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Peter Greenaway		 ...... [The Falls]
The Falls		......
The VUE

  • What is the VUE?

    • The VUE is the Violent Unknown Event.


  • When did the VUE occur?


    1. Despite evidence to the contrary, the VFI belives the VUE occurred at 11.41 GMT on June 13. Although the year has not been established the day is thought to have been a Friday.

    2. The VUE's geographical epi-centre is on the Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales

    3. There are 19,000,000 victims. In a valiant attempt to elucidate the phenomenon the film-maker Peter Greenaway made a documentary featuring a representative selection of victims. To enable a random cross-section of victims be chosen Greenaway decided that all those whose surnames began with the letters FALL be chosen. There were 92.


  • What are the VUE's symptoms?

    • Typical symptons include

    1. A hyper-sensitive attitude to the protection of birds that even extends to their corpses

    2. Physical malfunction of the VUE victim - often bizarre and often relevant to some arrested metamorphosis of man into bird. As anyone who is familiar with Classical mythology will know (Leda and the Swan, Castor and Pollux, etc.) man-into-bird metamorphosis is not perculiar to the twentieth century.

    3. An identification with birds which often leads to foolhardy attempts at flight. A few victims have discovered a more profitable form of identification: through singing, particularly the Bird-List Song

    4. Language conversion. There are 92 new and officially recognised VUE languages

    5. The division of the orthodox two sexual roles into four (woman-woman, woman-man, man-man, man-woman)


  • What caused the VUE?

    • The VFI has proposed three causes
    1. Ratites

    2. an ecological experiment gone disastrously wrong

    3. VFI Scholar Ian W. Hill has written: ' the corporate entity ultimately responsible for the financing of 'The Birds' superimposed, fully against Mr Hitchcock's wishes, the title "The End," in an attempt to suggest that one had in fact occured. These prints can still occasionally be found on television. If one is tempted to look into causes of the VUE (as I, frankly am not, except for pure aethesticism) perhaps it is as a form of revenge for a corporate attempt to deny them of their power, of their greatest moment of glory in the film medium. If this is so then a viewing of a 'tampered' print of 'The Birds' is a truly hazardous act.


  • Is there any phenomena that can be compared to the VUE?

    • Not in terms of its scale (remember, there are19,000,000 victims!). However, five unassociated individuals did fall to their death earlier this century when a rope-bridge in Peru collapsed. This sudden, far-reaching and largely incomprehensible catastrophe could be regarded as a proto-VUE. See Thornton Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" for a scupulous investigation of this Peruvian disaster.


  • How can one protect oneself from the VUE?

    • The VFI recommends you live near a scarecrow. However, this course of action should only be pursued by those who are sure they wish to irrecovably terminate their relationship with birds.


  • I think I may be a VUE victim. Where should I go for help?

    • EITHER, take a boat trip to Bardsey Island, off the Lleyn Peninsula, North Wales

    OR contact the VUE Commission. Their medical officer can offer advice over the internet.