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Week6CONCEPTSReview.pptxWEEK 6, LECTURE 1, FAMST 96 SPRING 2024
CONCEPTS: NARRATION & TIME – TEMPORAL ORDER
DR. NATHAN ROBERTS, FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES, UCSB
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ADVANCED FILM ANALYSIS
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PLAN FOR TODAY
Overview of the study of time and narration
Temporal order
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NARRATION AND TIME: OVERVIEW
In this unit, we examine how the narration cues us to infer time – the temporal structure of the film.
Remember, narrative is “a chain of events linked by CAUSE and effect and occurring in TIME and SPACE.” (Bordwell, 2020, 73).
Film shows us a series of events, linked causally, that take place across a period of TIME.
TEMPORALITY is vital for the way the narration constructs the story: What’s the timeframe of the story? What story events do we see? When do we see them? How long do we see them for? How often? In what order?
Those questions are important for understanding how the narration cues us to understand the story.
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NARRATION AND TIME: OVERVIEW
Let’s break that down a little more.
Film is a “temporal form” because in watching it, the viewer “submits to a programmed temporal form.”
Moreover, in cinema “many processes of narration depend upon the manipulation of time” (Bordwell, 1985, 74).
For example: gaps, depth of knowledge.
Understanding how TIME works in a film is therefore important for understanding how the narration creates meaning and presents the story.
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NARRATION AND TIME: OVERVIEW
Viewers construct the story’s time.
The narration’s “manipulations of story order, duration, and frequency in the plot illustrate how viewers actively participate in making sense of the narrative film. The filmmaker designs the plot to prompt us about chronological sequence, the time span of actions, and the number of times an event occurs. It is up to the viewer to make assumptions and inferences and to form expectations. Fortunately, we can usually put things together by appealing to our ordinary sense of time and cause and effect.” (Bordwell, 2020, 82).
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NARRATION AND TIME: OVERVIEW
So how do we analyze the way time is used in a film?
As Bordwell says, film language does not have a specific feature or formal marker that characterizes time (except for things like clocks within a scene) (Bordwell, 1985, 77).
So we infer the temporal structure of a film by a process of inference based on cues presented by the narration.
More specifically, we use the narrational strategies we’ve been studying, but consider them holistically: how does the organization of the narration, through gaps, range / depth of knowledge, spatial cues, mise-en-scéne / stylistic elements cue us to understand the temporal structure of the film?
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NARRATION AND TIME: OVERVIEW
In this segment of the class, we will be analyzing the elements of narration that allow the viewer to infer time.
There are three key ways that the narration controls the temporal structure of a film :
The order of events (temporal order)
The duration of events (temporal duration)
The frequency of events (temporal frequency)
I’ll give a brief overview of all three, but today we’ll be looking at ORDER in reference to several films, with a particular emphasis on The Social Network (David Fincher, 2008).
Next week we’ll look at DURATION and FREQUENCY in reference to The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)
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OVERVIEW: DURATION
DURATION
This refers to how long events take.
There are three types of duration that are relevant for us.
STORY duration
NARRATION duration
SCREEN duration
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OVERVIEW: FREQUENCY
FREQUENCY
We usually only see a story event presented in the plot once, but sometimes the narration will repeat them. For example, a flashback to a traumatic experience might be shown several times.
Repetition can give us additional or conflicting information if, for example, it is shown from multiple perspectives.
Repetition can also reinforce the significance of an event.
For example:
We hear the recording of the sitcom episode twice in Nope in order to stress its significance, and to provide tension in the final sequence.
Or: in Licorice Pizza, we see the same shots of Gary and Alana running in sequence, but also at the end as they unite
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OVERVIEW: ORDER
ORDER:
How does the narration present the story events?
It can present plot events in the order they happened in the story (e.g. Frances Ha)
Alternatively, the narration can present plot events out of order, via flashbacks or flash forwards.
Whole narratives can be out of order (e.g., The Social Network).
The way the narration reorders the plot events can add surprise, suspense, and emphasis.
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ORDER: OVERVIEW
ORDER: OVERVIEW
Story events either take place:
SIMULTANEOUSLY (at the same time) or
SUCCESSIVELY (at different times).
The story events can be deployed in the narration in any order the filmmaker chooses, yielding four possibilities.
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| STORY | NARRATION |
| A. Simultaneous events | simultaneous presentation |
| B. Successive events | simultaneous presentation |
| C. Simultaneous events | successive presentation |
| D. Successive events | successive presentation |
Simultaneous story events and simultaneous presentation in the narration
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TYPE A
TYPE A
Type A: Simultaneous story events and simultaneous presentation in the narration
This can be achieved with stylistic techniques such as: deep space composition, split screen, offscreen sound (i.e. overlapping sound from another event), etc.
