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Realism in Classical American Film

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Title: Realism in Classical American Film


1
Realism in Classical American Film
  • Hollywood Narrative

2
Table of Contents
  • 1 Realistic Narrative
  • 2 Non-realistic Narrative
  • 3 Purer Form of Realist Narrative

3
Narrative
  • Narrative - structured or constructed story which
    tells fictional or non-fictional events.
  • Narration an act of narrating, telling a
    narrative
  • Narrator - the one who tells a narrative
    (generally by voice-over in the case of cinema)
  • Narratology - study on narrative, narration and
    narrator.

4
Realistic Narrative
  • The most important component of Classical
    American Films is narrative (story).
  • The bottom line - their narratives are
    constructed in such a way that they give the
    viewer an impression that he/she is watching
    something plausible and probable - that is,
    real - render reality and truth effects in
    story.

5
Realistic Narrative
  • The classical Hollywood film created reality and
    truth effects by concealing artistry.
  • ? Narrative and narration, too, like various
    filming techniques, must be 'invisible' and
    unobtrusive so that most viewers barely notice
    its narrative technique and artificiality.

6
Realistic Narrative
  • Narrative techniques and devices employed to
    create illusion of reality but kept invisible
  • Formulae -CHRONOLOGICALITY and CAUSALITY
  • CHRONOLOGICALITY - events occur in a 1-2-3 order
    (occasional flashbacks - the only permissible
    manipulation)

7
Realistic Narrative
  • Formalistic Narrative
  • Christopher Nolans Memento (2000)
  • The entire story is told in backward ( from the
    present to the past).
  • Leonard, as a result of a blow received on his
    head during an assault on him, he has no short
    term memory.

8
Realistic Narrative
  • He is looking for the real killer of his wife,
    with the assistant of a Polaroid camera and
    tattooing on himself the important facts he
    finds. Each scene the viewer watches is one
    earlier than the last one he/she has watched.
    (In normal storytelling, the scene you have just
    seen is the one later than the last

9
Realistic Narrative
  • CAUSALITY - actions are joined together as a
    series of CAUSES and EFFECTS
  • 'Plot is a careful and logical working out of
  • the laws of cause and effect. The mere
  • sequence of events will not make a plot.
  • Emphasis must be laid upon causality,
  • and the action - reaction of the human will.'
  • Francis Patterson, 'Manual for Aspiring
    Screenwriters', 1920

10
Realistic Narrative
  • e.g. A storm isolate a group of characters
  • a war separate lovers
  • a lack of care kills tropical fish
  • a cheat leads to a divorce
  • a betrayal prompts a revenge.

11
Realistic Narrative
  • Mulholand Drive (2001) - divided into two main
    sections the first, which could be interpreted
    as a dream (1 hour 56 minutes) and the final 25
    minutes. Important events in the first section
    are repeated in the second section, but with
    significant differences.

12
Realistic Narrative
  • Different characters repeat the same actions, and
    these different characters are played by the same
    actors. Furthermore, the important events in the
    first part are mysterious, but there is a more
    mundane repetition of them in the second half.

13
Realistic Narrative
  • There is not much logic of cause and effect in
    the first section. The lack of causality is
    compensated by the repetition, which gives the
    film more textual coherence.

14
Realistic Narrative
  • COINCIDENCE
  • According to the Hollywood narrative formula
    coincidence should be confined to the initial
    situation
  • The later in a film a coincidence occurs, the
    weaker it is - the loss of credibility

15
Realistic Narrative
  • A case in which a coincidence takes place in the
    middle of a film. People in a local community
    discussing about the birds attack on school
    children.
  • Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds (1963)

16
Realistic Narrative
  • Actions must have their MOTIVATIONS
  • One must have a good reason for what one does.
  • When an action is unmotivated, it would lose its
    credulity

17
Realistic Narrative
  • In order that the motion picture may convey the
    illusion of reality that audiences demand, the
    scenario writer stresses motivation - that is, he
    makes clear a character's reason for doing
    whatever he does that is important. Frances
    Marion, 'Scenario Writing' 1938

18
Non-realistic Narrative
  • An example completely ignoring the (realist)
    narrative formulae developed in classical
    American films
  • Chronologicality, Causality, Motivation

19
Non-realistic Narrative
  • Surrealist film by Louis Bunuel designed by
    Salvatore Dali
  • Un Chien Andalou (1929)

20
Illusion of Reality in Realist Narrative
  • The film drama is
  • LIFE WITH THE DULL BITS CUT OUT
  • (Alfred Hitchcock)

21
Illusion of Reality in Realist Narrative
  • Classical realist narrative is NOT retelling of
    what happens in reality as it does because it
    extracts from the world of its characters almost
    only elements which are relevant to its progress.
  • The realistic narrative in classical American
    films, which is achieved through various
    techniques and devices, is the one which gives
    the viewer reality and truth effects, but is not
    exactly real.

22
Purer Form of Realist Narrative
  • Purer form of realism in narrative is found in
    non-diegetic elements.
  • Diegetic - being relevant to the progress of a
    story
  • Non-diegetic - being irrelevant to the progress
    of an imaginary story

23
Purer Form of Narrative
  • Siegmund Kracauer finds an inverted relation
    between those images that further the story and
    those retain a degree of independence of the
    intrigue and thus succeed in summoning physical
    reality.

24
Purer Form of Narrative
  • Roland Barthes characterizes literary reference
    to objects that have no discernible narrative
    function except to give a material, worldly
    weight to the description as reality effects.

25
Purer Form of Narrative
  • LAmore in citta (1953) - a omnibus film about
    various forms of love and lovers. Dino Risis
    Paradiso per tre ore (Three hours of paradise)
  • Stick to the realist narrative formulae -
    chronological, causality and motivation
  • Story time is equal to real time. Duration of
    story is the same to that of reality.

26
Purer Form of Narrative
  • A purer form of film realism is found in an
    incidental or contingent element in narrative.
    in the middle of the chase the little boy
    suddenly needs to piss. So he does. (André
    Bazin)
  • Vittorio de Sicas Ladri di biciclette (1948)
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