How is narrative constructed in film?

Temporality, spatiality and causality

Petra Albu 495212 HU336 Narrative Media Karin Wenz

TG01 September 22 2008 Word count: 2067

When reading the works of prominent narrative theorists, one cant help but notice the emphasis they lay upon the fact that one can encounter narrative not only in fictive works such as novels, but also in other media as well as every day life. In conversation, people use narratives to tell the story of their experiences and lives. In other media such as film, narrative is used in a different way but still the narrative theories referring to literary narratives apply to it as well. In this essay the perspectives on narrative in film are going to be outlined and compared of two authors, Jakob Lothe and Edward Branigan. Both authors draw on the opinions and theories of particular narrative theorists to form their own views. Jakob Lothe introduces Bordwells views and his similarities with defining narrative the same way as the Russian formalists. He also presents the Eisenstein-Bazin debate and contrasts it with Masts theory. Edward Branigan analyzes film narratives through a psychological lens, exploring the relation between the spectator and the film. He shows how Tzevetan Todorov conceived the five stages of transformation a narrative goes through. Branigan also distinguishes between the story world and screen, one being the diegesis and the other the nondiegetic element. In his , when viewing a film, there are top-down processes at work, not only passive bottom-up processes. These top-down processes actively involve the spectator in the creation and development of a story. Branigan then analyzes how temporal and spatial order can be constructed in a narrative and how it affects the storytelling and logical order of the story being told. This essays focus is how the two authors analyze the temporal, spatial and causal element of film narrative. Branigan as well as Lothe first start by finding an adequate definition of what a narrative is. According to Branigan narrative is a perceptual activity that organizes data into a special pattern which represents and explains experience(Branigan, 1992, p.3). Branigans aforementioned tendency to look at narratives through a psychological lens is apparent in his definition of what a narrative is. He says that it makes our world of experiences and desires intelligible(Branigan, 1992, p.1), meaning that

narrativity is inherent in human communication and perception. In this view then narrative can be applies to a wide array of areas not only to literary fiction, but also everyday conversations, historical records and so on. Furthermore he categorizes texts in four types according to their types. These are narrative fiction such as the novel, narrative nonfiction historical writings, nonnarrative fiction such as poetry and nonnarrative nonfiction - mainly essay and other academic papers (Branigan, 1992). Branigan mentions that the boundaries between these text types is relative: a poem might very well have a narrative structure even though it is in the nonnarrative category. In his definition of what a narrative is, Branigan also finds it important to separate two fields in which a narrative might function. In the first field, a narrative must be consumed as a material and social object, and must respond to an agenda of community issues(Branigan, 1992, p. 2). In another field the narrative is engaging intimately with a perceiver, narrative enters thought itself, competing and jostling with other ways of reaction to the world(Branigan, 1992, p.2). In one context narrative is an exchange value(Branigan, 1992, p.2), manufactured for the community and in the other one it has a psychological use value(Branigan, 1992, p.2) which arises from the perceptual labor (Branigan, 1992, p.2). One aspect describes the commercial value of the narrative and the other the educational and emotional value of the narrative. These two areas are not independent; Branigan observes that the social background which forms the individuals language and base of knowledge cannot be separated from his competences and abilities (Braningan, 1992, p.2). Whereas for Branigan it is essential the way perception is involved in interacting with narratives no matter in what medium they appear, Lothe focuses more on the technicalities of narratives such as the story and the discourse and their relation to the overall effect of it. Lothe defines narrative as a chain of events which is situated in time and space ( Lothe, 2000). When explaining the difference between story and discourse he draws upon the theory of Russian formalists. He observed that the relation of fabula and syuzhet are similar to the relation between

story and discourse. Fabula here represents the material part of the narrative construction(Lothe, 2000) , so the story , whereas the syuzhet is the discourse which is the design of the text with different textual devices that make it literary(Lothe, 2000). The obvious difference between Lothe and Branigan, as before mentioned, is the perspective from which they look at narrative. The difference is still apparent when they move to discuss narrative in films. Branigan, in his explanation of narrative leading into film, outline the five stages of transformations the story goes through according to Russian theorist Tzevetan Todorov: first, there is a state of equilibrium which in the second stage is disrupted by some event; in the third stage the disruption is recognized and an attempt is made to repair the disruption in the fourth stage; the fifth stage bring about the reinstatement of the equilibrium (Branigan, 1992). In this way the story offers inciting incidents to the viewer or reader and keeps them interested and appeals to them with the most basic stimuli1. Branigan links these changes to the cause and effect argument. Narratives have to be constructed according to the laws of cause and effect. Without a coherent story line the narrative becomes confusing and viewers might lose interest in it. It is of course a different situation if the incoherency is the intention of the filmmaker to communicate a specific message or to create a certain atmosphere. Branigan also analyzes this relationship between the story world and the on screen elements. He differentiates diegesis which is the story world and non-diegetic elements such as noise, size, color, light, angle. These nondiegetic elements are transformed into music or speech and into moving objects. Branigan concludes that light and sound in narrative are thus experienced in two ways(Braningan, 1992): unshaped made up of light, shadows, and noise and reflecting from a world which actually contains objects that move around and live(Braningan, 1992). So to sum up, every spatial and temporal elements has a double meaning, and so does causality. He gives the example of a shadow passing the movie

Basic stimuli such as a murder, cheating, theft, that appeal to a wider audience.

