Narrative

This week we’ll explore the elements of narrative. After reading your chapter and completing the content below, you should be able (among other things) to differentiate between the terms story and plot, know the difference between diegetic and nondiegetic elements, understand the importance of order/significance/duration of plot events, and recognize the difference between narration and narrator.

A BRIEF INTRO

How does your book define narrative and/or narrative film?

Of the Lumière films we screened during Week 1, which is the first narrative film? Why?

STORY AND PLOT

What is the difference between a story and a plot?

What is the plot of Citizen Kane?

What does the word diegesis mean?

And the terms diegetic and nondiegetic?

Which of the following is diegetic and which is nondiegetic?

(a) the “News on the March” sequence in Citizen Kane

(b) the trashcan in Do the Right Thing

(c) the credit sequence at the beginning of Rear Window

(d) the flashy “Broadway Melody” number in Singin’ in the Rain

NARRATIVE CHARACTERS

How important are characters to the film narrative? What is their overall function?

When in a film has something other than a person functioned as a causal agent (i.e., an agent of cause/effect)?

There are four schemes of character development we may experience in a film, ways a character may move through a mental, physical, or social state to another. Next to each change/development below, list a film character that suits each of the schemes. (NOTE: This section may NOT be in your book.)

External Change: when a character undergoes a physical alteration

Internal Change: when a character change occur within

Progressive Character Development: when improvement or advancement occurs within the quality of a character

Regressive Character Development: when the character returns to some previous state or deterioration from present state

NARRATIVE AND TIME

What is the screen duration (i.e., screen time) of Citizen Kane? Of Do the Right Thing?

Now, what is the story duration of the deterioration of Kane’s marriage?

Finally, what is plot duration of Citizen Kane?

While most films are presented via a linear chronology in which events and actions proceed through a forward movement in time, others (like Citizen Kane, for example) opt for nonlinear chronologies. What are two examples of nonlinear chronologies?

And which does Kane exemplify?

If you have seen the film Memento, which does it fit?

Sometimes in film, story events are presented more than once. When in Citizen Kane do we experience this narrative frequency, which allows us to see the same action in two different ways?

Since Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, filmmakers have enjoyed toying with narrative order, making it occasionally more difficult for spectators to piece together story events. Still, we are given plenty of clues along the way, for instance,

  • usually, there is not huge number of alternative futures
  • within these futures, the cause-effect chain remains linear
  • the characters/settings remain consistent
  • individual storylines generally parallel each other
  • and finally, there is still some sense of closure

NARRATION/NARRATORS

How does first-person narration work in film? Who usually speaks? How is it set up?

What is omniscient (unrestricted) narration? How and when does Citizen Kane use this type of narration?

What type of narration is used when the viewer learns about story events as characters do?

So which type of narration does Hollywood usually employ? First-person, unrestricted, restricted, or a combination?

Why are some narrators referred to as unreliable? (Think about those in films like A Beautiful Mind, Fight Club, Secret Window, and Identity).

CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA

Just like continuity editing and sound continuity, two patterns that most filmmakers in Hollywood adopt, Hollywood narrative films rely on principles to govern it. What are the “rules” of classical Hollywood cinema?