Film Art

1. Chapter 3
Narrative Form
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2. Principles of Narrative Form
• Narrative form tells a story.
• While common in fiction films, it can be
employed in other types of films.
• Narrative construction relies on the viewer to
pick up cues, anticipate action, and recall
information.
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3. What Is Narrative?
• A chain of events in cause-effect relationship,
occurring in time and space.
• Narratives may also make use of parallelism.
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4. Plot and Story
• Story: the chronological events in a narrative,
both explicitly presented and inferred.
• Diegesis means elements that are assumed to
exist in a film’s world.
• Plot includes everything visibly and audibly
presented, including nondiegetic elements,
but not what is presumed or inferred.
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5. Cause and Effect
• Usually triggered by characters, but could be
events or circumstances.
• Viewers look for causal motivation and this
can create mystery, suspense, or other
reactions.
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6. Time
• Time shapes our understanding of narrative.
• Temporal order refers to the order of story
events.
• Story time is constructed on the basis of what
the plot presents, even though that might not
be in chronological order.
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7. Time
• Temporal duration is the period of time
referred to in the film.
• Plot duration includes the stretches of time
depicted in the film.
• Screen duration is the length of the film.
• Temporal frequency is the number of times an
element is presented.
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8. Space
• Story space is where the story takes place.
• Space can also included inferred or imagined
space.
• Screen space is the visible space within the
frame.
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9. Openings, Closings, and Patterns of
Development
• Exposition: the part of the plot that lays out
important story events and character traits;
usually presented in the opening.
• Patterns of Development: Can be motivated
by time and space or by the characters, such
as in a change in knowledge.
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10. Openings, Closings, and Patterns of
Development
• Climaxes resolve causal issues by bringing the
development to a high point, often involving
tension or suspense.
• Some films are anticlimactic and the endings
remain relatively open.
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11. Narration: The Flow of Story
Information
• Narration is the way in which a film’s plot
distributes story information, often to achieve
certain effects.
• Two important elements in narration are the
range and depth of presented information.
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12. Range of Story Information:
Restricted of Unrestricted
• Range refers to how much information the
viewer is given.
• Restricted: when viewer’s knowledge is
restricted to that of a main character.
• Unrestricted: when viewers know more and
hear more than any of the characters know.
• It is a continuum.
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13. Depth of Story Information:
Objective or Subjective
• Depth refers to how deeply the plot plunges
the viewer into the character’s psychological
states.
• This is also a continuum that can vary
between objective and subjective points of
view.
• The filmmaker’s choice about range and depth
affects the viewer’s response to the film.
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14. The Narrator
• A character (within the story or not) who
purports to be telling the viewer the story.
• Can be objective or subjective, internal or
external to the story.
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15. Narration in The Road Warrior
• Max is the center of the plot’s causal chain
and the viewer is largely restricted to Max’s
range of knowledge.
• This is emphasized by use of point-of-view
shots and mental subjectivity.
• Moments of unrestricted narration build
suspense and create surprise.
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16. The Classical Hollywood Cinema
• Historically, in fiction filmmaking the action
comes from individual characters as causal
agents.
• Time is typically subordinate to cause and
effect.
• Often Hollywood narrative is objective and
involves closure.
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17. Narrative Form in Citizen Kane
• Uses conventions of the newspaper,
detective, and biography genres.
• The film focuses on psychological states and
relationships.
• It both adheres to and departs from Classical
Hollywood Cinema norms and rules.
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18. Plot and Story in Citizen Kane
• Scenes can be broken down into a
segmentation that allows for analysis of the
major divisions of the plot as well as causality
and story time.
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19. Citizen Kane’s Causality
• Two sets of characters cause events to
happen: the reporters and the people who
knew Kane.
• Kane’s death creates a connection between
them.
• Thompson’s goal drives the plot.
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20. Time in Citizen Kane
• The order of plot events engages the viewer
because of its complexity.
• Earlier parts of the plot show the results of
events viewers haven’t seen.
• Later parts confirm and modify expectations
viewers formed earlier.
• The newsreel parallels the plot structure of
the film.
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21. Motivation in Citizen Kane
• The narrative revolves around a mystery–an
investigation into traits of a character–
motivated first by the search for Rosebud.
• Some motivations are left ambiguous.
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22. Citizen Kane’s Parallelism
• Kane’s search for happiness vs. Thompson’s
search for Rosebud.
• Kane’s campaign for governor vs. Susan’s
opera career.
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23. Patterns of Plot Development in
Citizen Kane
• The flashbacks provide a clear progression and
each offers a distinct type of information
about Kane.
• The plot remains relatively open in the end:
neither Kane nor Thompson reach their goal.
• Is Rosebud a resolution?
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24. Narration in Citizen Kane
• We are really only offered recollections of
Kane through five narrators, keeping us
restricted in our knowledge.
• Thompson is the conduit for the information.
He is neutral and barely characterized.
• The narrative is omniscient overall.
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