Message Boards, and on our MySpace & YouTube pages.

The book "Filmserts: Film Appearing in Film" by Lewis Matheney will be out this year.

1/14/08

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - 2001: A Space Odyssey



When a great slab appears mysteriously in prehistoric times at the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," it sends a tribe of monkeys into a frenzied rage. Later it floats menacingly in outer space, and then appears to an astronaut during a hallucination. So, what IS this slab, this metaphysical block about which so much text has been written for film history and study?



Simple. It's chocolate.
Or so says Willy Wonka when he inserts a bar of his own chocolate into "2001" as he and his guests are watching the film in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."

So what do you do if you are Willy Wonka's guest in the television room at his chocolate factory?
In this rare instance where we, the audience, are viewing the world from inside the FILMSERT...



...Charlie reaches right into the FILMSERT, monkeys shrieking around his giant hand, pulls the chocolate bar out of the television set and eats it. It's a rather fitting end to the much-ado slab from outer space.

Posted by Lewis
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