Narration in the Fiction Film

Narration in the Fiction Film PDF Author: David Bordwell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136099166
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
In this study, David Bordwell offers a comprehensive account of how movies use fundamental principles of narrative representation, unique features of the film medium, and diverse story-telling patterns to construct their fictional narratives.

Story and Discourse

Story and Discourse PDF Author: Seymour Chatman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501741616
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
"For the specialist in the study of narrative structure, this is a solid and very perceptive exploration of the issues salient to the telling of a story—whatever the medium. Chatman, whose approach here is at once dualist and structuralist, divides his subject into the 'what' of the narrative (Story) and the 'way' (Discourse)... Chatman's command of his material is impressive."—Library Journal

Narrative Comprehension and Film

Narrative Comprehension and Film PDF Author: Edward Branigan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136129324
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Book Description
Narrative is one of the ways we organise and understnad the world. It is found everywhere: not only in films and books, but also in everday conversations and in the nonfictional discourses of journalists, historians, educators, psychologists, attorneys and many others. Edward Branigan presents a telling exploration of the basic concepts of narrative theory and its relation to film - and literary - analysis, bringing together theories from linguistics and cognitive science, and applying them to the screen. Individual analyses of classical narratives form the basis of a complex study of every aspect of filmic fiction exploring, for example, subjectivity in Lady in the Lake, multiplicity in Letter from and Unknown Woman, post-modernism and documentary in Sans Soleil.

Invisible Storytellers

Invisible Storytellers PDF Author: Sarah Kozloff
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520909663
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
"Let me tell you a story," each film seems to offer silently as its opening frames hit the screen. But sometimes the film finds a voice—an off-screen narrator—for all or part of the story. From Wuthering Heights and Double Indemnity to Annie Hall and Platoon, voice-over narration has been an integral part of American movies. Through examples from films such as How Green Was My Valley, All About Eve, The Naked City, and Barry Lyndon, Sarah Kozloff examines and analyzes voice-over narration. She refutes the assumptions that words should only play a minimal role in film, that "showing" is superior to "telling," or that the technique is inescapably authoritarian (the "voice of god"). She questions the common conception that voice-over is a literary technique by tracing its origins in the silent era and by highlighting the influence of radio, documentaries, and television. She explores how first-person or third-person narration really affects a film, in terms of genre conventions, viewer identification, time and nostalgia, subjectivity, and reliability. In conclusion she argues that voice-over increases film's potential for intimacy and sophisticated irony.

On the History of Film Style

On the History of Film Style PDF Author: David Bordwell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674634299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
Bordwell scrutinizes the theories of style launched by various film historians and celebrates a century of cinema. The author examines the contributions of many directors and shows how film scholars have explained stylistic continuity and change.

Making Meaning

Making Meaning PDF Author: David BORDWELL
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674028538
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
David Bordwell's new book is at once a history of film criticism, an analysis of how critics interpret film, and a proposal for an alternative program for film studies. It is an anatomy of film criticism meant to reset the agenda for film scholarship. As such Making Meaning should be a landmark book, a focus for debate from which future film study will evolve. Bordwell systematically maps different strategies for interpreting films and making meaning, illustrating his points with a vast array of examples from Western film criticism. Following an introductory chapter that sets out the terms and scope of the argument, Bordwell goes on to show how critical institutions constrain and contain the very practices they promote, and how the interpretation of texts has become a central preoccupation of the humanities. He gives lucid accounts of the development of film criticism in France, Britain, and the United States since World War II; analyzes this development through two important types of criticism, thematic-explicatory and symptomatic; and shows that both types, usually seen as antithetical, in fact have much in common. These diverse and even warring schools of criticism share conventional, rhetorical, and problem-solving techniques--a point that has broad-ranging implications for the way critics practice their art. The book concludes with a survey of the alternatives to criticism based on interpretation and, finally, with the proposal that a historical poetics of cinema offers the most fruitful framework for film analysis.

Coming to Terms

Coming to Terms PDF Author: Seymour Benjamin Chatman
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801497360
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description


Seeing Fictions in Film

Seeing Fictions in Film PDF Author: George M. Wilson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199594899
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 229

Book Description
What happens when we view a movie? Do we actually see the fiction, and if so how? Literary fiction is recounted by a voice of some sort--the narrator. George M. Wilson explores the strategies of cinematic narration, and argues that this prompts viewers to imagine seeing and hearing events in the fictional world.

A Philosophy of Cinematic Art

A Philosophy of Cinematic Art PDF Author: Berys Gaut
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521822440
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
A wide-ranging and accessible study of cinema as an art form, discussing traditional photographic films, digital cinema, and videogames.

Narrative and Narration

Narrative and Narration PDF Author: Warren Buckland
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154359X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 110

Book Description
From mainstream blockbusters to art house cinema, narrative and narration are the driving forces that organize a film. Yet attempts to explain these forces are often mired in notoriously complex terminology and dense theory. Warren Buckland provides a clear and accessible introduction that explains how narrative and narration work using straightforward language. Narrative and Narration distills the basic components of cinematic storytelling into a set of core concepts: narrative structure, processes of narration, and narrative agents. The book opens with a discussion of the emergence of narrative and narration in early cinema and proceeds to illustrate key ideas through numerous case studies. Each chapter guides readers through different methods that they can use to analyze cinematic storytelling. Buckland also discusses how departures from traditional modes, such as feminist narratives, art cinema, and unreliable narrators, can complicate and corroborate the book’s understanding of narrative and narration. Examples include mainstream films, both classic and contemporary; art house films of every stripe; and two relatively new styles of cinematic storytelling: the puzzle film and those driven by a narrative logic derived from video games. Narrative and Narration is a concise introduction that provides readers with fundamental tools to understand cinematic storytelling.