If a story is clearly fiction, the audience does not hold the filmmaker accountable for its truth or veracity. Instead, the audience applies a different set of criteria dealing with the artistic structure and organization of the story. Is it compelling, convincing, thrilling, entertaining, or amusing? By contrast, with nonfiction, audiences measure the tale according to notions of factual truth and honesty.
This seems like a clean and clear distinction, yet many stories and movies occupy gray areas. Are they fiction or nonfiction? How does one decide? In a movie such as Star Wars (1977), viewers clearly have a fictional story. The events in George Lucas’s film do not exist in this world or in any easily imaginable world of the near future. By contrast, Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) seemed to want to play both ways with its audience, mixing fact and fiction in ways that were often hard to detect. On the one hand, the film presents an exhaustive summary of the facts surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy, supported by real, archival news footage. The film uses this fact-based history to critique and debunk the Warren Commission’s finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as a lone SPIDER-MAN 3 (COLUMBIA PICTURES, 2007)
Spider-Man is a clearly fictional story, based on the adventures of a comic book character.
The setting is an alternative world to our own, the characters have no real-life counterparts, and the story events are entirely imaginary. Viewers of this film have no difficulty deciding whether to evaluate it and experience it as fiction. Frame enlargement.
235
The Nature of Narrative in Film
JFK (WARNER BROS., 1991)
Kevin Costner as District Attorney Jim Garrison in JFK . Oliver Stone’s film created controversy because of its fluid mixture of real archival footage of the Kennedy years, faked footage made to look archival, and fictional characters who had no counterpart in the historical record. Director Stone meticulously sifted through the factual record surrounding the assassination, questioned the official findings that a lone assassin killed Kennedy, but often described his film as a myth. As a result, viewers could not tell where the film’s factual ambitions turned into the fictions of myth; nor could they be sure the filmmaker knew where the differences lay. In comparison with a film such as Spider-Man , the fictional status of this film is more ambiguous and harder to evaluate. Frame enlargement.
assassin. On the other hand, Stone intermixes the archival footage with re-enactments filmed so that they would look like part of the documentary record, and he concocts an entirely speculative explanation for the assassination based on the unproved premise that Kennedy intended to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam and was killed by those committed to escalating the war. There is virtually no evidence to support this contention, and Stone said that he was offering a countermyth to oppose what he regarded as the dominant mythology of a lone assassin. Where did that leave the film: fiction, nonfiction, myth, history? JFK is an uncomfortable mixture of these modes that leaves the audience unable to tell where the filmmaker believes their differences lie.
Audiences want very much to know the truth value of the tales they are told.
When filmmakers like Stone fudge the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction, they often stir up controversy. When Robert Zemeckis used real footage of President Clinton speaking about the Oklahoma City bombing victims in a fictional context in Contact (1997)—the film makes it seem as if Clinton is addressing a space shuttle explosion—many people criticized what they regarded as the unethical use of the news footage. Filmmakers, though, can work in the other direction quite successfully, presenting a clearly fictional story as if it were the record of real events. The Blair Witch Project (1999), for example, is a horror movie about the disappearance of a film crew that left footage of its terrifying last moments, and the film is constructed as a documentary that examines this footage and tries to reconstruct the story it tells.
Narrative Structure: Story and Plot
How the story is told is every bit as important as its content. Story and plot are fundamental characteristics of every narrative, and their relationship determines its 236
The Nature of Narrative in Film
BRUTE FORCE (UNIVERSAL,
1947)
Hollywood films of the 1940s
used flashbacks—often lengthy
and extended ones—to add rich-
ness and complexity to their nar-
rative design. Brute Force portrays
the frustrations of prison inmates
by using flashbacks to show their
former lives, outside prison. Each
of the film’s main characters is
allotted an extended flashback
sequence. Frame enlargement.
structure. Plot refers to the sequencing of events as shown in a given film. It designates the way narrative events are arranged in the film. Story designates the larger set of events of which the plot is a subset. Any given narrative points beyond itself to imply a set of events that are not directly portrayed, as well as those that are shown. Story refers to the comprehensive set of all events, shown or implied, that make up the narrative.
Unlike the events of one’s daily life, which often appear to be somewhat unstructured, random, and in flux, events in a narrative have a clear shape and sequence.
Not all story events need to be included in the plot, and this is where the distinction between story and plot arises. Many events can be implied or do not need reference at all. In the case of mystery or suspense films, events are withheld from the audience to be revealed at a later time. Viewers enjoy mysteries, for example, because they try to figure things out before the detective does.
In many films there is little structural distinction between a film’s plot and a film’s story. Often, a plot is linear, presenting a story from start to finish. The vast majority of commercially produced movies are told in a linear, chronological fashion. However, many films make use of flashbacks, a narrative structure that was especially common in Hollywood films of the 1940s ( Casablanca , 1942; Double Indemnity , 1944; Sunset Boulevard , 1950). Passage to Marseilles (1944), starring Humphrey Bogart, boasted an uncommonly intricate flashback structure, with flashbacks inside of flashbacks.
