CHAPTER

Narrative Form
umans have an endless appetite for stories. As children, we devourfairy
tales and myths; we like to watch the same cartoons over and over.Aswe
get older, we become captivated by other stories—in religion and history,
in novels and comic books and video games and, of course, movies. We recount
our lives, or just what happened at work today, to anyone who'll listen. Politicians
and journalists talk about "changing the narrative." In the courtroom the jury hears
competing stories, and in our dreams we imagine ourselves in scenes and situations.
Narrative is a fundamental way that humans make sense of the world.
Stories grab and hold us. In Chapter 2 we considered how a sequence of items,
even letters of the alphabet, can prod us to ask what comes next. A story, filled out with
characters and their actions, intensifies that urge to the maximum. In 1841,Charles
Dickens serialized his novel The Old Curiosity Shop in magazine installments.When
ships brought the latest installment to America, crowds of readers packed the wharf
crying out, "Is Little Nell dead?" Almost two centuries later, children and theirpar-
ents lined up for hours outside bookstores to buy the newest Harry Potter novel.Many
of those youngsters rushed home and started reading it immediately.
They were not that different from fans binge-watching a whole season of a TV
show, or from fans eagerly waiting for the next installment of a movie franchise
and speculating online about upcoming plot twists. Whether the story is fictionalor
factual, we feel driven to know how the action develops, how the charactersreact,
and how it all comes out in the end.
Because storytelling is so common and so powerful, we need to take a close
look at how films—both fictional and nonfictional—embody narrative form.

Principles of Narrative Form

Because stories are all around us, spectators approach a narrative film with definite
expectations. We may know a great deal about the particular story the film will
a
tell. Perhaps we've read the book that the film is based on, or this is a sequelto
movie we've seen.
Even if we aren't already acquainted with the story's particular world, though'
that
we have expectations that are characteristic of narrative form itself. We assume
one
there will be characters and that the actions they take will involve them with We
•
another. We expect a series of incidents that will be connected in some waY
usually expect that the problems or conflicts that arise will somehow be settled
either they will be resolved or, at least, a new light will be cast on them. A spectator
comes prepared to make sense of a narrative film.
While watching the film, the viewer picks up cues, recalls information,anticipates
As we
what will follow, and generally participates in the creation of the film's form•
 Principles of Narrative Form 73

suggested in Chapter 2 (pp. 54-55), the film shapes our expectations by

summoning Narrative is one of the ways
up curiosity, suspense, surprise, and other emotional qualities. The ending has the task in which knowledge is organized.
of satisfying or cheating the expectations prompted by the film as a whole. The ending I have always thought it was the
may also activate memory by cueing the spectator to review earlier events, possibly most important way to transmit
considering them in a new light. When The Sixth Sense was released in 1999, many and receive knowledge. I am
moviegoers were so intrigued by the surprise twist at the end that they returned to less certain of that now—but the
see the film again and trace how their expectations had been manipulated. Something craving for narrative has never
similar happened with The Conversation (see pp. 3()()-3()2).As we examine narrative lessened, and the hunger for it is
form, we need to recognize how it engages the viewer in a dynamic activity. as keen as it was on Mt. Sinai or
It's the filmmaker's task to create this engagement. How does this happen? We Calvary or the middle of the fens."
can start to understand the filmmaker's creative choices and the viewer's activity —Toni Morrison, author, Beloved
by looking a little more closely at what narrative is and does.