screen: it could be an on screen happening but it could also very well happen in the story world to create some kind of mysterious atmosphere. In contrast, Lothe looks at film communication from a semiotic perspective. He says that for example in film adaptations, one cannot just copy the narrative to film, one has to translate the text into filmic language. Film is and extremely visual medium, which uses many other elements than the power of text. It uses visual images such as the presentations of characters by actors, presentation of setting with only images, light, music and the advantage of the ability to manipulate time and space relations. For Lothe semiotics is the most important theoretical aspect when looking at literary studies and film. (Lothe, 2000). He introduces Christian Metzs theory that film is a complex system of encoded successive encoded signs(Lothe, 2000). Metz also said that when looking at the language of film it shouldnt be confused with verbal language, he observes that there is nothing in film that corresponds to the word in verbal language(Lothe, 2000, p. 12). The word translates to film language in the form of a shot. A shot is an uninterrupted image which is presented in a static frame (Lothe, 2000). Another point that Metz brings forward is the fact that compared to verbal language, film does not have a code (Lothe, 2000).The content of a word is literal, while the content of a shot can be interpreted until infinity. But this freedom might be misleading as well for the viewer so something or somebody has to guide the viewer through the movie so that ultimately they get the message if it. This is the function of the film narrator or the narration in the film. Lothe quotes John Ellis who says film narration balances familiar elements of meaning against the unfamiliar, it moves forward by a succession of events linked in a causal chain(Lothe, 2000). This means that narrating of the events has causality and always introduces new and unknown elements as well as known ones in order to keep it appealing and interesting for the viewer. Lothe here draws upon Bordwells views, which are similar to the Russian formalists ideas. Bordwell explains that the film narrator is not a human being telling a story, but it presupposes a perceiver who constructs a story by receiving certain cues (Lothe, 2000). Here there is a similarity between

Lothe and Branigan, since they both agree on the fact that the construction of the story depends to a certain extent on the viewer as well as the filmmaker. In this way viewing a film becomes an active perceptive action. While Lothe doesnt develop this idea, Branigan borrows some processes from cognitive psychology to explain the perception of the viewers. While he discards bottom-up cognitive processing as inadequate to explain film viewing, he finds that top-down processing is the right one since it is based on acquired knowledge and schemas using spectators expectations and goals as principles of organization (Branigan, 1992). As Ian Jarvie said We cannot see movies without thinking about them(Branigan, 1992), which illustrates that viewers actively engage in interpreting the cues that the film narrator gives them. Some of the top down processes Braningan mentions and outline are temporal and spatial order, and causality and metaphor. In the temporal order there are certain principles a narrative must follow such as cause always precedes effect, effect cannot work backward to create a cause and repetition between events makes causal connections more likely (Braningan, 1992). There are certain techniques that film narrative might use: temporal continuity, ellipsis, overlap, simultaneity, retrospective or distortions(Braningan, 1992). These also apply to spatiality and can be used to create a desired effect. For the explanation of causality, Braningan introduces the idea that the self is not unified but split up into modules that are perceiving different things acting as a group together. Hume said that what we call human mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions(Braningan, 1992). The multiplicity of the self becomes evident when watching a film, as Braningan explains that viewers sometimes do not notice blatant mismatches of shots because of the top down processing and the specialization of the selves (Braningan, 1992). While Branigan again focuses on the psychological dimension of the film viewing, Lothe illustrates a very prominent debate between Eisenstein and Andre Bazin, about the importance of temporality and spatiality in film narrative.

Eisenstein assumed that film does not communicate so much by displaying images as through the way in which these images are combined(Lothe, 2000). This means that time is the main aspect of a film narrative since the images have to displayed sequentially. Bazin, on the other hands says that the value and human appeal for film lie primarily in presenting nature whole and complete.(Lothe, 2000), so the space dominates just like in real life, one cannot control time but its more like one adapts themselves to the space theyre in. Lothe doesnt agree with any of the two but states the Mast, who said that time and space are equally important, has a good point in saying that the special appeal of film lies in the cumulative kinetic hypnosis of the uninterrupted flow of film and time(Lothe, 2000). This uninterrupted flow imprisons(Lothe, 2000) the viewers attention and keeps them interested during the whole of the film. Both authors agree that time and space are of great use in film narratives to create effects which literary narratives cannot, and enhance the immediacy of the events on screen. While the causality of the events might not be coherent sometimes, the top-down processing involved in film viewing enables spectators to interpret the film. The incoherency in the causality or the plot line might lie in the fact that the style influences the non-diegetic elements used so one always has to look at narrative studies in relation with history ( FilmReference).

Bibliography Works cited: Branigan, E.(1992) Narrative Comprehension and Film. London: Routledge. Defining Film Narrative. (n.d.). Film Reference [Film Encyclopedia]. Retrieved September 22, 2008, from http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/ Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Narrative-DEFINING-FILMNARRATIVE.html Lothe, J. (2000). Narrative in Fiction and Film .Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press Works consulted: Film & Narrative. (n.d.). Film Education [Article]. Retrieved September 22, 2008, from http://www.filmeducation.org/secondary/concept/filmnarr/docs/ frameset.html Film Narrative. (n.d.). Faculty and Staff, Georgia Perimeter College [Notes]. Retrieved September 22, 2008, from http://facstaff.gpc.edu//~lbowen/Film/ Film%20Narrative%20notes.htm Stam, R., Raengo, A.(2005). Literature and Film: A guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptations. Oxford: Balckwell Publishing.

10