Bord Well Narration

7/28/2019 Bord Well Narration

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Narration and the Fiction Film


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Narration and the Fiction Film Three approaches to the problem of narrative

as representation: considering the storys world or

diegesis; its portrayal of reality or its broadermeanings.

as structure: ways of combining parts to make awhole; segmentation and grammar or languageof film, e.g. the grande syntagmatique.

asprocess: the activity of selecting, arranging,and rendering story material in order to achievespecific time-bound effects on a perceiver (xi). Bordwells preference for a cognitivist and Constructivist

approach to film research.


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From formalism to cognitivism

Russian Formalism (1920s) and PragueSchool (Jan Mukorovsky)

Key concepts: syuzhet, fabula,motivation, retardation, parallelism.

Defining the specificity of aestheticfunction while recognizing the importance

of social convention in what a culturedefines as a work of art.

Refusing to put arbitrary boundariesbetween theory, history, and criticism.


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From formalism to cognitivism

For a historical poetics of film

poetic concepts relating to the artworks structure

to the perceivers relation to the work

to broader functions of the artwork

historical concepts examining changes in norms and conventions of narration how social context shapes the form and

function of artworks


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Narration and the Fiction Film Part One. Critique of mimetic and diegetic theories of

narration.

Part Two: Theoretical Poetics Syuzhetand style

Film viewing as a dynamic perceptual-cognitive process.

How films factors of space and time are organized asnarration.

Part Three: Descriptive poetics Classical narration (Hollywood, 1917-1960)

Art-cinema narration (postwar European)

Historical-materialist narration (Soviet film of the 1920s)

Parametric narration (limited cases of postwar European film)

plus the example of Godard as a hybrid or mixed mode stylist


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The process of narrative comprehension

Protocols of story comprehension, orschemata,

through which spectators are cued by the film to

construct a story based on an inferential process. prototype schemata: identifying actants, actions, locales,

etc., according to a posited norm.

template schemata: a master narrative scheme that

embodies expectations concerning how events should be

classified and how parts should be related to the progress of

the whole.

proceduralschemata: dynamic protocols through which

spectators seek to fill in information absent from the

template. A search for appropriate motivations and relations

of causality, time and space.


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Fabula, Syuzhet, and Style


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Narration is the process whereby the films syuzhet

and style interact in the course of cueing and

channeling the spectators construction of the fabula(53).

The fabula (story) embodies the action as achronological, cause-and-effect chain of eventsoccurring within a given duration and spatial field. A mental construct or pattern that spectators create through

a process of assumption and inference based on prototype,template, and procedural schemata.

The syuzhetor plot is the actual arrangement andpresentation of the fabula by the film.

Style names a films systematic use of cinematicdevices.

Excess or the third meaning: those elements whichmay stand out perceptually because they do not fiteither narrative or stylistic patterns.


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Modes and Norms

Intrinsic norms define a pattern of coherence

set by the system of individual films

themselves.

Extrinsic norms referto patterns of coherence

relevant to large groups of films.

Codification of extrinsic norms over time may

lead to the inauguration of a narrational

mode: a historically distinct set of norms of

narrational construction and comprehension.


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Historical modes of narration Classical narration (Hollywood cinema, 1916

to present).

Dialectical-materialist narration (post-revolutionary Soviet films of the 1920s).

Parametric narration characteristic of theformal experimentation of filmmakers like

Alain Resnais and Robert Bresson. A single structure determines the compositional

logic from local texture to overall form.

Art cinema (approx. 1957-1969).


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Modes of narration

Knowledgeability: the extent to which the narration lays

claim to a range and depth offabula information. Self-consciousness: the degree to which the narration

acknowledges its address to the spectator.

Communicativeness: the extent to which the narration

withholds or communicates fabula information.

ode Knowledge Self-csness Communica-

tiveness

Narrator Author

Classical omniscient moderate high invisible effaced

Art cinema restricted high low foregrounded present

Historical-

materialist

omniscient high very high foregrounded/didactic

present

Parametric omniscient high low foregrounded present

Godard mixed very high mixed overt present


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Classical syuzhetpattern Character-centered causality

Reliance upon the canonic story: undisturbed stage-disturbance-conflict-resolution

of conflict

Causality is the prime unifying principle Double causal structure: two plot lines (romance

and action) each with goals, obstacles, and climax

Plot pattern organized by segments

The closure-effect


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Classical style

Style is motivated compositionally as a

function of syuzhet patterning: film technique

is a vehicle for the syuzhets transmission offabula information.