What Is Narrative?
We can consider a narrative to be a chain of events linked by cause and effect and
occurring in time and space. A narrative is what we usually mean by the term
"story," although we'll be using that term in a slightly different way later. Typically,
a narrative begins with one situation; a series of changes occurs according to a pat-
tern of cause and effect; finally, a new situation arises that brings about the end of
the narrative. Our engagement with the story depends on our understanding of the
pattern of change and stability, cause and effect, time and space.
A random string of events is hard to understand as a story. Consider the follow-
ing actions: "A man tosses and turns, unable to sleep. A mirror breaks. A telephone
rings." We have trouble grasping this as a narrative because we are unable to deter-
mine how the events are connected by causality or time or space.
Consider a new description of these same events: "A man has a fight with his
boss. He tosses and turns that night, unable to sleep. In the morning, he is still so
angry that he smashes the mirror while shaving. Then his telephone rings; his boss
has called to apologize."
We now have a narrative, unexciting though it is. We can connect the events
spatially. The man is in the office, then in his bed; the mirror is in the bathroom; CONNECT TO THE BLOG
www.davidbordwell.net/blog
the phone is somewhere else in his home. Time is important as well. The fight starts
things off, and the sleepless night, the broken mirror, and the phone call occur one When filmmakers create a prequel
after the other. The action runs from one day to the following morning. Above all, to an existing film story, they need
we can understand that the three events are part of a pattern of causes and effects. to weave new patterns of cause
The argument with the boss causes the sleeplessness and the broken mirror. The and effect that lead to the story
phone call from the boss resolves the conflict, so the narrative ends. The narrative we already know. We discuss
develops from an initial situation of conflict between employee and boss, through how prequels manage this task in
a series of events caused by the conflict, to the resolution of the conflict. Simple "Originality and origin stories."
and minimal as our example is, it shows how important causality, space, and time
are to narrative form.
The fact that a narrative relies on causality, time, and space doesn't mean that
other formal principles can't govern the film. For instance, a narrative may make
use of parallelism. As Chapter 2 points out (p, 66), parallelism points up a similarity
among story elements. Our example was the way The Wizard of Oz paralleled the
three Kansas farmhands with Dorothy's three Oz companions.
A narrative may cue us to draw parallels among characters, settings, situations,
times of day, or any other elements. Julie & Julia parallels two women, living in dif-
ferent periods, trying to juggle their marriages and their passion for cuisine (3.1, 3.2).
CONNECT TO THE BLOG
Julie never meets her idol Julia Child, but there is still a cause-effect link: Julie is www.davidbordwell.net/blog
inspired by the older woman's life. Sometimes a filmmaker goes further and doesn't
link the parallel stories causally. Veiå Chytilovå's Something Different alternates We analyze Julie & Julia in more
depth, along with the parallel plot
scenes from the life of a housewife and scenes from the career of a gymnast. Since
in Enchantment, in "Julie, Julia &
the two women lead entirely separate lives, there are no causal connections between
the house that talked."
them. The parallel patterning encourages us to compare the women's life decisions.
74 CHAPTER 3 NarrativeForm

3.2 stories.
the two women's
emphasize similaritiesbetween
3.1—3.2 Narrative parallels. Julie & Julia: Staging and composition
of parallels. Two high
Hoop Dreams makes a similar use
The documentary in Chicago dream of becoming pro-
a black neighborhood pursuit of an athletic
school students from the film follows each
one's
players, and the obstacles they
fessional basketball compare their personalities,
invites us to
career. The film's form creates parallels between their
the choices they make. In addition, the film relatives who vicariously
face, and parents, and older male
their coaches, their like Julie & Julia and
high schools, glory. Hoop Dreams,
own dreams of athletic parallel lines of actionis
pursue their narrative film. Each of the
Different, remains a
Sontething allows the film to become
causality. But parallelism
organized by time, space, and on only one protagonist.
been had it concentrated
more complex than it might have

Telling the Story and linking them by

then, by identifying its events
We make sense of a narrative, parallels that can shed light
We also look out for
cause and effect, time, and space. than this bare-bones
lot more to narrative
on the ongoing action. But there's a
to think like a filmmaker.
account. To dig deeper, let's again try

