Introduction to Film Studies Film Form and Film Style

Openings and Endings The narrative starts from its very beginning – ab obo or ab initio Casablanca begins with an introduction in which the film’s backgrounds are explained away. Alfred Hitchcock’s Stranger on a Train (1951) Tennis star Guy Haines meets Bruno Anthony, a stranger on a train. Knowing from a gossip magazine that Guy wants to divorce from his wife, Bruno proposes the perfect ‘criss-cross’ murders.

Opening and Endings Medias-res - an artistic and literary technique of relating a story from a midpoint rather than the beginning. Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) - about the rise and fall of a Lucchese Family associate Henry Hill and his friends over the period of 1955 to 1980

Openings and Endings Closed ending - narrative ends with an unequivocal conclusion Casablanca Open ending - narrative ends without clear conclusion and solution so that the reader and the viewer wonder what will happen after the end of the stories. François Truffaut’s 400 Blows (Quatre cent coups, 1959) A teenage boy misunderstood at home and school, commits a minor crime and is sent to an observation centre for the juvenile delinquent. He escapes from it while playing football.

Narrative Analysis Five foci in the narrative analysis of Gérard Genette’s Narratology. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (1980) Order, frequency, duration, voice and mood Order: an order of event units being told Chronological order: telling events following one after another in time; from the oldest to the most recent event (a) crime conceived (b) crime planned (c)crime committed (d) crime discovered (e) detective investigates (f) detective reveals

Narrative Analysis Narration out of chronological order Order of telling events is manipulated according to the logic other than chronological Events sequence (a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f) can be very typically into (d) crime discovered (e) detective investigates (f) detective reveals and then (a) crime conceived (b) crime planned (c)crime committed; or (d)(e), and simultaneously with (e) (a)(b)(c) and finally (f) Telling older events later, (a)(b)(c) told after (d)(e)(f) is called ‘flashback’

Order Distant Lives Distant Lives Most of the stories in Citizen Kane are flashbacks. In Terence Davies’s Distant Voices, Still Lives, we see scenes set in the present during a young woman’s wedding day. These alternate with flashbacks to a time when her family lived under the sway of an abusive, mentally disturbed father.

Order Flashforward – a scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current time of the plot Nichola Roeg’s Don’t Look Now A man sees his wife in black on a boat, though she is supposed to be away. At the end of the film, it is revealed that she is with her husband’s coffin.

Frequency An event can occur once and be narrated once (singular) Today I went to the bar. An event can occur n times and be narrated once (iterative) I used to go to the bar. An event can occur once and be narrated n times (repetitive) I went to the bar. Other people saw me going to the bar. An event can occur n times and be narrated n times (multiple) I used to go to the bar and other people saw me going to the bar a number of times.

Frequency Peter Howitt’s Sliding Doors (1998) – a young woman gets fired from her public relations job. After she waits for her train on the London Underground, the plot splits into two: one in which she catches the train, the other detailing the separate path she would have taken if she missed it.

Duration Difference between discourse time and narrative time Discourse time – time spent to narrate the event Narrative time – real time that has passed for an event to take place ‘5 years later’ a lengthy narrative time, but it could be a matter of second in discourse time

Duration Narrative time is normally shorter than discourse time Several million years are covered in Space Odyssey by 161 minutes Kane’s life covered in Citizen Kane in 119 mins. Many years covered in Amadeus by 138 minutes Four days covered in North by Northwest by 136 minutes One day covered in Hiroshima, mon amour by 90 minutes

Duration Elipsis: the omission of a large section of a narrative Ozu Yasujiro’s Tokyo Story - the scene of mother lying in coma cut to the morning scene, in which she is already passed away.

Duration In some films discourse time, plot time last as long as narrative time or real time. Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964) Cezare Zavattini’s experimental omnibus film, Love in the City (1953) Tre ore di paradiso Tre ore di paradiso

Duration Also rarely discourse time is longer than narrative time Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad 10 second 100 meter race is lengthen to 30 seconds Tokyo Olympiade

Voice Voice is connected with who narrates and from where Where the narration is from:  Intra-diagetic: inside the text (narrated from the film narrative)  Extra-diagetic: outside the text (narrated from outside film narrative)

Voice Who narrates:  Hetero-diegetic: the narrator is not a character in a film  Homo-diegetic: the narrator is a character in a film First person narrating and third person narrating

Voice Intra-diegetic, homo-diegetic first person narrating David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) – a housewife who is having an affair with a married doctor whom she met in a station is narrating what is going on inside herself. Rachmaninov’s music as a extra-diegetic element.

Voice Extra-diegetic, hetero-diegetic third person narrating: the speaker speaks from outside the story never using ‘I’ Luchino Visconti’s La Terra trema Fishermen’s plight and exploitation is narrated by Visconti.

Mood Mood – the various degree of ‘distance’ created between the narrator of a film and what she narrates. Distance helps the viewer to determine the degree of precision in a narrative and the accuracy of information conveyed. Unreliable narrator: the distance between a narrator and what he narrates is wide: The narrator in Citizen Kane – a journalist gathering information about who Kane really is and what ‘rose bud’ really means.

Mood Lady in the Lake Lady in the Lake First-person perspective – the camera become the viewpoint of the film as well as a character Robert Montgomery’s ambition to create a cinematic version of the first-person narrative of Raymond Chandler in Lady in the Lake (1947)