ARTICLE HERE
Humans are ‘the storytelling animal’ – it is through stories that we
make sense of ourselves and the world around us. When we speak about
films we, more often than not, mean narrative films – films that tell a
story. Because stories are all around us (in life, literature, other
films) we will approach a narrative film with a great many existing
expectations. Further expectations will be aroused as we actively
participate in creation of the film’s form: the ending has the task of
satisfying or cheating the expectations prompted by the film as a whole.
This session will consider how narrative form engages the viewer in
this dynamic activity.
What is Narrative?
A narrative is defined by David Bordwell as ‘a chain of events in
cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space’. Although causality (and time and space) is central to narrative, films may also make use of different principles, such as parallelism, whereby two separate lines of action are intercut in order to allow us to compare and contrast. Network narratives
(Pulp Fiction, Babel, Crash, etc) – which show parallel lines of action
and conceal causal links – are also increasingly popular.
In order to make sense of narrative, it is first essential for us to clarify the distinction between story and plot.
Story and Plot
The plot of a film is the explicit presentation of narrative (story)
events along with additional non-diegetic material (credits, score,
etc.). In film, diegetic elements are things within the ‘film world’ and non-diegetic
elements are things outwith that world. [A good way to think about
this is to determine whether the film’s characters have access to the
elements in question.] The story, then, consists of all of the
explicitly presented events as well as additional things which we infer
on the basis of the plot.
Cause and Effect
Usually the agents of cause and effect are characters.
Characters – who may be flat or well-rounded – have particular traits
(attitudes, skills, habits, tastes, psychological drives, etc.) which
play causal roles in the story action and, as such, have a particular
narrative function. Although characters usually provide the causal
impetus in a film this is not always the case: some films (e.g. disaster
movies) are set in motion by particular events. As human beings, we
naturally seek to connect events by way of cause and effect – we look
for causal motivation. Sometimes apparently minor
details can, in fact, play major causal roles. Filmmakers can choose
when to suppress causes (detective films, etc.) and provoke curiosity or whether to withhold effects and provoke suspense. Indeed, some films can deny us knowledge of causes or effects even at the end (leading us to speculate).
Time
In attempting to construct a film’s story from its plot we attempt to
establish the chronology, duration, and frequency of events. As such,
time is one of the central components which the filmmaker has at his
disposal. Unlike in the real world, time can be compressed, stretched,
and can run both forwards and backwards.
Temporal order: film plots can present events out of story order by way of flashbacks or flashforwards.
Often past and present are alternated and flashbacks may themselves be
presented out of chronological order. Indeed, even entire narratives can
be presented in reverse chronological order (e.g. Memento, Irreversible). This reordering of events, by way of the plot structure, can can add elements of surprise, suspense, and emphasis to a story.
Temporal Duration: there is a sometimes complex relationship between story duration, plot duration, and screen duration. At a more specific level, screen duration can expand (stretch relationship), contract (summary relationship), or remain faithful (real time)
to story time. By far the most common of these is the summary
relationship whereby a particular plot event (e.g a train journey
lasting several hours) will be conveyed on screen in just a few minutes.
Temporal Frequency: story events are generally
presented only once in the plot, however, sometimes story events will be
repeated in the plot treatment. At times this repetition can provide us
with additional/ conflicting information: for example, in Rashomon
(Kurosawa, 1950) the same event is shown from multiple perspectives.
Repetition can also be employed to emphasise the significance of a
particular event.
Space
Plot can lead us to infer other story spaces than those presented to
us on screen. Screen space bears a similar relationship to plot space
that screen duration does to plot duration. We will consider setting and
screen space (and offscreen space) when we look at mise-en-scene and
cinematography in our session on style.
Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development
Films don’t just start and stop – they begin and end. A narrative’s
use of causality, time, and space usually involves a change from an
initial situation to a final situation. A film’s beginning (possibly medias res)
provokes expectations and our search for causal motivations by
setting-up a specific range of possible causes and effects. The portion
of the plot that lays out important story events and character traits in
the opening situation is called the exposition. Most
patterns of development depend on how causes and effects create a change
in a character’s situation. There is no set pattern of development but
some common ones are the goal orientated and investigation plots. Time
and space can also provide plot patterns. E.g. deadlines, flashbacks,
single locales.
Films can combine various patterns of development – as a film trains
the viewer in its particular form, viewer expectations become more and
more precise. The middle portion of a film may cause suspense or
surprise by delaying or cheating our expectations: a particularly fine
example of the latter is From Dusk Till Dawn (Rodriguez, 1996).