CREATIVE DECISIONS

How Would YouTel/the Story? a

comedy following the development of
You have a story. Let's say it's a romantic
love affair. Your problem is: How to tell it? when the partners
For example, should you start at the beginning of the story,
showing them falling
meet? You could trace the action chronologically from there,
and eventually being
in love, being separated, meeting other people, remeeting,
another option. Suppose
reunited as a couple in marriage. But you might consider
day. Then you
you break chronology and start your film with the couple's wedding
trace the love
might flash back to the beginning, showing how they met, and then
affair through its ups and downs. day
But why stop your rearranging there? Why not start with the wedding to
back
flash back to the first meeting, then return to the wedding day, then flash
Ofone
the budding romance, then return to the wedding day, and so on? Instead
keep
long flashback framed by the wedding, you have several shorter ones that
interrupting the wedding.
Then you might ask: Who says the love-affair flashbacks have to be presented
sur-
in chronological order? Maybe I can create more curiosity, or suspense, or of
prise, or emotional engagement if I show the first meeting later in the film, out
chronological order. Perhaps just before the wedding, or just after their big bust-UP•
Although one event causes another, you don't have to respect 1-2-3 order•
 Principles of NarrativeForm 75

While you're speculating about shuffling time

periods, you might pause again.
Wouldn't it be more engaging to start not with the
wedding but with the couple's
"darkest moment," the scene in which it seems they're
never going to get together?
Then flashing back to earlier, happier days could increase
the suspense. Will they
be reunited? That makes the wedding a sort of epilogue
rather than the big event
framing the overall action.
Each choice brings up further choices. If your
flashbacks skip around a lot, you
might worry about viewers' losing their bearings. So to
help out, you might add
superimposed titles identifying the time and place of the scene.
Time structure is only one of the storytelling choices you face. If you're plan-
ning the romantic comedy we sketched, from whose viewpoint will the tale be told?
You could limit things to one character's standpoint, showing only what she or he
knows about the unfolding action. (500) Days of Sununer puts us firmly with the
man who has fallen in love with the mysterious Summer. Alternatively, you could
follow the more common convention of showing both members of the couple when
they're alone or with other friends. You could mix in scenes of parents, coworkers,
and the like. This asks your viewer to see the central relationship in a wider context.
Storytelling decisions about viewpoint involve what we'll be calling narration.
Whatever the area of choice you face, you'll want to consider how the options affect
the viewer. As we saw, presenting the story out of order could trigger curiosity or
suspense. Confining us to what one character knows can enhance surprise, so that
we learn new information only when he or she does.

Our romantic comedy is deeply unoriginal, but the point is just to show how
filmmakers face choices in planning narrative form. Those choices involve time
structure, narration, and other possibilities we'll examine.

Plot and Story

In our hypothetical movie, the love affair that runs from first meeting to wedding
is what we'll be calling the story. The story is the chain of events in chronological
order. But as we've seen, that story may be presented in various ways. If we use
flashbacks instead of linear time, or if we decide to organize events around one char-
acter rather than another, or if we make other choices about presentation, we will be
creating a different plot. As we've just seen, the same story can be presented in dif-
ferent ways—rendered as different plots—and each variant is likely to have different 3.3
effects on the audience.
As viewers, we have direct access only to the plot that the filmmakers finally
decided on. Yet eventually we arrive at an understanding of the underlying story. The
filmmakers have built the plot from the story, but viewers build the story from the plot.
How do viewers do that? By making assumptions and inferences about what's
presented. At the start of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, we know we are in
Manhattan at rush hour. The cues stand out clearly: skyscrapers, bustling pedestri-
ans, congested traffic (3.3). Then we watch Roger Thornhill as he leaves an elevator
with his secretary, Maggie, and strides through the lobby, dictating memos (3.4). 3.4
Already we can draw some conclusions. Thornhill is an executive who leads a 3.3—3.4 Depicted and inferred
busy life. We assume that before we saw Thornhill and Maggie, he was also dictat- story events. Shots of hurrying
ing to her; we have come in on the middle of a string of events in time. We also Manhattanpedestrians in North by
assume that the dictating began in the office, before they got on the elevator. In Northwest are followed by a shot
other words, we infer causes, a temporal sequence, and another locale even though introducingus to Roger Thornhill and
his secretary. Viewers make inferences
none of this information has been directly presented. We're probably not aware of about the story and characters based
making these inferences, but insofar as we understand what we see and hear, we are on the informationthat is presented
making them. The filmmaker has steered us to make them. onscreen.
76 CHAPTER 3 NarrativeForm

