Week 4 Reading: Film Art – An Introduction
This week’s reading from Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson introduces different styles of film making.
Narrative
Narrative can be described as a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space. Typically there is one situation presented at the beginning of a narrative, a series of changes occurs according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally a new situation arises that brings about the end of the narrative. An introduction, a complication and a resolution.
“I had actually trapped myself in a story that was very convoluted, and I would have been able to cut more later if I’d simplified it at the script stage, but I’d reached a point where I was up against a wall of story logic. If I had cut too much at that stage, the audience would have felt lost.” – James Cameron, director, on Aliens
Plot and Story
- The viewer makes sense of a narrative by identifying its events and linking them by cause and effect, time and space. Viewers also infer events that are not explicitly presented. Adrian used the example in the lecture of time passing in film. Day to night.
- Distinction between story and plot (sometimes called story and discourse)
Cause and Effect
- Characters are usually the agents of cause and effect – they make things happen and respond to events. Their actions and reactions contribute strongly to our engagement with the film
Time
- The viewer constructs the story time on the basis of what the plot presents.
Space
- In film narrative space is usually an important factor – events occur in well defined locales.
- Cinema employs screen space – the visible space within the frame
Experimental Film
Experimental film is intentionally unconventional in the way it avoids the content mainstream cinema produce and the style in which they create it.
Experimental films are made for many reasons
- Filmmaker may wish to press personal experiences or viewpoints in ways that seem eccentric in a mainstream context
- Filmmaker may want to portray a mood or a physical quality
- Filmmaker may wish to explore possibilities of the medium itself
Types of Experimental Film
- Abstract film – often organised in around theme and variations (usually refers to music)
- Associational Form – groups images that may not have immediate logical connection but the very fact that the images and sounds are juxtaposed prods us to look for some connection – an association binds them together.