Introduction to Film Studies Film Form and Film Style

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 Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train (1989) – three stories featuring different characters take place in the same run-down hotel and are connected by a gunshot. There is only one gunshot but it is heard three times in three different episodes.

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 In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey several million years are skipped in a few seconds between the scenes in which an ape throws upward a bone and a spaceship cruises in the space.

Duration Tokyo Story Tokyo Story 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 Empire Empire In some films discourse time, plot time last as long as narrative time or real time. Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964) 485 minutes of the Empire State Building at night Cezare Zavattini’s experimental omnibus film, Love in the City (1953) Tre ore di paradiso Tre ore di paradiso

Duration Discourse time is longer than narrative time, a rare case 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 (intra-diegetic & homo- diegetic) and third person narrating (extra- diegetic & hetero-diegetic)

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 Alain Resnais’s short documentary film about Auschwitz, Night and Fog (1955). The script was written by Jean Cayrol, a survivor of Maut- hausen-Gusen concentration camp and narrated by Michel Bouquet

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)