The ending of a film will typically seek to resolve causal issues that
have run through the film by way of a climax, creating
tension or suspense and formal resolution, which will result in
emotional satisfaction. Some films, however, are intentionally
anticlimactic. In such films we do not receive causal closure and are
left uncertain about causes and effects. This particular form may
encourage us to imagine for ourselves what happens next or to reflect
upon other ways in which our expectations have been fulfilled.
Narration: the Flow of Story Information
Narration can be defined as ‘the moment-by-moment process that guides
us in building the story out of the plot.’ It is the plot’s way of
distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects: it
may , as we have seen, withhold information for the sake of curiosity or
suspense, or supply information to create expectation or suspense. The
most important factors that enter into narration involve the range and
depth of story information that the plot presents.
Range of Story Information: narration can be unrestricted (omniscient) or restricted
and can achieve powerful effects by manipulating the range of story
information. Unrestricted narration is when the viewer knows more than
the character (but seldom everything), which helps build suspense.
Restricted narration limits the viewer to what characters know (or
less?), which helps create greater curiosity in the viewer and can lead
to surprise. Films often utilise both restricted and unrestricted
narration to a greater or lesser degree.
Depth of Story Information: narration can also
manipulate the depth of our knowledge, depending on how deeply they
delve into a character’s perceptual/ psychological states. Films which
confine us only to knowledge of characters’ external behaviour are said
to be objective. This can aid to withhold certain
information from us – the character’s perceptions, feelings, and
thoughts. When a plot gives us access to what characters see and hear
(e.g. point-of-view shot) this gives us perceptual subjectivity.
We might even hear a character’s mental thoughts or see images
representing his thoughts, dreams, memories, etc. When a plot plunges
more deeply into the psychological states of a character this gives us
what can be called mental subjectivity. Subjectivity
can lead us to feel sympathy for a character, while access to inner
thoughts can help us account for later behaviour or create expectations,
etc.
Restricted narration need not mean greater subjectivity, nor does
omniscience necessarily entail objectivity – range and depth of
knowledge are independent variables. Most films insert subjective
moments in an otherwise objective framework. Flashbacks may be motivated
as mental subjectivity but once inside, events will typically be
presented objectively and may even be unrestricted in conveying
information that the character could never know (is this a flaw?). Some
films effectively mix objectivity and subjectivity to create ambiguity.
The Narrator: narration may employ a narrator – some specific agent who purports to be telling us the story. A narrator may be a character narrator (popular from literature) or a noncharacter
narrator (usually in documentary). Sometimes the identity of a narrator
may be played upon. Both kinds of narrator may present different types
of narration. For example, a noncharacter narrator need not be
omniscient and might plumb subjective depths, while a character narrator
may tell of events that he did not witness and relay little of his
inner thoughts.
The Classical Hollywood Cinema
Classical Hollywood film depends on the assumption that action will
spring primarily from individual characters as causal agents. Protagonists will have desires, which will set up goals, and counterforces (e.g. an antagonist) will oppose these goals, creating conflict. These forces will have to be overcome in order to reach resolution. As cause and effect imply change, characters’ desires for something to be different are an important factor here. Time,
in Hollywood cinema, is subordinate to the causal chain: what is shown;
omitted, chronology; etc. will all be dependent on expressing the
cause-effect chain most effectively. Hollywood narration tends to offer
an objective framework against which levels of subjectivity are
measured. It is generally fairly unrestricted – even when focusing on
individual characters we will be party to things they do not see, hear,
or know. Also, most Hollywood narratives provide closure:
causal chains are completed, questions answered, mysteries solved, and
loose ends tied up, almost always with a happy ending. However, as we
will see, not all films follow Hollywood conventions – there are many
examples of films that include superfluous information or deadtime, or
that play with chronology to puzzle us, or leave endings loose, open, or
ambiguous.
Summary
In looking at any narrative film, such questions as these may help in understanding its formal structures:
- Which story events are directly presented to us in the plot, and
which must we assume or infer? Is there any nondiegetic material given
in the plot?
- What is the earliest story event of which we learn? How does it relate to later events through a series of causes and effects?
- What is the temporal relationship of story events? Has temporal
order, frequency, or duration been manipulated in the plot to affect our
understanding of events?
- Does the closing reflect a clear-cut pattern of development that
relates it to the opening? Do all narrative lines achieve closure, or
are some left open?
- How does the narration present story information to us? Is it
restricted to one or a few characters’ knowledge, or does it range
freely among the characters in different spaces? Does it give us
considerable depth of story information by exploring the characters’
mental states?
- How closely does the film follow the conventions of the classical
Hollywood cinema? If it departs significantly from those conventions,
what formal principle does it use instead?
