Film Art Ch. 3
Narrative form
A film that tells a story; most common in fictional films
Characters
Agents of cause and effect; have a visible body; has traits
Story
All the events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly presented and those the viewer inferse
3 components of a narrative
Causality, time, and space
Change in knowledge plot
Character learns something, crucial knowledge, that leads to the final turning point of the plot
Goal-oriented plot
Character takes steps to achieve a desired object or state of affairs; searches/investigations
Plot
Everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us
Setup
First quarter or so of a film's plot
Mental subjectivity
Greater depth if the plot plunges into the character's mind
Sound perspective
Hear sounds as the character would
Hierarchy of knowledge
Plot's range of story information
Narration
Plot's way of distributing story information in order to achieve specific effects; involves range and depth of story information the plot presents
Explosition
Portion of the plot that lays out important story events and character traits in the opening situation
Suspense/uncertainty
Present causes but withhold story effects
Mystery
Suppresses certain story causes and presents only effects
Diegesis
Total world of the story action
Perceptual subjectivity
Visual or auditory point of view
Restricted narration
We don't see or hear anything that the character can't see or hear
Unrestricted narration
We know more, we see more, hear more, than any of the characters can; extremely knowledgeable narration; omniscient narration
Objective narration
What characters say and do; their external behavior
Subjective narration
What characters see and hear; their point-of-view