Strives for the utmost denotative clarity.

Highly coded ; i.e.., uses a limited number of

technical devices and these devices operate

according to strict parameters.


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The parametric mode

Influence of postwar European avant-garde

music, the nouveau roman, and structuralism.

Values transgression and the need for each artwork toconstruct a unique system.

A single structure determines the compositional logic

from local texture to overall form.

Textual components form an order that coheres

according to intrinsic principles. Textual form treated as a spatial phenomenon.

Phenomenal form of the text tends to be seen as a

permutational distribution of an invisible set.


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Parametric style Stylistic system creates patterns distinct from

the demands of the syuzhetsystem.

Representational meaning is subordinated tothe profiling of a sheer perceptual order.

Only a few parameters are highlighted andvaried across the film.

A strong inner unity: a prominent intrinsicnorm with patterned reiterations. The ascetic and sparse options

Tendency to work with additive forms.


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Art cinema narration Goal bereft protagonists: characters observe rather

than acting as causal agents.

Elliptical and/or episodic linking of events. Plots based on boundary situations leading to

existential crises and transformations in the maincharacters.

An expressive realism shapes space: dreams,

memories, fantasies motivate ambiguous andsubjective narratives.

Restricted narration.

High degree of stylistic self-consciousness.


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Single and multiple protagonistsSingle protagonist

Open endingsStrong sense of closure

Restricted narrationOmniscient narration

Ambiguous or unclear motivationClear and complete motivation

Episodic and ellipticalLinear chain of cause and effect

Boundary situation storiesBuilt on conflict

Goal bereftDriven by desire

Art cinema narrationClassical narration


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Expressive verisimilitude in art cinema

A subjective or expressive verisimilitude attuned toexhibiting character. The emphasis on interior or psychological realities.

Plots defined by boundary-situation stories: the causal situation leads up to an episode where the art film

protagonist faces a crisis of existential significance.


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Narrational characteristics of the art film

protagonist.

Lacks clearly defined traits and goals. Causal motivation is withdrawn or unknown, emphasizing

insignificant actions and intervals.

The classical protagonist struggles; the art film

protagonist drifts passively, tracing out an itinerary of

social situations.

Concerned less with action than reaction, art cinema

presents psychological effects in search of their causes.

Characters retard the forward movement of the plot by

recounting stories, fantasies, and dreams. Often leads to

temporal disjunctions, such as flashbacks.


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Narrational characteristics of the art film protagonist,contd. Conventions of expressive realism shape spatial

representation: optical point of view shots, flash frames of a glimpsed or

recalled event, discontinuous editing patterns associated withinterior or psychological time, modulations of light, color, andsound, are motivated by character psychology.

The art film restrains the narrational point-of-view to a single

protagonist or may split it between several protagonists. Enhances expressivity of subjectivity, but also makes narration

unreliable.


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Overt narrational commentary Art films tend to highly self-conscious

narration.

The viewer looks for moments in which thenarration may interrupt the progress of theplot and call attention to itself throughstylistic flourishes.

The implied narrator is no longerinvisible but calls attention to itself.


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The implied narrator is no longer

invisible but calls attention to itself.

Scenes may end in medias res.

Gaps are created that are not explicable by character psychology.

The plot is retarded through withholding information or providing too

much. Connotative and symbolic associations replace logic of cause and

effect.

Exposition is delayed and widely distributed across the film.

Disjunctions in temporal order such as flashbacks and forwards.

Has the effect of flaunting both the narrations range of knowledge and itsrelative incommunicativeness (telling a little while withholding a lot).

In sum, the construction of the narration becomes the object ofspectator hypotheses: how is the story being told? why tell the storyin this way? (210).


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Overt narrational commentary

Knowledgeability: the extent to which the narration laysclaim to a range and depth offabula information.

Self-consciousness: the degree to which the narrationacknowledges its address to the spectator.

Communicativeness: the extent to which the narrationwithholds or communicates fabula information.

Mode Knowledge Self-csness Communica-tivenes s

Narrator Author

Classica l omniscient moderate high invisible effaced

Art cinema restricted high low foregrounded present

Bord Well Narration

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