Movies and Meaning- Pearson New International Edition
Page 40
grasp its significance for
him. The film’s narra-
tive design deliberately
poses interpretive chal-
lenges for its viewers.
Frame enlargements.
248
The Nature of Narrative in Film
a long and respected filmography ( Return of the Secaucus Seven , 1980; Lone Star , 1996; Men With Guns , 1998). Although he has used linear classical narrative in Matewan (1987), in other films he has moved far from it. City of Hope (1991) contains one of his more radical narrative structures. The film portrays a decaying urban economy and community in the 1990s. The narrative is not driven by the personal goals of a protagonist or a main line of action. Sayles instead follows an ensemble—a group—of characters as the narrative winds through the city to reveal a cross section of its inhabitants: a corrupt city contractor, his disillusioned son, an idealistic city councilman, a group of cynical po-licemen, and citizen groups of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. Summarizing the story of this film is much more difficult than with The Searchers because narrative events are not tightly chained together, and no single line of action predominates. The narrative focus is diffuse, unified by the common theme of showing a multitude of responses to urban decay. Alejandro Inarritu’s Amores Perros (2000) and Paul Haggis’ Crash (2004) offer similarly episodic narratives focusing on an ensemble of characters.
THE COUNTER-NARRATIVE TRADITION The most extreme alternatives to classical Hollywood narrative can be found in the counter-narrative tradition. Radical attempts at narrative deconstruction—at making films that decompose and take apart their own narratives—have been popular among more philosophically inclined directors. In their work, narrative is treated as a problem, as something to be refused or attacked.
CLOSE-UP
Three Acts or Four?
One way to understand the structure of a classical
their goals. The climax resolves the various conflicts.
Hollywood narrative is to break it down into major
Thompson suggests that these acts are roughly equal
structural units. Syd Field is an influential author of
in length, around 20–30 minutes each, and that the
numerous books aimed at aspiring screenwriters. His
film overall has a mid-point, a plot development that
books provide advice on how to write screenplays,
occurs about midway through the running time. This
and Field has argued that a Hollywood narrative is
is a turning point in the plot that marks the onset of
composed of three acts. Act One, which he calls the
the development section. She suggests, for example,
set-up, introduces the story, characters, and setting.
that the scene in Alien, during which the baby monster
Act Two, the confrontation, focuses on the conflicts
bursts through the stomach of one of the astronauts
that come between the main characters and their
and then runs off to hide on board the ship, is the
goals. Act Three, resolution, settles these conflicts and
central turning point of the film. It marks the onset
ties up the various plot lines. Field argues that a “plot
of the development section, which is all about the ef-
point” occurs at the transitions between these acts,
forts of the surviving crew members to hunt down the
and this plot point introduces something that hooks
monster and kill it. This scene occurs almost exactly
into the action “and spins it around in another direc-
midway through the film.
tion,” creating a transition to the next act.
One way, then, to understand the organization
In contrast to Field, film scholar Kristin Thompson
of narrative in Hollywood movies is to perform a
has suggested that there are four acts in Hollywood
structural analysis, which aims to break the films into
movies. The set-up establishes the action and charac-
their basic segments. You can easily do this by think-
ter goals. The complicating action introduces a new
ing about where the turning points in the narrative
situation that the characters must respond to. The
occur, and whether they work to break the film into
development shows the characters attempting to reach
three or four acts. ■
( continued)
249
The Nature of Narrative in Film
ALIEN (20TH CENTURY FOX, 1979)
The narrative mid-point introduces a new, complicating line of action that preoccu-pies characters in the development section, according to scholar Kristin Thompson.
The alien monster bursts through the chest of an unfortunate astronaut and goes on a rampage in the spaceship, compelling the remaining characters to confront it in a life-and-death struggle. This mid-point action occurs almost exactly in the middle of the film, measured by its running time. Frame enlargement.
Case Study LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD
French director Alain Resnais, in the classic modernist
and tapestries. Voice-over narration, of unidentified
film Last Year at Marienbad (1961), presents a narra-
origin, poetically states that this is an environment of
tive that deliberately refuses to organize itself. Last Year
soundless rooms where voices sink into rugs so deep
at Marienbad deals with a murky, cloudy, unclear set
that no step can be heard, where halls and galleries are
of events taking place at a luxurious hotel. During the
from another age, where hallways cross other hallways
film, an unnamed man attempts to persuade an un-
that endlessly open onto deserted rooms.
named woman that they have met the year before at
During the course of the camera’s movements
a fancy spa. Whether they actually did or not is never
through this poetically and mysteriously defined en-
resolved.
vironment, a group of people appears in frozen, still-
Resnais’s editing prevents the emergence of clear
life postures, characters existing as sculptures in this
space and time relationships between scenes. For ex-
strange hotel. Gradually the characters unfreeze, begin
ample, a number of shots are joined with matched cuts
to move, and start delivering dialogue during which
and continuous dialogue, which imply that no time has
the mysterious man attempts to convince the unnamed
elapsed, but the characters’ costumes change, as do the
woman that they have met the year before. The narra-
locales. These are contradictory cues that indicate time is
tive comes to life.
both passing and not passing.
