Narrative Structure in

Film
How Films Tell Stories
Part I

Definition
Storytelling is a pervasive phenomenon
It seems that no culture or society is without
its myths, folktales, and sacred legends.
Narrative is the art of storytelling
Think of the story as the raw ingredients of a
text - narrative is the methodology of how
it is put together. The narrator or producer
of the text cooks it in a certain way.
Narrative appears to be a subject universal
of human experience

a narrative was a story told, whereas a story that was

enacted was considered drama.
Now narrative is usually considered a transmedium
phenomenon. A story
can be presented not only in language but also in
pantomime, dance, images, and even
music.
language remains our most important way of
communicating with one another,
and language-based narrative is our default.

 Film
Technological aspect
To sustain certain culture
Aesthetic qualities
Films tell stories.
Narrative Form
Dominant narrative medium in 20th
century

For a fim to be a narrative it must present us with a series of events in

ways that
imply connections between one event and the next
cause-and-effect relationship: one event has the effect of causing another
event, which causes another, and so on.
Cinematic narration is arguably the most sophisticated of all narrative
media, because it is multi-track, both visual and audio. This enables fims
to co-opt the communicative capabilities of a whole host of other media
and forms.
For example, films have linguistic communication through the presence of
dialogue or voice-over on the sound-track, or the inclusion of printed text
within the
image (such as intertitles, shots of newspapers, books, letters etc.).

 As with other narrative media, such as novels,

theatre, comic books, epic
poems etc., fims organize stories according to
sets of conventions, which are understood
by fimmakers and recognized by fim viewers.
Thus we respond to fims based on, not
only our experience of the real world, but
also, the expectations we have formed through
watching other fims.

 Genre is constituted by specific

systems of expectations and
hypothesis which spectators bring
with them to the cinema and which
interact with the films themselves
during the course of the viewing
process.

1.

To the producers of films, genre is a template for what they make.

2.

To the distributor/promoter, genre provides assumptions about

who the audience is and how to market the films for that specific
audience.

3.

To the audience, it is a label that identifies a liked or disliked

formula and provides certain rules of engagement for the
spectator in terms of anticipation of pleasure

4.

In turn, viewers become generic spectators and can be said to

develop generic memory which helps the in the anticipation of
events, even though the films themselves might play on certain
styles rather than follow closely a clichd formula.

 Cinema Narrative Rules

Rules for the way shots should be
assembled to provide greatest narrative
efficiency (mise en scene)
Rules for the way individual shots should
be composed to direct attention to the
relevant narrative information
(montage)

Mise en Scene

Shot as Proto-Narratives
Films ability to reproduce actions in
photographically realistic space is the most
important property it brings to telling of
stories
LArrive dun train en gare (1895)
Flat images in rectangular space as 3D is an
advantage in seeing the real in film
The establishment of scene and completion of an
action
Very early stage in the development of cinematic
narrative, required no plot
Can establish a unity of place, unity of time, and
unity of action (Aristotles three narrative unities)

 Proto-narrative
Represent an event but is not yet a
narrative proper
It might become one, but only when its
combined with other, connected
represented events.
As a sentence does in prose but withour
complex linguistic
Larrive proto narrative, by calculated
act of framing (mise en scene)

 Cinema narrative
framing the event in a shot. Its already a
story of sort
Shot has its own perspective, duration,
logic, and justification
Effort to naturalise it so we can
experience it like a novel or stage
play

Plot & Story

Plot- A plot is a series of events deliberately
arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic,
and emotional significance. The plot is the meat
and bones of the story. The plot is developed in
order to create a better story
Story- A story is a series of events recorded in
their chronological order. The story is the idea,
the general theme, and the loose interpretation of
the event in its entirety.
The king died and then the queen died is a
kernel example of a story, and the king died and
then the queen died of grief represents a plot.

David Bordwell & Kristin

Thompson
when we speak of going to the movies,
we almost always mean we are going
to see a narrative film
part of the pleasure of going to the
cinema is the opportunity to suspend
disbelief and to become engrossed in
the invisible process of story telling

What is Narrative Form?

Narrative form is
the structure
though which
movies tell stories.

Narratives are Everywhere

Narratives appear throughout media and

society in novels, plays, comic books,
television shows and even commercials.

