ABSTRACT
However, all three works were written according to different models, fulfilling different functions in the Israeli culture in particular and in western culture in general; and it is these functions, as well as the nature and position of the systems within which they were created, that determine the perspective of the depicted reality. Yellow Wind is a documentary text intended primarily to influence its readers’ views. Its main aim determines its nature: an attempt to reflect reality and to evaluate it clearly, reliably and authoritatively according to accepted conventions. The novel The Smile of the Lamb describes this same reality from an ambivalent point of view, accepted as a literary starting point and not directed by the need to lead the reader to any conclusions or action, but to steer him towards an understanding of the inherent complexities and contradictions. The film sets off from this same point-that of the non-committed art in western culture-but its dependence on a wide audience and on establishment funding leads it in the same directions as that of the documentary report.1
