In Film Narratology, Peter W.J. Verstraten makes film narratives his primary focus, while noting the unexplored and essentially different narrative effects that film can produce with mise-en-scène, cinematography, and editing.

Most modern studies of narrative tend to focus predominantly on literature with only some reference to film. In Film Narratology, Peter W.J. Verstraten makes film narratives his primary focus, while noting the unexplored and essentially different narrative effects that film can produce with mise-en-scène, cinematography, and editing. Reworking the definitive theory of narration offeredby literary scholar Mieke Bal, Film Narratology examines cinematic techniques such as external and internal narration, visual and auditive focalization, the narrative force of sound, and the ambiguities caused by voice-overs and flashbacks. Verstraten illustrates these narrative principles with a broad range of examples drawn from avant-garde cinema, golden age Hollywood, blockbusters, and European art cinema. Insightful and comprehensive, Film Narratology will surely become the standard reference of cinematic narration for film students and scholars.

Music and Levels of Narration in Film is the first book-length study to synthesize scholarly contributions toward a narrative theory of film music. Moving beyond the distinction between diegetic and nondiegetic music--or music that is not understood as part of a film's "story world"--Guido Heldt systematically discusses music at different levels of narration, from the extrafictional to "focalizations" of subjectivity. Heldt then applies this conceptual toolkit to study the narrative strategies of music in individual films, as well as genres, including musicals and horror films. The resulting volume will be an indispensable resource for anyone researching or studying film music or film narratology. A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License and is part of Knowledge Unlatched.

"For the specialist in the study of narrative structure, this is a solid and very perceptive exploration of the issues salient to the telling of a story—whatever the medium. Chatman, whose approach here is at once dualist and structuralist, divides his subject into the 'what' of the narrative (Story) and the 'way' (Discourse)... Chatman's command of his material is impressive."—Library Journal

From mainstream blockbusters to art house cinema, narrative and narration are the driving forces that organize a film. Yet attempts to explain these forces are often mired in notoriously complex terminology and dense theory. Warren Buckland provides a clear and accessible introduction that explains how narrative and narration work using straightforward language. Narrative and Narration distills the basic components of cinematic storytelling into a set of core concepts: narrative structure, processes of narration, and narrative agents. The book opens with a discussion of the emergence of narrative and narration in early cinema and proceeds to illustrate key ideas through numerous case studies. Each chapter guides readers through different methods that they can use to analyze cinematic storytelling. Buckland also discusses how departures from traditional modes, such as feminist narratives, art cinema, and unreliable narrators, can complicate and corroborate the book’s understanding of narrative and narration. Examples include mainstream films, both classic and contemporary; art house films of every stripe; and two relatively new styles of cinematic storytelling: the puzzle film and those driven by a narrative logic derived from video games. Narrative and Narration is a concise introduction that provides readers with fundamental tools to understand cinematic storytelling.

This book presents a concise introduction to the often complex study of narrative theory. In part one, Aspects of Story, major theories of plot structure, character, and fictional worlds are applied to cinema. Part two, Aspects of Discourse, discusses how the story is communicated, examining techniques of cinematic narration such as time manipulation, perspective, editing and sound. Each chapter concludes with questions encouraging students to produce their own analysis of the narrative strategies of films.

An Introduction to Film Analysis is designed to introduce students to filmmaking techniques while also providing an invaluable guide to film interpretation. It takes readers step by step through: -the basic technical terms -shot-by-shot analyses of film sequences -set design, composition, editing, camera work, post-production, art direction and more -each chapter provides clear examples and full colour images from classic as well as contemporary films Ryan and Lenos's updated edition introduces students to the different kinds of lenses and their effects, the multiple possibilities of lighting, and the way post-production modifies images through such processes as saturation and desaturation. Students will learn to ask why the camera is placed where it is, why an edit occurs where it does, or why the set is designed in a certain way. The second section of the book focuses on critical analysis, introducing students to the various approaches to film, from psychology to history, with new analysis on postcolonial, transnational and Affect Theory. New to this edition is a third section featuring several in-depth analyses of films to put into practice what comes before: The Birds, The Shining, Vagabond, In the Mood for Love, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

In this study, David Bordwell offers a comprehensive account of how movies use fundamental principles of narrative representation, unique features of the film medium, and diverse story-telling patterns to construct their fictional narratives.

Perturbatory narration is a heuristic concept, applicable both quantitatively and qualitatively to a specific type of complex narratives for which narratology has not yet found an appropriate classification. This new term refers to complex narrative strategies that produce intentionally disturbing effects such as surprise, confusion, doubt or disappointment ‒ effects that interrupt or suspend immersion in the aesthetic reception process. The initial task, however, is to indicate what narrative conventions are, in fact, questioned, transgressed, or given new life by perturbatory narration. The key to our modeling lies in its combination of individual procedures of narrative strategies hitherto regarded as unrelated. Their interplay has not yet attracted scholarly attention. The essays in this volume present a wide range of contemporary films from Canada, the USA, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, France and Germany. The perturbatory narration concept enables to typify and systematize moments of disruption in fictional texts, combining narrative processes of deception, paradox and/or empuzzlement and to analyse these perturbing narrative strategies in very different filmic texts.

Standard Hollywood narrative movies prescribe linear narratives that cue the viewer to expect predictable outcomes and adopt a closed state of mind. There are, however, a small number of movies that, through the presentation of alternate narrative paths, open the mind to thoughts of choice and possibility. Through the study of several key movies for which this concept is central, such as Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, Inglourious Basterds, and Rashomon, Nitzan Ben Shaul examines the causes and implications of optional thinking and how these movies allow for more open and creative possibilities. This book examines the methods by which standard narrative movies close down thinking processes and deliver easy pleasures to the viewer whilst demonstrating that this is not the only possibility and that optional thinking can be both stimulating and rewarding.