Narratives are most common in fiction

film, but appear in all basic types of
film:
Documentaries
Animated films
Experimental and avant-garde films
Short Films

17

NARRATIVE AND TIME

Objectively, time seems to always move at the same pace,

but theemotionalspeed of time can vary tremendously (see
Shakespeare!), and the way we experience time in our heads
is a function of memory, in which we can repeat events, or
place them in a new order. One of the ways that movies are
different from "real" life is the way that they manipulate time.
Movies can present or alter timeany way they want
to:events do not have to go in linear order, and can be
speeded up, slowed down, or repeated. There are at least
three different kinds of time in movies--story time, plot time,
and screen time (see below).But, the events shown in a
moviehave already happened: there is nothing the viewer of
a movie can do to change any aspect of film time. Obvious,
but important.

1. Temporal Order:
Narratives(stories) can be told in a number of ways. The simplest way to
tell a story in a movie is called"direct or sequential narrative,"which
simply means that the passage of time and the order of events in the
movies isexactlythe same as "real" time. Events start at the beginning
and go on the the end without interruption (ellipsis), extension
(hyperbole), repetition, or any change in their normal order.
Theoretically, a direct narrative could be filmed without any "editing" at all,
the camera being turned on at the beginning and turned off at the end.
[Do you know any movies like this?] More common is"interrupted
sequence"in which time moves forward from beginning to end, but pieces
of time are LEFT OUT (ellipsis)--because they are boring or don't "advance
the plot". There are obviously other ways to represent temporal order in
movies, by usingflashbacksorflash-forwards, that is, by showing
eventsout of order,or in extreme cases by the wholesale mixing up of
normal temporal order (for, hopefully, legitimate creative purposes), or by
telling the story backwards.

So, temporal order can be-Direct orcontinuous sequential narrative,or"real time"--just like life.
Direct continuous sequential narrative israrein movies, although some
famous examples exist:
High Noon,where clocks on the wall frequently remind us exactly what
time it is.
Interrupted sequence--temporalorderis preserved withellipsesbut no
flashbacks or flash-forwards
Interrupted sequence is by far the most common form of plot presentation.
Alternating past and present: flashbackorflash-forward
Many movies are structured with"framing elements"and begin and end
in the "present" with one long flashback
(Amadeus, Lawrence of Arabia[only flashes back, not forward at the
end]
Other movies are more complex, with several flashbacks and flash
forwards
(Red Violin, Citizen Kane?

Directors must help the audience know when time has passed between two
scenes (temporal ellipsis), and there are a number of ways to do this. Using
a "fade out" followed by a "fade in" is a common method--it gives the
audience time to catch its breath. A long passage of time can be indicated
simply by telling the audience: "six years later"(A Beautiful Mind), or
"sixteen years later"(The Natural). In fact, as sophisticated film goers, we
are usually very good at inferring when an ellipsis has taken place. If an
actor starts walking up a flight of stairs(The Godfather), we almost expect
that the director will use an ellipsis (properly called a "jump cut" in this
case) and cut to the actor reaching the top of the stairs; he doesn't want to
bore us or waste film. Nowadays, all pieces of film used in movies are much
shorter that they used to be, and cuts are much more frequent. So much
have our expectations changed in this respect that we often find that "old
movies" move so slowly that they are frustrating to watch. We are also
much more open to complex temporal manipulation and alternating past
and present than previous audiences, because, living in the "postmodern"
era, we expect actions and events to be out of context and to connect with
other actions and events that are seemingly unrelated in time or space.

2. Temporal duration:
Screen time (Running Time), Plot time, and Story timeare thethree kinds of
time duration in movies.
Screen time(also "running time" or "cheek time"), is the time you actually spend
in your seat. Two other common terms are"filmic time"and"real time."

Plotis "everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us" (thediegesis-Greek for "recounted story")So,plot timeis the period of time covered by the
events you actually see on the screen (several hours to several years, but almost
always longer than screen time).

Storyis "the set of ALL events in the narrative, both explicit and implicit."
So,story timeis the period covered byallthe events that you seeor know
about.We often makeinferencesaboutevents not shown,InCitizen Kane,for
example, we infer that Kane grew up as a spoiled brat, but this is not portrayed, and
we only hear about the boarder who gave "worthless" deed to Kane's mother. And
what happened to Kane's first wife and son? InAmadeuswe are told many things
by Salieri that we are not shown--such as? (AlsoHoosiers,North by Northwest.)

 3. Temporal frequency:
Scenes may appearmore than
once, orfrom multiple points of
view--for example,Lola Rennt,the
great Japanese filmRashomon