Film Narrative and Formal Systems

Vocabulary flashcards covering film narrative principles, formal systems, story versus plot, diegesis, narrative temporality, and narration dimensions.

Narrative system

The formal system of a film that governs the way it tells its story.

Stylistic system

The formal system consisting of technical choices that create the look, sound, and feel of a film.

Referential meaning

A denotative level of film meaning focused on plot summary and the relationship between the story world and the real world.

Explicit meaning

A direct, denotative level of film meaning that represents the primary "point" or main message.

Implicit meaning

A connotative, suggested level of film meaning that encompasses the film's themes.

Symptomatic meaning

An abstract, connotative level of film meaning reflecting or reflecting upon larger cultural and social phenomena.

Descriptive claims

Film claims that provide a careful account of content and form, addressing referential and explicit meanings.

Evaluative claims

Film claims that offer judgments regarding a film's quality or value.

Interpretive claims

Film claims that develop persuasive arguments about a film's meanings and significance, engaging implicit and symptomatic meanings.

Narrative

A chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space.

Narrative economy

The storytelling practice in classical narrative cinema where everything superfluous or extraneous is omitted to avoid wasting screen time.

Chekhov's Gun

The dramatic principle stating that an object or detail introduced early in a story must play a role later through set-up and payoff.

Exposition

The narrative beginning that provides key background information, such as setting, characters, backstory, and context.

Catharsis

The emotional release experienced at the resolution or end of a narrative.

Story

The full chronological chain of narrative events, incorporating both explicitly presented events and those inferred by the audience.

Plot

The actual arrangement, ordering, and presentation of narrative material explicitly presented in the film, including any added non-diegetic elements.

Diegetic

Pertaining to elements that exist directly within the story world of the film and are ostensibly perceivable by the characters.

Non-diegetic

Pertaining to film elements that originate outside the story world and are perceivable only by the audience.

Diegetic music

Music that exists within the story world, such as songs sung by characters or played on radios, plausibly heard by characters.

Non-diegetic music

Background musical score or soundtrack selections heard by the audience that characters cannot hear.

Order

The variable of narrative time governing the placement and sequence of narrative events in relation to chronology, which plots can reorganize via devices like flashbacks.

Duration

The variable of narrative time concerning how long an event lasts, defining the relationship between story duration and plot duration.

Frequency

The variable of narrative time concerning how often an audience sees or hears a particular story event repeated in the plot.

Narration

The process by which story information is made available to or withheld from the viewer via the plot.

Range of knowledge

A dimension of narration running from restricted to unrestricted that determines how widely story information is distributed.

Depth of knowledge

A dimension of narration running from objective to subjective that governs how deeply the film accesses character interiority.

Restricted narration

A range of knowledge that deliberately limits narrative information to what a single character or small group knows.

Unrestricted narration

A range of knowledge where narrative information is widely distributed among characters, often approaching an omniscient perspective.

Subjective narration

A depth of knowledge presenting information related to a character's internal psychological state or showing the world directly through their eyes.

Objective narration

A depth of knowledge presenting external world events from a detached, disembodied perspective.