Film Form and NarrativeOlivia Malinowski

Liz WendtAllie Borrego

Chapter 2: The Significance of Film Form

The Concept of Form in Film

Form as SystemForm – the overall system of relations that we can perceive among the elements in the whole film.Cues

We exercise and develop our ability to pay attention, to anticipate upcoming events, to construct a whole out of parts and to feel an emotional response to that whole.

“Form” vs. “Content”

Formal ExpectationsFrom beginning to end, our involvement with a film depends largely on expectations.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3f9UJTmgd0When our expectations aren't met, we may feel disoriented. Through adjusting our expectations, we look for more “appropriate” ways to engage with the films form.

Conventions and ExperiencePrior ExperienceConventions- the way things are usually done

Form and FeelingEmotions represented in artwork

Emotional response felt by spectator

Form and Meaning

Referential Meaning – allusion to particular items of knowledge outside the film that the viewer is expected to recognize

Explicit Meaning – significance presented overtly, usually in language and often near the films beginning or end

Implicit Meaning – significance left mum, for the viewer to discover upon analysis or reflection

Symptomatic Meaning – significance that the film divulges, often against its will, by virtue of its historical or social context

Evaluation

Personal Taste vs. Evaluative Judgment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHXy8DpF5k0

Criteria: Realistic, Moral, Coherent, Intensity of Effect, Complexity, and Originality

Principles of Film FormFunction

The role or effect of any element within the films formNot all elements purposely have a functionMotivation is justification

Similarity and RepetitionBasic to our understanding of any filmUse of motifs (significant repeated element) and parallelism

Principles of Film Form Cont.

Difference and Variation

DevelopmentGoverns the progression of form within a filmSegmentation, or outline, is used to analyze a films pattern of development

Unity/DisunityUnity occurs when all relationships we perceive are clearly woven together.Disunity leaves the viewer unfulfilled and incomplete

Chapter 3: Principles of Narration Construction

What is Narrative?

Plot and Story

Cause and Effect

Time

Space

Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development

What is Narrative?Narrative: be a chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring In time and space

Narrative is what we usually mean by the term story.

Narrative begins with one situation; a series of changes occurs according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally a new situation arises that brings the end of the narrative.

Components of a narrative: causality, space and time.

Plot & StoryPlot: describes everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us

Story: the set of all the events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly presents and those the viewers infers

Nondiegetic elements: part of the plot, elements brought in from outside the story world. Ex: credits, music, etc.

Plot Story

Plot vs. Story

Plot Story

Added nondiegtic material

Explicitly presented events

Presumed and inferred events

Cause & EffectThe agents of cause and effect are characters, usually.

The actions and reactions of the characters contribute to the audience engagement in the film.

However, not all causes and effects originate with characters. For example, natural disasters or health issues.

The audience actively seeks to connect events by means of cause and effect.

The plot can lead the audience to infer causes and effects to build up a total story.

Detective Films: 1. Crime conceived2. Crime planned3. Crime committed4. Crime discovered5. Detectives

investigate6. Detective reveals

A,B,C

Story

Plot

Cause & Effect

By withholding causes the film maker creates mystery.

Whenever any film creates a mystery, it suppresses certain story causes and presents only effects in the plot.

The plot may also present causes but withhold story effects, creating suspense and uncertainty in for the audience.

Also creates a vivid ending

TimeTemporal Order: the way in which events are presented.

Flashback: a portion of a story that the plot presents out of chronological order.

Flashforward: moving from present to future then back to present.

Temporal Duration: the film could concentrate on a short relatively cohesive time span or highlight significant stretches of time over years.

Story Duration: how long the story spans over time.

Plot Duration: how long the plot spans over time:

Screen Duration: how long the film is.

Temporal Frequency: the amount of times a scene is presented.

Allows the audience to see the same scene in different perspectives, aims to provide the audience with new information

Space

Normally the place of the story action is also that of the plot, but sometimes the plot leads us to infer other locales as part of the story.

A character can describe a location where an event happened but it is never shown on screen.

Story Space: the locations of the story

Plot Space: the locations portrayed in the plot

Screen Space: where the film is displayed

Openings

The opening provides a basis for what is to come and initiates us into the narrative.

In Media Res: the opening is a series of actions that has already started.

Exposition: the portion of the plot that lays out important story events and character traits

Setup: the first quarter or so of a film’s plot

Patterns of Development

Change in knowledge: most common general pattern, the character learns something new which causes a turning point in the plot

Goal-oriented plot: character takes step to achieve a desired object or state.

A framing situation in the present may initiate a series of flashacks showing how events led up to the present

The plot can create a deadline for the action. Ex: Back to The Future

Plot can create patters of repeated action via cycles of events.

ClosingsThe pattern development in the middle portion may delay and expected outcome.

The pattern of development can also create a surprise ending.

Climax: the end of a film, the high point of the development.

The movie can end the chain of cause and effect or it could have a deliberately anticlimactic ending.

In such films the ending remains open.

Narration: The Flow of Story Information

Carefully divulging story information at various points can arouse a viewers interest immensely

Withhold information for the sake of curiosity or surprise

Can be extremely important because it allows the director to manipulate the viewer emotions and feelings

Narration: the plot’s way of of distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects

Narration

Narration: the plot’s way of of distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects

The moment-by-moment process that guides us in building the story out of the plot

Most important factors: range & depth of the story and information that the plot presents

Range of Story Information:Can start with very broad range of knowledge

Unrestricted narration-we know more, we see and hear more, than any of the characters can-narration is never completely unrestricted

VS.

Restricted narration-we don’t see or hear anything that the narration can’t see or hear

Important to mystery filmsA completely restricted narration is not commonCreates a greater curiosity and surprise for the viewer

Want to analyze the range of information?

Ask who knows what when!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgn9FJcmwUY

Depth of Story Information:

A plot might confine us wholly to information about what characters say and do: their external behavior. here the narration is relatively objective

Plot also could give access to what characters see and hear

Range and Depth of Knowledge are independent variables

Important Terms:POINT OF VIEW SHOT- taken from a characters optical standpoint

SOUND PERSPECTIVE-we hear sounds as the character would

PERCEPTUAL SUBJECTIVITY-visual or auditory point of view

MENTAL SUBJECTIVITY-greater depth if the plot plunges into the character’s mind-voice revealing the characters thoughts, or the characters inner images representing memory, fantasy, dreams, hallucinations

More on POV

Point of view is ambiguous-it can refer to range of knowledge or to depth

Why manipulate the depth of knowledge? It can increase our sympathy for a character and can cue stable expectations about what the characters will say or do

Objectivity can be an effective way of withholding information

The Narrator

Narration is the process by which the plot presents story information to the spectator. The process may shift from restricted and unrestricted ranges of knowledge and varying degrees of objectivity and subjectivity

May or may not have an actual narrator-source of the narrating voice could be uncertain to play on character/non-character distinction

The Classical Hollywood Cinema

In “Classical Hollywood cinema” psychological causes tend to motivate most other narrative events

Strong tendency to be objectiveStrong degree of closureThe plot will omit significant durations in order to show only events of casual importanceLengthy stable and influential

Hollywood Cinema (cont)

Action springs from individual characters as casual agentsCause and effect imply changeAppointment motivatesDeadline makes plot duration dependent on the cause-effect chain