By Nancy Cantu Harris
Think of the most compelling
movie you have seen recently. Can you pinpoint what made it so poignant? Was
the situation that the characters faced relatable to you, or was the way in
which the events were told what kept you drawn into their lives?
Throughout the history of
humanity, stories are prevalent in our understanding of the world. We communicate
and relate to each other by sharing experiences; therefore, we tend to see the
narrative as the backbone of films.
On their book, Film History:
An Introduction, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson deconstruct this key
element of a movie production, starting from the definition of narrative as “a
chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space.” (1)
Its components are: causality, time, and space.
The authors also explain that,
although closely related, story and plot are not the same. While the story is
the set of all the events (explicit and inferred) in a narrative; the plot is
everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us. Narrative is
where the worlds of diegesis (the total world of the story action) and
nondiegetic elements (like music and credits) collide.
 |
| Story and plot are closely related and overlap. |
But what exactly are the
explicit and inferred events? Imagine that you are people watching at Starbucks,
and you see a couple sitting across from each other, holding hands and having
what appears to be an intimate conversation. The explicit event in this
situation is the scene which we are witnessing; the inferred event would be the
fact, that based on their attitude and behavior, we assume that they are
romantically involved. If they suddenly break apart, we may infer that they are
having a disagreement.
The same example applies to the
nature of the events from a movie: actions that we see on the screen are
explicit, those that we don’t see but can interpret from the performed scenes
are inferred. These two constitute the story.
The plot, on the other hand,
includes all the events directly depicted in the film, as well as material
extraneous to the story world, what we call nondiegetic, like the music that
intensifies the suspense in some scenes, or the titles that help the viewer
identify the city or place where the action is taking place.
Further in their effort to
define the elements of narrative, Bordwell and Thompson explain cause and
effect. Characters are usually the force that drives the development of
actions. By triggering and reacting to events, they play roles within the
film’s formal system.
It is through this constant
of cause and effect that the narrative unfolds in a movie. Through watching the
characters face adversity in their pursuit of a goal, we feel sympathetic
towards the protagonists’ cause and stay put to see them either succeed or
fail.
In the realm of cinema, “time
shapes our understanding of narrative action.” (2) Unconsciously, we try to
order the events presented in a chronological sequence in order to make sense
of what is happening on the screen.
Time as an element of
narrative can be broken down in three categories: temporal order (even if
presented in the middle of the movie, flashbacks are always ordered in our mind
as belonging to the past of the characters), temporal duration (the story
duration, plot duration, and screen time or screen duration), and temporal
frequency (when a specific event is presented more than once during the movie,
for instance, when a movie opens with a crime scene and goes back in time to
solve the mystery of the murder, in order to end up at the start with the crime
scene coming full circle.)
According to Bordwell and
Thompson, a film does not just start, it begins.
This opening sets out the premise for what we expect to happen next and
initiates us into the narrative, and we refer to this part of the plot as exposition.
There are a few common
general plot patterns that are widespread on films, like the change in
knowledge (where the characters are about to uncover some information what will
change the direction of their lives), goal-oriented, and, in some cases, space can
become the basis for a plot. A classic example of this one is The Wizard of Oz,
where the whole movie revolves around Dorothy trying to leave Oz in order to
get back to Kansas.
Since “a film does not simply
stop; it ends” (3), the narrative
will typically resolve its causal issues by bringing closure to the
protagonist’s pursuit.
The plot’s way of
distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects is called narration. Depending on the range of
narration, a film may make use of omniscient narration, where the viewer has
access to different points of view, or restricted narration, where our
knowledge is limited to that of the protagonist.
As a side note, the authors
describe the Classical Hollywood Cinema as a conventional narrative mode that
depends on the assumption that the action will derive primarily from individual
characters who are the causal agents, and there is always a desire, or goal,
which sets the plot into motion.
At the end of this
dissertation about narrative as a formal system, Bordwell and Thompson dissect
the movie Citizen Kane applying the concepts and terminology previously
explained, so that the reader can better understand how those elements come
together to bring a story to life on the screen, in the
same way that all the instruments in an orchestra play an important and vital
part in a symphony.
I remember watching Citizen
Kane once a few years ago. Of course, by the time I saw it, I knew that this
piece of American cinema is considered one of the most relevant works in the
history of film, and yet, it failed to impress me.
I suppose that my reading of
this title was just not fair considering that, as a viewer, I am used to seeing
movies that have been made with much more functional technology and resources
that were available in 1941, when it was released. Also, influenced by the
Classical Hollywood Cinema, I am accustomed to more linear ways of
story-telling.
After reading the examination
of Citizen Kane made by the authors, I have reconsidered my opinion about Orson
Wells’ masterpiece. This is a movie that broke paradigms in its era, and the
development of the plot certainly challenges the viewer into exploring a
character’s passions and tribulations without the obvious pursuit of a goal. It
should be read or analyzed in its context more than compared to current works
of cinema. And that’s exactly what I’ll do next time I get it from the library.
1)
Film History: An
Introduction. David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson. McGraw-Hill, 2009. Page
60.
2)
Film History: An
Introduction. David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson. McGraw-Hill, 2009. Page 66.
3)
Film History: An
Introduction. David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson. McGraw-Hill, 2009. Page
69.
