Non-Narrative
Week Seven’s reading on “non narrative” was an exert from D. Bordwell and K.Thompson, 2006, Film Art: An Introduction. As a cinema studies student I’m all too familiar with this textbook and actually had completed half this reading a few weeks ago. The reading can be broken into two parts, focusing on documentaries and experimental films respectively.
Bordwell and Thompson suggest that there are two forms of documentaries – categorical and rhetorical. Categorical form intends to convey information in a simple fashion. Categories are ways in which we group things in accordance to their similar characteristics that help us to organise and simplify information. To present information in a comprehensible way in a documentary, filmmakers will often rely on categorical form. Films with a categorical form will have a simple pattern to allow audiences to process and understand the information in the most effective manor.
Rhetorical form is common in all media, not just documentaries. Using this form the film tries to persuade viewers to form an opinion on a certain subject or event, and to even act on this opinion. There are four basic qualities of rhetoric film form: it addresses viewers openly trying to change their attitude about something, the subject of the film is not a matter of truth but a matter of opinion, if a conclusion isn’t beyond doubt then the film maker will make an appeal to their audiences emotion and lastly the film persuades viewers to make a decision that will have an effect on their everyday life.
Experimental film also may take two forms, either associational or abstract. If their is similarity between shots, in colour, shape or direction of movement to the scale that viewers can detect a pattern then the film uses abstract form. If images or shots don’t immediately appear to have a relationship to one another, but the fact that they are grouped together suggests a meaning through the connection, then the film can be thought to have associational form.