of all the relevant events

viewer in building up a sense
So the plot guides the and those that must
be inferred. In our North by
explicitly presented two depicted events and two
both the ones consist of at least
story would
Northwest example, the events in parentheses:
We can list them, putting the inferred
inferred ones.
day at his office.)
(Roger Thornhill has a busy
Rush hour hits Manhattan.
Maggie, Roger leaves the office, and they
(While dictating to his secretary,
take the elevator.) stride
elevator with Maggie and they
Still dictating, Roger gets off the
through the lobby.
sometimes called the film's diegesis (the
The total world of the story action is
CONNECT TO THE BLOG opening of North by Northwest, the
Greek word for "recounted story"). In the
wmv.davldbordwell.netblog as well as the traffic, streets, sky-
traffic, streets, skyscrapers, and people we see,
Can you make a plot out of several are all diegetic because they are
scrapers, and people we assume to be offscreen,
stories? Yes. "Pulverizing plots: assumed to exist in the world that the film depicts.
Into the woods with Sondheim, the action visibly and audi-
From the viewer's perspective, the plot consists of
Shklovsky, and David O. Russell" centrally, all the story
bly present in the film before us. The plot includes, most
shows how. Northwest example, only two story
events that are directly depicted. In our North by
events are explicitly presented in the plot: rush hour and Roger Thornhill's dictating
to Maggie as they leave the elevator. The plot also includes the information that
characters may supply about earlier events in the story world, as when Roger men-
tions his many marriages.
Note, though, that the filmmaker may include material that lies outside the
story world. For example, while the opening of North by Northwest is portraying
rush hour in Manhattan, we also see the film's credits and hear orchestral music.
Neither of these elements is diegetic, since they are brought in from outside the
story world. The characters can't read the credits or hear the music.
Credits and a film's score are thus nondiegetic elements. Similarly, in silent
films, many of the intertitles don't report dialogue but rather comment on the char-
acters or describe the location. These intertitles are nondiegetic. In Chapters 6 and 7,
we consider how editing and sound can function nondiegetically.
Suppose Hitchcock had superimposed the words "New York City" over the
traffic shots at the start of North by Northwest, in the way we considered adding
dates to the scrambled scenes of our hypothetical rom-com. Such titles would be
nondiegetic as well. (They aren't part of the story world; the characters couldn't read
them.) Today superimposed titles are the most common sorts of nondiegetic inserts,
but we can find more unusual ones. In The _BanclWagon, we see the premiere Of
a hopelessly pretentious musical play. Through nondiegetic images, accompanied
by a brooding chorus, the plot signals that the production bombed (3.5—3.9).The
filmmakers have added nondiegetic material to the plot for comic effect.
From the standpoint of the filmmaker, the story is the sum total of all the events
in the narrative. As the storyteller, you could present some of these events directly
(that is, display or mention them in the plot), hint at events that
are not presented, and
simply ignore other events. For instance, though we learn later
in North by Northwest
that Roger's mother is still close to hilli, we never learn what
happened to his father•
You, the filmmaker, could also add nondiegetic material,
as in the example from
The Band Wagon, This is why we can say that the
filmmaker makes a story into a Plot'
The spectator's task is quite different. All we
have before us is the plot—the
arrangement of material in the film as it stands. We
create the story in our minds'
thanks to cues in the plot. And in telling someone
about the movie we've just seem
we can summarize it in two ways: We can recap
the story, or recap the plot•
\Ve'll see that the story—plotdistinction affects
all three aspects of narrative:
causality, time, and space. Each offers the
filmmaker a huge array of choice for
guiding the viewer's experience of the film.
 Principles of NarrativeForm 77

3.5 3.6 3.7

3.5-3.9 Nondiegetic imagery in

The Band Wagon. A hopefulinvestor
in the play enters the theater (3.5),
and the camera moves in on a poster
predicting success for the musical
(3.6). But three comic nondiegetic
images reveal it to be a flop: ghostly
figures on a boat (3.7), a skull in a
desert (3.8), and an image referring to
the slang expression that the play "laid
3.8 3.9 an egg" (3.9).

