Narrative and Narration

notes for final essay to improve on:

  • punctuality: submit work on time

  • use terminology from Film Art for more precision

    • eg match cut is less precise than match on action/graphic match

narrative form

  • agents acting

  • casual chain of events in space and time

    • a sense of cause and effects in the plot

  • aspects

  • plot v story

  • types of beginnings and ending

    • soft, hard openings (Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Jurrasic Park)

    • conclusive, open endings

  • diegetic; non-diegetic

narrative aspects

  • causality: 3 key emotions

    • curiosity

    • surprise

    • suspense

  • time: 3 aspects

    • order

    • duration

    • frequency

  • space: involves all filmic techniques

    • mise-en-scène

    • cinematography

    • editing and sound

narration

  • the act or process or storytelling; the act by which a story is told

  • “The moment-by-moment process that guides us in building the story out of the plot” — Film Art, 87

  • controlling decision about delivery and withholding of information

  • “Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information” — Ian McEwan

  • “The whole art of movies and plays is in the control of the flow of information to the audience … how much information, when, how fast it comes. Certain things maybe have to be there three times” — Tom Stoppard

  • viewer/character — can be defined in terms of:

    • range: restricted/unrestricted

      • restricted: you know as much as one of the character

      • unrestricted: you know more about the plot in relation to a specific character

    • depth: subjective/objective

range and depth of knowledge

  • range

    • North by Northwest: switch restricted to unrestricted: beyond Roger Thornhill from UN sequence

    • The Conversation: consistently restricted to Harry’s knowledge

    • Do the Right Thing: unrestricted (never limited to one character’s knowledge)

  • depth

    • North by Northwest: objective with moments of subjectivity (less depth; perceptual subjectivity in POV shots)

    • The Conversation: subjective (greater depth: thoughts, dream)

    • Do the Right Thing: objective (ensamble)

emotions

  • curiosity

    • wanting to find out something — lesser intensity of how much we want to know about the information (less than suspense)

  • suspense

    • prolonging the conclusion of an action which builds tension

  • surprise

    • something that appears when the viewers aren’t expecting