Classical Hollywood Narrative

1. Classical Hollywood Narrative

2. Principles of Narrative Construction • Narrative form: a film that tells a story • Most common in fictional films, but it can appear in all other basic types -documentaries, cartoons, also some experimental and avantgarde (art films) • When we go to the movies, we expect a series of incidents that will be connected in some way • We also expect that the problems or conflicts arising in the course of the action will achieve some final state • As the audience watches the film, they pick up on cues, recall info, anticipate, and generally participate in the film form

3. What is Narrative? • Narrative can be considered to be a chain of events linked by cause and effect occurring in time and space—more basically, story • Begins w/ a situation; a series of changes occurs according to cause and effect ; a new situation arises that brings about the end of the narrative • Components of narrative– causality, time and space

4. Plot and Story • Inference and Cues • What do we learn from what we see?

5. Plot and Story • Story: the set of all the event in the narrative, both the ones explicitly presented and those the viewer infers • Diegesis: the total world of the story action; everything that exist in the film’s world • Plot: used to describe everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us - includes the story events and everything that is included in the film • Nondiegetic: things from outside the story world (credits, music from the outside, etc) • Plot goes beyond the story world by presenting nondiegetic images and sounds

6. Cause and Effect • The main agents of cause and effect are characters -humans or entities like people, i.e. the clock in Beauty and the Beast • Characters create causes and register events • A character has traits: attitudes, skills, habits, tastes, and other qualities that distinguish characters—complexity i.eBreaking Bad • Causal motivation often involves the planting of information in advance of a scene. - minor details can become major plot points • Any film’s plot can withhold causes and thus arouse our curiosity • Plot may present cause but withhold effects, prompting suspense and uncertainty in the viewer

7. Time • We construct story time on the basis of what the plot presents • We assume the character spends uneventful time sleeping, traveling, eating—as long as it is not integrated into the story • The viewer is engaged in putting events in chronological order, and to assign them some durationand frequency

8. Temporal Order • We’re use to seeing movies out of order • Flashback – portion of story presented out of order • Flashforward- moving from present to future then back to present • Flashback scenes are arranged out of chronological order • Filmmakers play with temporal order to place emphasis on certain scenes that they may not have, if placed in regular temporal order

9. Temporal Duration • Film’s select certain stretches of story duration (the time in which the story takes place) • Sum of all slices of story duration yields an overall plot duration • The plot can use screen duration to expand story duration • The plot can use screen duration to override story time

10. Temporal Frequency • Frequency- the aspect of temporal manipulation that involves the number of times any story event is shown in the plot • most commonly, story are presented only once in the plot • Often times, when a plot repeats a story event, the aim is often to provide new information • The repetition of actions may be motivated by the plot’s need to communicate certain key causes very clearly to the spectator

11. Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development • A film does not just start, it begins– the opening provides a basis for what is to come and initiates us into the narrative • The plot will seek to arouse curiosity by bringing us into a series of actions that has already started, called in medias res • The portion of the plot that lays out important story events and character traits in the opening scene is called exposition • the opening raises our expectations by setting up a specific range of possible causes for and effects of what we see. • The first 1/4th or so of a film’s plot is often referred to as the setup

12. Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development • Most patterns of plot development depend heavily on the ways that causes and effects create a change in a character’s situation • Most general plot development is change in knowledge– a character learns something in the course of the action, with the most crucial knowledge coming at the final turning point of the plot • A common pattern of development is goal-oriented plot– the character takes steps to achieve a desired object or state of affairs - ex: search plots, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Wizard of Oz • Time or space may also provide plot patterns. A framing situation in the present may initiate a series of flashbacks showing how events led up to the present situation • The plot may also create a specific duration for the action– a deadline • Most often times, films will combine these patterns

13. Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development • For any pattern of development, spectator will create specific expectations • As the film continues on and we get to know it better, these expectations become more and more precise • The pattern of development in the middle portion may delay an expected out come (i.e. the wizard asking for the witch’s broom in the Wizard of Oz) • Each step of the journey is governed by an overlying principle (i.e. her desire to go home)

14. Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development • A film doesn’t simply stop, it ENDS • The narrative will typically resolve its causal issues by bringing the development of a high point or climax—there’s only a narrow range of possible outcomes • Emotionally, the climax aims to lift the viewer to a high degree of tension or suspense • Can leave endings open ended or definivelyclose them

15. Narration: The Flow of Story • The plot may arrange cues in ways that withhold information for the sake of curiosity and surprise • It may also supply info in a way to create expectations or increase suspense • All this is called narration- the plot’s way of distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects -moment by moment process that guides us in building the story out of plot • The most important actors of narration are rangeand depth

16. Range of Story Information • Unrestricted or Omniscient– we know, see, and hear more than any characters can - builds suspense (Hitchcok and Truffaut) • Restricted – we don’t hear or see anything that the main character cannot see or hear - curiosity and surprise for the viewer • These are two categories, no movie is clearly definitive one or the other; one range may be dominant over the other but it will still include both • “Who knows what when?”

17. Depth of Story Information • how deeply do we plunge into a character’s psychological states? • Objective- A plot confines us wholly to what the characthers say and do: their external behavior; outsider looking in– POV shot • Sound, perceptual, and mental subjectivity: how they hear, understand,and view/think things in their own minds • Just like the range of story info, it fluctuates as to how much of one we understandtrying to to achieve a specific effect on the viewer

18. The Narrator • Narrator- some specific agent who purports to be telling us the story • Can be a character in the story or a non character (think documentaries) • how much they tell and give away is completely to how the story should be told