Mario's filmic function — "Eighteen in May, Mario Incandenza’s designated…"
Eighteen in May, Mario Incandenza’s designated function around Enfield Tennis Academy is filmic: sometimes during A.M. drills or P.M. matches he’ll be assigned by Coach Schtitt et al. to set up an old camcorder or whatever video stuff’s to hand on a tripod and record a certain area of court, videotaping different kids’ strokes, footwork, certain tics and hitches in serves or running volleys, so the staff can show the tapes to the kids instructionally, letting the kids see on the screen exactly what a coach or prorector’s talking about. The reason being it’s a lot easier to fix something if you can see it.
Context
May YDAU, a half-page character card wedged right after the attaché's lethal recliner: Mario's place at the academy is defined as a job of seeing — camcorder on a tripod, taping strokes and hitches so the kids can watch exactly what the coach means. This is the benign pole of the book's whole film spectrum, the camera as instrument of correction and care, and the closing maxim is the novel's optimism about observation stated flat — the exact thing the unseeable Entertainment will invert.