The plot of Citizen Kane (1941) is structured as a series of flashbacks, which portray overlapping events narrated by different characters. In all these cases, the flashbacks change the sequencing of story events in the films’ plots.
Many contemporary films cleverly exploit the story–plot distinction. Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) constructs a narrative composed of three relatively separate plots, each peopled by the same gallery of characters (primarily two professional killers, played by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, and a washed-up boxer, played by Bruce Willis). These characters and their separate plots cross paths at several strategic points in the film, most significantly when the boxer murders one of the hired guns (Travolta). Writer–director Tarantino stages this killing midway through the film, 237
The Nature of Narrative in Film
PULP FICTION (MIRAMAX, 1994)
John Travolta’s hit man in Pulp Fiction is killed off midway through the film only to reappear in the concluding plot segment. Quentin Tarantino’s film playfully exploits the story–plot distinction by re-arranging its narrative events in a nonchronological way. Frame enlargement.
during the second plot segment, and then brings Travolta’s character back in the third, concluding plot. The viewer realizes, with a jolt, that this last episode is occurring earlier in story time than the second and watches Travolta with some sadness, already knowing how that character will die.
Sliding Doors (1998) shows how differently the life of Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) would turn out, depending on whether she took a subway train home early one day MULHOLLAND DR. (UNIVERSAL, 2001)
The narrative in David Lynch’s mysterious film is like a dream that becomes a nightmare.
Betty (Naomi Watts) is a chirpy, aspiring actress, and Rita (Laura
Elena Harring) is a mystery woman tormented by amnesia. They may or may not be the same person, and the entire story may represent Betty/Rita’s last moment of consciousness before death. Lynch demolishes the classical Hollywood narrative in order to achieve a surreal poetry. Frame enlargement.
238
The Nature of Narrative in Film
or missed it. The film intercuts these two scenarios and shows how this seemingly minor difference sets in motion chains of events that produce alternate fates for the character. Intercutting the alternate storylines suggests the existence of parallel worlds.
In a similar fashion, Run Lola Run (1998) shows a desperate 20-minute sprint by Lola to retrieve a stolen bag of cash to save her boyfriend. If she can’t retrieve it, gangsters will kill him. The plot shows the episode of her run three separate times, with seemingly chance events each time altering the outcome and changing the fates of the characters. The plot of Irreversible (2002) moves backward from a vengeance killing to the rape that motivated it and then to the romantic couple (she the future Case Study MEMENTO
Director Christopher Nolan is fond of clever, complex
w ithout damaging its clarity. Each scene is a crucial link
narratives. Inception (2010) has a multi-layered nar-
in the narrative chain of events.
rative, constructed of characters who are dreaming
The film’s story is further enriched by the ambigui-
inside of other people’s dreams. The plot structure
ties that accumulate as the plot moves backward and in
works like a puzzle in which viewers must figure out
and out of Leonard’s memories. He is, it turns out, an
what is real and what is dream. Nolan’s earlier film,
unreliable narrator because he cannot remember the
Memento (2001), presents a story that is told backward,
things he has already done or said. He has killed other
beginning with the end and working in reverse to the
men, believing them to have been his wife’s killer,
beginning. Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) suffers from
but he doesn’t recall doing so. Natalie (Carrie-Anne
a brain disorder that robs him of short-term memory.
Moss), the girlfriend of a drug dealer, and Teddy (Joe
He knows who he is (or once was—he was married and
Pantoliano), a cop, offer him help but may, in fact, be
worked as an insurance investigator), but he can’t re-
manipulating him for their own purposes. Memories
member any details of his present life or recent past.
can deceive and distort. Where does the truth lie?
Leonard is obsessed with finding his wife’s killer, but
Director Nolan gives the ingenious narrative struc-
to do so he must struggle with his memory disorder.
ture a careful visual design. The opening credits appear
When he finds a clue, he tattoos it onto his body, pho-
overtop a Polaroid photo that begins to undevelop and
tographs it, or writes it on the back of the photo so that
fade to white, and the first scene—Leonard’s killing of
it will not be forgotten. The movie becomes a mystery
Teddy—plays in reverse action. These strategies tell the
in reverse, opening with Leonard’s execution of a man
viewer about the way the film will be organized.
he believes is the killer and then moving backward to
Furthermore, the visual design of the different narra-
explain how he found his victim.