Last Year at Marienbad is a film that deliberately sets
Last Year at Marienbad self-consciously studies the
out to provoke, puzzle, challenge, and undermine as-
creation of narrative. In the film, a story tries to orga-
sumptions about what narrative is and how it operates
nize itself but never quite does. The movie opens in a
in film. There is no sense of direction to the plot, and
kind of prenarrative state without characters and with-
no real conclusion is reached either. Instead, endless
out a clear setting. The camera tracks through empty
repetition—of images, camera movement, dialogue—is
hotel hallways, past doors, friezes, columns, paintings,
the defining structural c
haracteristic. In this respect,
250
The Nature of Narrative in Film
Last Year at Marienbad stands as an extreme departure
Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Gai Savoir (1969) is another
from the terms of narrative in popular, mass-market
example of counter-narrative filmmaking. Here, two
movies, and it can be classified as a modernist film in
characters gather in an empty French television studio
that it does not wish to tell a story so much as to talk
to inquire into the nature of images and to understand
about what stories are and how they may be struc-
better how television and other visual media commu-
tured on film.
nicate. They meet for seven nights, and their comings
LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961)
Antinarrative in Last Year at Marienbad . Characters move through richly detailed settings, but the narrative fails to emerge. The film’s use of narrative to play with and tease the viewer was a major influence on such later films as Inception and Memento . Frame enlargement.
LE GAI SAVOIR (1969)
Godard’s Le Gai Savoir offers
poetry and philosophy in
place of a narrative. Many
modern, stylistically radical
directors believe that all the
stories have already been
told in cinema, and they
reject or deform the me-
dium’s storytelling function.
Frame enlargement.
( continued)
251
The Nature of Narrative in Film
and goings, and their philosophical reflections about
nonnarrative elements as background components.
the nature of pictures, constitute what plot there is. The
Filmmakers whose interests are essayistic, poetic, or di-
soundtrack is punctuated by the noise of static and by
dactic often take the medium in a nonnarrative direction
Godard’s own voice in a kind of running, anxious com-
when they consider narrative to be incompatible with
mentary about the nature of images and his own film.
their artistic goals. Viewers of popular movies may find
Le Gai Savoir reduces narrative to a minimum in order
this antinarrative orientation difficult to understand or
to construct a film that functions more on the lines of
seemingly perverse because the basic pleasure offered
an essay than a story. In this respect, like Last Year at
by popular cinema is precisely the storytelling function.
Marienbad, Le Gai Savoir illustrates the impatience with
Such viewers may find the antinarrative films to be a
stories felt by many modern, stylistically radical directors.
strange experience or to offer little of the familiar plea-
Such filmmakers regard narrative as an obstacle to
sures they are accustomed to finding in movies. But the
their creative interests. Telling a story gets in the way.
antinarrative tradition in cinema is very real, and it has
It obligates them to create, delineate, and motivate
influenced many important filmmakers whose work has
characters and to emphasize the story, treating other,
enlarged the creative boundaries of cinema. ■
CLOSE-UP
The French New Wave
Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais were filmmak-
but with the names of cities associated with losses
ers who were part of the French New Wave—a new
in World War II. “Hiroshima. Hiroshima. That’s your
generation of directors who established careers in
name,” she tells him.
