Impersonations and intertextuality

After reading Media Intertextuality chapter in the AS Media Studies book, I acknowledge forms of intertextuality such as; mimicry, parody, pastiche, homage. One thing that came through my mind was what about impersonations. One of the best impersonators I've known is Kevin Spacey who is a very good actor himself. Here is a video of him, impersonating some of other well-known actors.

The interesting thing about impersonations is that it's a mix of mimicry, and parody, but it can be a form of homage as well. It's definitely a mimicry because as you can see Kevin Spacey tries to imitate other actors. not just voices, but also their expressions and behaviors. A little bit of parody here as well because even though you don't recognize any of the actor that he impersonates, you can tell by the reactions of the audiences, the host of the show, and even Kevin Spacey himself. However, it is also some sort of a homage. In order to do such things, He must have watched and analyze their movements, expressions, voices, etc multiple times.

Intertextuality in Movies

Recently, I have been working on making movie posters. The movie that I've been working on is The Matrix. One of my favorite movies.Thought provoking and has very interesting depths and details. After watching it so many times, I've found some interesting intertextualities in it. let's take a look at the obvious one.

"Follow the white rabbit." One of the early scenes in the movies. If you've ever watched Alice in Wonderland , the original cartoon of course, your childhood was awesome and you'll get this reference right away. White rabbit in Alice in Wonderland leads Alice to the Wonderland itself. In this case, it leads Neo to the Matrix world.

Some say the movie has some religious elements in it. Let's have a look at the characters.

Neo, Morpheus, Agent Smith, Trinity, Oracle, Tank, Dozer, and Cypher. The story behind these character names are related to a couple theories; classic mythology, Greek mythology, The Bible, Latin, and even anagram. "Neo" is actually an anagram of "One" and his given name in the movie "Thomas" which in the bible is a man who doubts Jesus. "Trinity", the number three is a powerful number in many stories and traditions. "The Father, son, and holy spirit" from the Bible is related  as well I believe. Morpheus as the "father", Neo as "son", and Trinity as "holy spirit".

As you can see, the characters, the scenes everything in the movie seems to be carefully thought and meaningful. which is difficult to find these days. There are more things that I can list out, but I'm afraid I've gone to the rabbit hole a little too deep.

source: http://www.thematrix101.com/matrix/symbolism.php