DVD Supplements: A Commentary on Commentaries

Abstract

In the last few decades, as graduate seminars have explored thepostmodern heuristics of the “death of the author,” DVD editionshave popularized a range of audio and print supplements thathave, directly or indirectly, expanded films’ authorial halo. The notionof the commentary is, of course, nothing new to the academy:consider the multiple annotated editions of literary classics. But itsmaterial extension to the home theater “experience” has had peculiarcultural and economic consequences. As value-adding paratexts,audio and printed commentaries can turn film texts into critical orluxury editions, to be marketed to different levels of cinephilic andcommercial consumption.