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TYPE A
Type A: Simultaneous story events and simultaneous presentation in the narration
Example: When Frances talks to Sophie on the phone, and we see both Frances and hear Sophie’s reaction (but don’t see Sophie) this is an example of how offscreen space allows for simultaneous story events and simultaneous presentation in the narration
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TYPE A
Type A: Simultaneous story events and simultaneous presentation in the narration
Example: When Jupe watches Gordy go on his killing spree, Jupe’s heavy breathing (offscreen sound) occurs whileJupe goes on his spree. At one point, when Jupe murders the man also offscreen and a balloon pops on screen, we are given three simultaneous events: Jupe’s breathing, the killing (both presented via off screen sound) and the popped balloon (onscreen sound)
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TYPE B
Type B: Successive story events presented simultaneously in the narration
The imposition of the past onto the present is rare in a story, but it happens typically when characters are watching TV / listening to radio etc that recounts past story events, so the “act of watching and the past [story] events are simultaneously represented in the narration.” (Bordwell, 1985, 77).
Other ways of achieving this allow the future to impede upon the present: split screen and offscreen sound (e.g., when you have pre-lap sound and the sounds from the next scene “creep up under the last few images of this one” (Bordwell, 1985, 77)).
On Thursday, will see how these two subtle techniques are used to great effect in Past Lives
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Successive story events presented simultaneously in the narration
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TYPE B
TYPE C
Type C: Simultaneous story events are presented successively in the narration
Common in classical narrative cinema through crosscutting
“Crosscutting is the principal device whereby simultaneous [story] events (Jones walks his dog while Smith flees the police) are spread out successively in the [narration] (cut from Jones to Smith to Jones)” (Bordwell, 1985, 77).
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Sumultaneous story events presented simultaneously in the narration
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TYPE C
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TYPE D
Type D: Successive story events are presented successively in the narration
Most common. Usually, successive story events are presented successively by the narration.
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TYPE D
Type D: Successive story events are presented successively in the narration
Note how Type D – in its simplest form – plays one successive event after the other.
But it’s also possible for temporal gaps between successive events to be masked by mise-en-scene to form an extended form of montage.
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TYPE D
Type D: Successive story events are presented successively in the narration
But the narration can still take liberties.
The story consists of a CHRONOLOGICAL series of events.
The narration can keep to this (1, 2, 3) or REORDER events (1-3-2, 2-1-3, 3-2-1), etc.
These are both still examples of Type D – successive events presented successively in the narration. The order of succession is simply reordered by the filmmaker
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REORDERING
REORDERING
The STORY is always in chronological order – it complies with the (general) laws of space / time.
The PLOT, as we have seen, is the selection of pieces of the story by the narration to show the audience.
As well as selecting WHICH pieces of the plot to show the audience, the narration can select in WHICH ORDER to show the story events within the plot.
This can be CHRONOLOGICAL / LINEAR or NON-LINEAR.
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REORDERING
There is a SPECTRUM here.
Some films will be almost completely chronological.
Example: 1917 or Birdman
Most classical narratives will be generally chronological / linear but may deploy limited uses of reordering via FLASHBACK or FLASH-FORWARD that temporarily disrupts a generally chronological time scheme.
Example: Nope.
However, some films are much more heavily reordered.
Oppenheimer is an example of a film that is very heavily reordered. See also Pulp Fiction.
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OPPENHEIMER REORDERING
Oppenheimer reorders the chronology of the narrative extensively by cutting between three key timelines:
1954 – Oppenheimer’s Q Clearance Hearing.
1959 – Strauss’s Senate Confirmation Hearing.
1924-1964 – Oppenheimer’s life events between 1924 (his time in Cambridge) to 1963 (his receipt of the Fermi Award).
The reordering is so pronounced in Oppenheimer that it is difficult to see what the present time of the film is.
The 1954 hearing is probably the closest bet, since this is where the center of the action hinges
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Manhattan Project
Early life & career
Downfall
1924
1928
1932
1936
1940
1944
1948
1952
1956
1960
Appointed as director of the Manhattan Project
Jul 20, 1943
Trinity test
Jul 16, 1945
Meets with President Truman
Oct 1945
Marries Kitty Puening
1940
Peter (son) is born
Apr 1941
Katherine (daughter) is born
Dec 1944
Jean Tatlock takes her own life
Jan 1944
Studies at Cambridge
1924 - 1926
Assumes full-time professorship
1936
Studies in Germany, meets Heisenberg
1926 - 1927
Teaches at University of California, Berkeley
1929 - 1943
AEC emergency meeting
Aug 1949
Congressional hearing
Jun 1949
Letter against
Oppenheimer
1953
Lewis Strauss'
Senate hearing
1959
Hydrogen bomb approved Teller appointed
1950
PhD in Physics from the University of Göttingen
1927
Apr 12, 1954 - May 6, 1954
Security clearance hearing
Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings
Aug 1945
Works on the Manhattan Project
1942 - 1945
Director of IAS, Princeton
1947
Fermi Award
Dec 1963
Meets Niels Bohr
1926
Meets Jean Tatlock
1936
Security clearance revoked
1954
“OPPENHEIMER”
MOVIE TIMELINE
THE SOCIAL NETWORK REORDERING & OVERALL FORM
The film begins like this with an inciting incident and the follow up on it:
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However, most of the film is situated around legal proceedings, which appear at minute 16 in the film:
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OPPENHEIMER REORDERING & OVERALL FORM
Most of the film is situated around legal proceedings
This framing narrative allows the narrative to spool out and analyze nodes of causal events in a non-linear way, following multiple groups of characters (i.e. Mark and Eduardo, and then the Winklevoss twins) without confusing the audience.