Cause and Effect

If narrative depends on changes created by cause and effect, what kinds of things
can function as causes? Most often, characters, By triggering events and reacting
to
them, characters play causal roles within the film's narrative form.

Characters as Causes Most often, characters are persons, or at least enti-

ties like persons—Bugs Bunny or E.T. the extraterrestrial or the singing teapot
in
Beauty and the Beast. For our purposes here, Michael Moore is a character in Roger
and Me no less than Roger Thornhill is in North by Northwest, even though Moore
is a real person and Thornhill is fictional. In any narrative film, either fictional or
documentary, characters create causes and register effects. Within the film's overall
form, they make things happen and respond to events. Their actions and reactions
contribute strongly to our engagement with the film.
Unlike characters in novels, film characters typically have a visible body.
This is such a basic convention that we take it for granted, but it can be contested.
Occasionally, a character is only a voice, as in A Letter to Three Wives, a film nar-
rated by the woman who has sent a letter to three of her rivals. More disturbingly,
in Luis Bufiuel's That Obscure Object of Desire, one woman is portrayed by two
actresses, and the physical differences between them may suggest different sides of
her character. Todd Haynes takes this innovation further in I'm Not There, in which
a folksinger is portrayed by actors of different ages, genders, and races.
Along with a body, a character has traits: attitudes, skills, habits, tastes, psycho-
logical drives, and any other qualities that distinguish him or her. Some
characters,
such as Mickey Mouse, may have only a few traits. When we say a character
possesses
several varying traits, some at odds with others, we tend to call that character
complex,
or three dimensional, or well developed. Sherlock Holmes, for instance,
is a mass of
traits. Some stem from his habits, such as his love of music or his
addiction to cocaine,
while others reflect his basic nature: his arrogance, his penetrating
intelligence, his
disdain for stupidity, his professional pride, his occasional gallantry.
78 CHAPTER 3 NarrativeForm

we're curious about other humans, and we bring

As our love of gossip shows,
narratives. We're quick to assign traits to the charac_
our people-watching skills to
helps us out. Most characters wear their traits
ters onscreen, and usually the Inovie
life, and the plot presents situations that
far Inore openly than people do in real
swiftly reveal them to us.
Lost Ark throws Indiana Jones's personal.
The opening scene of Raiders Q/ the
that he's bold and resourceful, even a little
ity into high relief. We see immediately
fear. By unearthing ancient treasures
innpetuous. He's courageous, but he can feel
devotion to scientific knowledge. In a few
for museutns, he shows an admirable
straightforwardly, and we come to know
minutes, his essential traits are presented
and syrnpathize with hitn.
the opening scene are relevantto
All the traits that Indiana Jones displays in
given traits that will play causal
later scenes in Raiders. In general, a character is
of Alfred Hitchcock's TheMan
roles in the overall story action. The second scene
Jill, is an excellent shot with
Who Knew Too Much (1934) shows that the heroine,
to the action, but in the
a rifle. For much of the film, this trait seems irrelevant
when a police marksman cannot
last scene, Jill is able to shoot one of the villains
marksmanship serves a
manage it. Like most qualities assigned to characters, Jill's
particular narrative function.
Not all causes and effects in narratives originate with characters. In the so-
precipitate a series of
called disaster movies, an earthquake or tidal wave may
actions on the parts of the characters. The same principle holds when the sharkin
set the situation
Jaws terrorizes a community. Still, once these natural occurrences
up, human desires and goals usually enter the action to develop the narrative.In
Jaws, the townspeoplepursue a variety of strategies to deal with the shark,pro-
pelling the plot as they do so. The primary cause of the action in Contagion is a
lethal virus spreading across the world, but the action concentrates on individual
researchers struggling to find an antidote and on ordinary citizens trying to survive.