tive frames always makes it clear which one the viewer
This main story line is woven together with three
is in. The main story line is in color, and the scenes of
other narrative frames: scenes of Leonard alone in his
Leonard in his hotel room (these form the present tense
hotel room, flashbacks of his married life, and flash-
of the story) are in high-contrast black-and-white and
backs of an insurance case he investigated involving
are filmed with a handheld camera. The Sammy Jenkis
a man named Sammy Jenkis, who lost all short-term
flashbacks are also in black and white, but these are
memory following a traffic accident. The case fore-
more brightly lit and less grainy and do not feature a
shadows Leonard’s fate. Intercutting these narrative
hand-held camera.
frames throughout the film produces a plot structure
The narrative design is clever, highly organized, and
that is rich and kaleidoscopic, but the film’s main line
visually marked to assist the viewer in making sense of
of action—Leonard’s efforts to find his wife’s killer—is
it. The pleasures of Memento lie in how the story is told, a linear one (though in reverse order). No scenes could
revealing the mysteries and ambiguities of the worlds that
be removed from it, or placed in a different order,
we believe our memories contain. ■
( continued)
239
The Nature of Narrative in Film
MEMENTO
(NEWMARKET,
2001)
This ingenious film
mixes a linear narra-
tive running in reverse
with flashbacks and
with a present-tense
time frame that shows
Leonard Shelby (Guy
Pearce) in his hotel
room. Tracking his
wife’s killer and with no
short-term memory, he
relies on photographs
to recall important
details. The story de-
velops great mystery as
it progresses. Natalie
(Carrie-Ann Moss)
may be manipulating
Leonard for her own
ends; without a work-
ing memory, he is an
easy victim and an
unreliable narrator. To
accentuate Leonard’s
isolation from people
and places, the film-
makers shot in anamor-
phic widescreen 2.35:1,
taking advantage of
that format’s shallow
depth of field to focus
on Leonard and make
the backgrounds soft.
Frame enlargements.
rape victim, he the future murderer) in happier times. The plots of Annie Hall (1977) and Memento (2001) jump around in many different time frames, leaving it to the viewer to assemble events in proper chronology.
Authorship and Point of View
One of the peculiar characteristics of cinema is that it is often difficult to determine the author of a film. In literature, the author of a novel is generally understood to be a single individual, the writer. Films, by contrast, are made by groups of people, 240
The Nature of Narrative in Film
and it is often difficult to say with any certainty which member of the production team— director, cinematographer, editor, sound designer—is responsible for a particular effect on screen. In this sense, films have multiple authors. Films do have writers, but the author of a screenplay typically furnishes dialogue, narrative, and dramatic action but not a film’s visual or audio design. Cinematography, editing, sound—these vital areas of filmic design fall outside the domain of a screenplay.
Some years ago, the critic Pauline Kael attempted to argue that the real “author”
of Citizen Kane (1941) was Herman J. Mankiewicz, the author of its screenplay.
While Mankiewicz’s script was undeniably brilliant, he had nothing to do with the film’s extraordinary audiovis
ual design. The cinematography (by Gregg Toland), the art direction (by Van Nest Polglase), the music score (by Bernard Herrmann), and the editing (by Robert Wise) are all world-class accomplishments, and director Orson Welles was the key person organizing and integrating the contributions of these individuals. Kael’s intentions to honor the film’s writer were noble, but her case for Mankiewicz’s authorship of the film failed to account for many of the features that have made Citizen Kane an outstanding and classic work of cinema.
Because the director typically has the controlling creative authority on a given production, the convention has evolved of treating the director as the author of a film.
This should be done, however, in a cautious and conservative manner, with the understanding that no director is ever a film’s sole author, as the writer of a novel is.
REAL AND IMPLIED AUTHORS The collaborative nature of filmmaking gives the distinction that has existed in literary theory between the real and the implied author a special intensity. Literary critic Wayne Booth developed the notion of a real versus an implied author as a means of avoiding the biographic trap that sometimes ensnares a critic. In discussing the novels of Ernest Hemingway, for example, one cannot reduce their stylistic and literary structure to the facts of biography.
In other words, for Booth, “Hemingway,” the literary persona (and the im-
plied author) seemingly present in the writings, is relatively distinct from Ernest Hemingway, the man, who was born in Illinois in 1899, served as a reporter on the Kansas City Star , fought in World War I, settled in Paris after the war, and died in Idaho in 1961. The novels have their own emotional logic and power, and one can speak of “Hemingway,” the literary persona that hovers in the shadows of the writings, as being relatively distinct from Hemingway, the man.
A film critic might study the work of such filmmakers as “Hitchcock,” “Ford,”
“Spielberg,” “Godard,” “Bertolucci,” or “Kurosawa” and treat these as implied rather than real authors, the names as labels given to bodies of film and used to describe the characteristics of those films rather than the characteristics of those individual people. In this way, “Hitchcock” designates a narrative world characterized by a certain Catholic conception of sin, guilt, transgression, and punishment and a visual design marked by such recurring features of style as high-angle shots used in moments of dramatic crisis.
Movies and Meaning- Pearson New International Edition Page 38