In turn, this has the effect of creating a filmic portrayal of the characters’ memories. They begin recounting events in the court case, and then the events recalled (via memory) are seen by viewers
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THE SOCIAL NETWORK REORDERING & OVERALL FORM
TECHNIQUES FOR REORDERING: FLASHBACK
The key example of reordering events is flashback: a prior story event is positioned later in the narration.
Note, however, that the question of “flashback” is entirely dependent on what one deems the central narrative storyline of a film to be
So: if the central narrative storyline of The Social Network is indeed the court cases, one could argue that the film is structured around a series of flashbacks.
However, if the central narrative storyline is Mark’s story, beginning with when Erica dumped him, then all of the court cases constitute “flash forwards.”
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TECHNIQUES FOR REORDERING: FLASHFORWARD
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Consider how, for instance, the initial presentation of the legal proceedings feel like flash forwards in The Social Network:
REORDERING
A more specific distinction can be drawn about the application of flashbacks in the presentation of story events, as theorized by Seymore Chatman:
Recounting
Enacted
Enacted recounting
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RECOUNTING
RECOUNTING is where the narration presents characters “communicating information about prior events by any means (writing, speech, pantomime, tape recording, film clips, etc), we have recounting.”
Example: When Zuckerberg explains, in the legal proceedings, what happened in the past
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ENACTMENT
ENACTMENT is where the narration “presents prior events as if they were occurring at the moment, in direct representation” (Bordwell, 1985, 78) – so we’re seeing it happen.
The Social Network is so heavily reordered that enacted flashbacks (if it is indeed right to call them flashbacks) are present widely throughout the film. Given the difficulty of finding a central “present” timeline to peg the flashbacks against, it is helpful to look at each dramatic sequence (a series of scenes dealing with a particular narrative event) and examine how the narration “flashes back” to previous events within each dramatic sequence. Therfore: we often have the recounting of what has happened and then a flashback to the recounted event.
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ENACTMENT
ENACTMENT is where the narration “presents prior events as if they were occurring at the moment, in direct representation” (Bordwell, 1985, 78) – so we’re seeing it happen.
Example:
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RECAP: ENACTED RECOUNTING
ENACTED RECOUNTING: a mixed case where a character tells us about past events, and the narration presents the events in a flashback (enacts them).
The Social Network uses this device extensively, far more than in a classical narrative structure.
This makes sense within the causal framework of the film because it is structured around two hearings, where Eduardo and the W. twins are both being asked to describe their previous experiences.
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RECAP: ENACTED RECOUNTING
ENACTED RECOUNTING: a mixed case where a character tells us about past events, and the narration presents the events in a flashback (enacts them).
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INTERNAL VS EXTERNAL FLASHBACKS
TYPES OF FLASHBACKS
Both types of flashback are “usually motivated psychologically, as character recollection.”
This is certainly the case in The Social Network, where generally flashbacks are the direct result of a framing device whereby the character remembering them introduces them first.
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TYPES OF FLASHBACKS
There are two key types of flashbacks.
External flashback: where the flashback enacts events that occurred prior to the first event represented in the narration.
We don’t get any of those in The Social Network – which is perhaps wise, as a means of guiding the viewer to understand the temporality of the film, given the film’s already-complex narrative structure
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TYPES OF FLASHBACKS
There are two key types of flashbacks.
Internal flashback: where the flashback enacts events that “occur within the temporal bounds of the narration proper, after the initial event presented” (Bordwell, 1985, 78).
Example: In The Social Network, all flashbacks occur within the timeline initiated by Erica’s breakup.
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TYPES OF FLASHFORWARDS
There are (arguably) no external flashforwards, “since the last story event necessarily sets one boundary of the narration’s time span”.
Bordwell says these are hard to “motivate realistically” as they “cannot be attributed to character subjectivity”; given this, “they constitute self-conscious narrational asides to the spectator.”
Counterpoint: if it’s a genre film with storyworld rules that allow the character to see the future, I would argue that’s a realistically motivated flashforward.