the 1960s and rebelled against the traditional for-
The New Wave directors loved film, and they
mulas of studio filmmaking by experimenting boldly
filled their movies with self-conscious references
with narrative and film style. Existing visual designs
to cinema and with riffs on Hollywood. Such ex-
and story templates were twisted, stretched, and
tensive winks and homages were unprecedented
re-imagined, transforming the heritage of French
in the period, although they are more common
cinema and redefining its future. Francois Truffaut’s
today largely because of the New Wave’s influ-
The 400 Blows (1959), for example, takes a natu-
ence. Frankie (Jean-Paul Belmondo) in Godard’s
ralistic approach to its story of a young delinquent
Breathless (1959) gazes adoringly at a poster of
but ends with a freeze-frame that abruptly halts the
Hollywood star Humphrey Bogart and models
story and leaves the fate of the main character unre-
himself on Bogart. Godard’s Contempt (1967) casts
solved and ambiguous. The freeze-frame creates an
famed director Fritz Lang ( Metropolis , 1927) as a
open ending that avoids the tidy resolutions com-
filmmaker struggling with a crass American pro-
monly found in movie narratives. The freeze frame
ducer. Prominent Hollywood director Sam Fuller
boldly announced to viewers that the film’s narrative
has a cameo at a party in Godard’s Pierrot le Fou
was refusing traditional forms of closure.
(1965). Asked what is cinema, he replies famously,
Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima, mon amour (1959)
“A film is like a battleground. It’s love, hate, action,
uses flash cuts to blend the war-time memories of
violence, death. In one word, emotions.” Maoist
an actress (Emmanuelle Riva) with her present life,
guerillas in Godard’s Weekend (1967) communicate
making the narrative a subjective one with images
by radio using movie titles as call signs: “Johnny
that capture the free flow of thought itself as the
Guitar calling The Searchers;” “Battleship Potemkin
character (identified as SHE in the script) reflects on
calling Gosta Berling.” A cut-out of director Alfred
earlier traumas and on her present love affair with
Hitchcock appears in the background of a shot in
a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada). The narrative con-
Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (1961).
cludes in an enigmatic and poetic way, with the two
Truffaut made The Bride Wore Black (1968) in
lovers addressing each other not by personal name
the style of an Alfred Hitchcock film, and director
252
The Nature of Narrative in Film
Claude Chabrol embarked on an entire career’s
Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
worth of Hitchcock-style thrillers. Truffaut’s Day for
(1964) is a stylized musical modeled on Hollywood
Night (1973) portrayed a film crew at work on a
movies, with flamboyant color design and charac-
production, a movie within the movie, with Truffaut
ters who sing all of their dialogue instead of speak-
appearing as the film’s director. The title— Day for
ing. Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) opens
Night —refers to movie magic, the filming during
with a color sequence and then switches to black-
broad daylight of scenes scripted as taking place at
and-white for the remainder of the film, reminding
night.
/> viewers of style and structure. At the beginning of
THE 400 BLOWS (Les Films du Carosse, 1959)
The film’s concluding freeze frame shows Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) staring back at the camera, facing an uncertain future in his life. The concluding image is both defiant and ambiguous. The shot looks very grainy because the close-up was enlarged on an optical printer, causing generational loss of image quality. Frame enlargement.
PIERROT LE FOU (Janus Films, 1965)
Maverick Hollywood director Sam Fuller, with sunglasses and an ever-present cigar, drops in to Godard’s film to explain the nature of cinema. Frame enlargement.
( continued)
253
The Nature of Narrative in Film
Godard’s Tout va bien (1972), he offers a montage
critics) and in their playful approach to narrative and
showing all of the checks that need to be written to
their self-conscious cinematic designs, they invited
pay for the film and its crew, emphasizing the film’s
viewers to share in this passion for movies. Their
status as a manufactured object and not a window
influence has been huge, re-shaping the nature of
on reality. And Godard himself appears in Cleo from
cinema and what viewers have come to expect from
Five to Seven in a short, silent film within the movie,
it. Contemporary filmmakers have winked in return
along with the actress Anna Karina who frequently
to acknowledge their debt to this tradition. Quentin
starred in Godard’s own films.
Tarantino, for example, named his production com-
The New Wave directors were passionate devo-
pany A Band Apart, in honor of Godard’s early film
tees of cinema (some had begun their careers as film
about bumbling gangsters, Band a part (1964). ■
THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG (Madeleine Films, 1964)
Hollywood musicals inspired Jacques Demy to make this stylized variation in which all dialogue is sung, not spoken. Intense color design evokes a world of heightened emotion while the story stays close to psychological realism, unusual for musicals. Frame enlargement.
THE VIEWER’S CONTRIBUTION TO NARRATIVE
Viewers participate in the storytelling process, and filmmakers design narratives in ways that encourage this participation. In his choice of narrative technique, Hitchcock preferred suspense over surprise because the former condition drew viewers into the story as participants, whereas surprise tended to exclude them. Suspense as a narrative technique depends on giving viewers information, whereas surprise depends on withholding it. If Hitchcock began a scene by showing viewers a ticking bomb under a table around which a group of friends were playing cards, he could then film the 254