Narrative Theory in Film by Jeff Frame

1. Narrative Theory in Filmby Jeff Frame

3. Girl by the Mirror by Pablo Picasso

4. Which picture is truer to reality?Why?

5. The two streams of film . . . George Méliès (The camera re-imagines life.) The Lumiére Brothers (The camera records life.)

6. While the Lumiere Bros. captured life, giving birth to the concept of the documentary . . . Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

7. . . . Méliès, Porter, and Griffith re-invented life, launching the concept of narrative film. Voyage to the Moon

8. Film vs. Fiction equal in absence, permanence, and “re-readability” size of the audience (reader-response & Fish’s “interpretive community”) effects of celebrity vs. character depth vs. selectivity and editing of details; adaptation as a new creation similar narrative tools used for storytelling the power of suggestion vs. depiction film is a tangible image (Myth of Total Cinema, Bazin) books are more time-consuming movies as collaboration of artists vs. the auteur (author) books are probably easier to preserve overall

9. Narrative Film & Film Language • Edwin S. Porter (U.S.) • Location shooting for narrative film • Parallel action using primitive crosscutting techniques • The Great Train Robbery • Life of An American Fireman

10. Narrative Film & Film Language • D.W. Griffith (U.S.) • Shot=Word • Union of narrative film and camera technique; discovery of montage as a tool to create coherent, systematic, • artistic expression through film • Montage: the art of combining pieces of film • or shots into larger units • Excerpt from BIRTH OF A NATION

11. Vsevelod Pudovkin (U.S.S.R.) •Montage as a means to construct a film systematically through editing and • simply adding one shot to another, • more realistically • Script, sequence, scene, shot—the larger • framework of film as a language • Two-fold purpose of editing: method of • scene connection & “psychological • guidance” of the spectator • Five (5) narrative tools of editing: • contrast, parallelism, symbolism, • simultaneity, and leit-motif Narrative Film & Film Language

12. Sergei Eisenstein (U.S.S.R.) • Dialectical montage: montage as a means to • collide images in conflict in order • to create new meaning • Perfection of the uses of montage in • narrative film Narrative Film & Film Language

13. Andre Bazin (France) • Opposed to montage primarily because film’s • value as an art form is capturing reality • instead of altering reality expressionistically • with various shots and camera angles. • The content of shots is more important than the • order of shots. • Space in front of the camera is more • important than the progression of • time via combine shots with camera. • Took the ideas about depth-of-field from Renoir, • Wyler, and Welles in 30s/40s and developed • the notion of composition-in-depth Narrative Film & Film Language

14. Jean-Luc Godard (France) • Resisted composition-in-depth (CID) for mise-en- • scene effects in favor of the two-dimensional walk-around, or one long, slow tracking shot • To him, CID presents an infinitely deep, rich, • complex, ambiguous, and bourgeois world that should be demystified, along with its pretenses, • by the filmmaker Narrative Film & Film Language

15. Christian Metz (U.S.) • Film is not a language and the shot does not equal • the written word; but film does act like a language. • Film has syntagmatic and paradigmatic values • Film should be codified as a non-linguistic system • of signs and symbols (semiotics) based on the work of Lacan and Saussure Narrative Film & Film Language

16. Daniel Dayan (U.S.) • Post-structuralist argument for “the system of the • suture” and narrative gaps • Analysis of Oudart’s theory of “the absent-one,” • or “that which any shot necessarily lacks if it • is to attain meaning”—another (missing) • shot • Visual authorization and manipulation theories Narrative Film & Film Language

17. Narrative Film & Semioticsfrom Charles S. Pierce (and Peter Wollen) • 1 – Icon: a sign in which the signifier represents the signified mainly by its similarity to it • 2 – Index: which measures a quality not because it is identical to it, but because it has an inherent relationship to it • 3 – Symbol: an arbitrary sign in which the signifier has neither a direct nor an indexical relationship to the signified, but rather represents it through convention

18. Narrative Agency & Film Sound/Music Aaron Copeland’s 5 functions of FM: creating atmosphere underlining the psychological states of characters providing background filler building a sense of continuity sustaining tension followed by a leading to a sense of closure

19. Film Narrative & Structure “syuzhet” “fabula” (Formalists) non-diegetic diegetic discourse story (Chatman) paradigmatic syntagmatic (Metz) extrinsic intrinsic (Freud) “soundtrack” (Levinson)

20. the concept of a narrative film screenplay vs. shooting script diegetic (part of the implied story world) non-diegetic (or extra-) (exists outside of story world) story (fabula) vs. discourse (syuzhet) (see Seymour Chatman) three-act structure exposition, complications, climax, & dénouement 1st person or 3rd person, omniscient or restricted point-of-view shot Film Narrative & Structurefrom Pramaggiore and Wallis’s Film: A Critical Introduction, Chapter 3

21. episodic narratives (as opposed to climactic) open-ended narratives frame narration in medias res (“in the middle of things”) imbedded (hypo-diegetic) narratives (mise-en-abyme) simple flashbacks and flashforwards meta-narratives and self-referentiality nonlinear forms: lucid dreams (Eternal Sunshine, Vanilla Sky, Mulholland Drive) forked paths (Groundhog Day, Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run) reverse riddles (Memento, Betrayal) view variori (Rashomon, 11:14, Babel) nondiegetic nonlocality (Annie Hall, Pulp Fiction, 21 Grams) Film Narrative & Alternative Narrative Structures

22. Departs from a three-act structure with frame narration and an embedded narrative told via flashbacks Frame story is structured by cause and effect while the embedded story is structured through the “view variori” nonlinear approach; because the story is repeated 4 times, the cause and effect logic becomes confusing The frame story shows “the human capacity for altruism” while the embedded narrative suggests “the ambiguous nature of reality” Another novelty of the film is that philosophical questions and abstract ideas become more important than actions Audiences often have a difficult time identifying with the characters because of the highly stylized acting technique of the culture and time period and the unreliability of the woodcutter’s versions of the story Film Narrative & Structure:Rashomon—A Case Study

23. Nonlinear Narrative FilmStructures

24. LUCID DREAMS (this category comes closest to Time Travel in its emphasis on story) Stories in which the protagonist is unable to discern reality from illusion POV: Omniscient Narrator—Inside View & Authority—nonlinear in story and discourse) Nonlinear Narrative Film Structures

25. FORKED PATHS (we are shown the possible alternatives for our past choices in life) Stories in which the viewer observes multiple potential outcomes for the protagonist POV: Constant beginning--variable outcomes--story and/or discourse) Nonlinear Narrative Film Structures

26. REVERSE RIDDLES (we are shown “what went wrong” then led backwards through time to find out why) Stories in which the discourse reveals a narrative in reverse chronological order with no apparent diegetic cause POV: Reverse and variations of reverse--discourse only) Nonlinear Narrative Film Structures

27. VIEW VARIORI Stories in which the same incident(s) is viewed from the various perspectives of several different characters in the narrative POV: Constant event--variable perspectives--discourse only) Nonlinear Narrative Film Structures

28. NON-DIEGETIC NONLOCALITY Stories in which the events of the diegesis are shifted into complex and seemingly arbitrary nonsequential discourse patterns with no apparent diegetic cause POV: Mixed time phases--past/present/future--authorial discourse) Nonlinear Narrative Film Structures

29. Narrative Theory in Filmby Jeff Frame