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TYPES OF FLASHFORWARDS
There are no external flashforwards, “since the last story event necessarily sets one boundary of the narration’s time span”.
“Because of the irrevocable forward movement of the narration under normal viewing conditions, a flashforward tends to be highly self-conscious and ambiguously communicative.”
“The flashforward is thus communicative, but often in a teasing way: it lets us glimpse the outcome before we have grasped all the causal chains that lead up to it.” (Bordwell, 1985, 79).
This is part of the sneaky narrative approach of The Social Network. although most of the film is told in (arguably) flashbacks, when the primary timeline(s) are introduced via flash forward, we wonder: “how did Mark’s initial breakup with Erica ultimately lead all of this mess to transpire?”
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EFFECTS OF REORDERING STORY EVENTS IN THE NARRATION
EFFECTS OF REORDERING
“It is very common” for the narration to present story events “out of order by recounting them. Most commonly, character dialogue does this.”
Most narrative films rearrange story order through verbal recounting and expositional passages.
“On the other hand, the flashback and the flashforward constitute enactment – we witness and/or hear the narration dramatizing the significant story episode.” (Bordwell, 1985, 78).
Manipulating the story order using flashback and flashforward “offer[s] obvious narrational possibilities”.
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NARRATION STAYS CLOSE TO STORY EVENT ORDER
Where the narration’s plot order stays close to story order, it “focuses the viewer’s attention on upcoming events”, which encourages “the SUSPENSE effect that is characteristic of most narrative films.”
Example: In Frances Ha, we wonder: “How is Frances going to make it in the world without Sophie?”.
This “helps the viewer to form clear-cut hypotheses about the future”.
It also encourages the “primacy effect, since each action can be measured as a change from the first one we see.” (Bordwell, 1985, 78).
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NARRATION STAYS CLOSE TO STORY EVENT ORDER
PRIMACY EFFECT: “the likelihood that the first item or few items in a series tend to form a benchmark for what will follow” (Bordwell, 2008).
“Initial information establishes a frame of reference to which subsequent information is subordinated as far as possible. A character initially described as virtuous will tend to be considered so even in the face of some contrary evidence; the initial hypothesis will be qualified but not demolished unless very strong evidence is brought forward.” (Bordwell, 1985, 38).
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NARRATION REORDERS STORY EVENT ORDER
Where the narration’s plot order reorders the story order, the PRIMACY EFFECT can be broken or qualified.
This forces “the viewer to evaluate early material in the light of new information about prior events.” (Bordwell, 1985, 78).
In The Social Network, we consistently wonder: was Mark actually in the right or wrong with Eduardo and the W. twines? Are these court cases just? We revise our understanding of these court cases based on the information we are given through the enactment of past events.
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NARRATION REORDERS STORY EVENT ORDER
“Reordering story events also…creates narrational GAPS”.
To recap, these gaps can be:
Temporary
Permanent
Focused (“we may want to know exactly what happened at a specific point”)
Diffuse (“a general sense that events are out of order”)
Flaunted (“e.g., the multifarious signals for a flashback”)
Suppressed (“e.g. the absence of such signals”) (Bordwell, 1985, 78).
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NARRATION REORDERS STORY EVENT ORDER
Reordering story events can create DELAYS in the revelation of story information, as we get the information when the characters do (in films with a restricted range of knowledge).
This can contribute to a feeling of surprise.
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NARRATION REORDERS STORY EVENT ORDER
“Reordering story events also…creates narrational GAPS”.
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NARRATION REORDERS STORY EVENT ORDER
Our restricted range of knowledge leads us to wonder what happened to Eduardo.
It makes the actual crime enacted against him into a flaunted gap – and we rely on Eduardo’s (partial) narration in the deposition, alongside (partial) revelation via flashback, to understanding what Mark did to him. But in both Eduardo’s narration, and the flashback, our range of knowledge is limited for an extended period of time. Eduardo doesn’t recount exactly what happened, only how his knowledge was limited before he learns the truth. And we see him discover the truth on screen, but in a space closed off by a glass door - and we’re only given diegetic sound from the space occupied by the camera. Therefore, the reordering helps increase our feeling of suspense.
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NARRATION REORDERS STORY EVENT ORDER
Reordering story events via flashbacks can augment the DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE.
Many flashbacks are motivated by the sense of a character’s memory, which tends to generate mental subjectivity.
The reordering of events in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, for instance, renders the events psychologically motivated.
This is true in The Social Network as well – although, because flashbacks often correspond to occasions described by multiple characters, the sequences do not necessarily side with the subjective memories of one character over another. Nevertheless, the sequence in which Eduardo learns about his firing evidentily corresponds with his own subjective memory.
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CLOSE ANALYSIS OF TEMPORAL ORDER IN PAST LIVES
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NEXT STEPS