Hiding Causes, Hiding Effects As viewerswe try to connecteventsby

what might have
means of cause and effect. Given an incident, we tend to imagine
motivation.
caused it or what it might in turn cause. That is, we look for causal
from MyMan
We have mentioned an instance of this in Chapter 2: In the scene
of a beggar
Godfrey, a scavenger hunt serves as a cause that justifies the presence
at a society ball (see p. 63).
in advance
Causal motivation often involves the planting of information
(2.14, 2.15). In L.A.
of a scene, as we saw in the kitchen scene of The Shining colleague
Confidential, the idealistic detective Exley confides in his cynical
law enforcement.
Vincennes that the murder of his father had driven him to enter that he has
a name
He had privately named the unknown killer "Rollo Tomasi," seem to offer
may
turned into an emblem of all unpunished evil. This conversation police chief
corrupt
only an insight into Exley's personality. Yet later, when the breath.
with his last
Smith shoots Vincennes, the latter mutters "Rollo Tomasi" earlier conver-
is. Exley's
Later, the puzzled Smith asks Exley who Rollo Tomasi dead Vincennes
the
sation with Vincennes motivates his shocked realization that to shoot Exley,
about
has fingered Smith as his killer. Near the end, when Smith is returns
minor detail
Exley says that the chief is Rollo Tomasi. Thus an apparently
as a major causal and thematic motif.
direct presenta-
Most of what we have said about causality pertains to the plot's
shown to be a
tion of causes and effects. In The McIn Who Knew Too Much, Jill is
can also lead
good shot, and because of this, she can save her daughter. But the plot
us to infer causes and effects, and thus build up a total story. know
Consider the mystery story A murder has been committed. That is, we •
an effect but not the causes—the killer, the motive, and perhaps also the method things
The mystery tale thus depends strongly on curiosity. We want to know about
job
that happened before the events that the plot presents to us. It's the detective'S
 Principles of Narrative Form 79

to disclose, at the end, the missing causes—to name the

killer, explain the motive, and reveal the method. That is,
in the detective film, the climax of the plot (the action we
see) is a revelation of prior incidents in the story (events
we didn't see).
Although this pattern is most common in detective nar-
ratives, any film's plot can withhold causes and thus arouse
our curiosity. Horror and science fiction films often leave us
temporarily in the dark about what forces lurk behind certain
events. Not until three-quarters of the way through Alien do
we learn that the science officer Ash is a robot conspiring 3.10 Withholding story effects. The final image of The 400
to protect the creature. In Caché, a married couple receives Blows leaves Antoine's future uncertain.
an anonymous videotape recording their daily lives. The
film's plot shows them trying to discover who made it and why it was made. In general,
whenever any film creates a mystery, the plot initially suppresses certain story causes
and presents only enigmatic effects.
The plot may also present causes but withhold story effects, prompting sus-
pense and uncertainty in the viewer. After Hannibal Lecter's attack on his guards in
the Tennessee prison in The Silence of the Lambs, the police search of the building
raises the possibility that a body lying on top of an elevator is the wounded Lecter.
After an extended suspense scene, we learn that Lecter has switched clothes with
a dead guard and escaped.
When a plot withholds crucial consequences at the ending, it can ask us to pon-
CONNECT TO THE BLOG
der possible outcomes. In the final moments of Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows,
www.davidbordwell.net/blog
the boy Antoine has escaped from a reformatory and runs to the seashore. The
camera zooms in on his face, and the frame freezes (3.10). The plot does not reveal For examples of plots that keep
if Antoine is captured and brought back, leaving us to speculate on what might causes secret from the audience,
happen in his future. As in Rome Open City (pp. 478—479),the story of 400 Blows see "Side effects, safe haven:Out
is, by the conventions of mainstream cinema, incomplete. of the past" and "Gone grrrl."

Time
Causes and their effects are basic to narrative, but they take place in time. Our
story—plotdistinction helps us to understand how filmmakers use narrative form to
manipulate time.
As we watch a film, we construct story time on the basis of what the plot presents.
For instance, a plot may present story events out of chronological order. In Citizen
Kane, we see a man's death before we see his youth, and we must build up a chrono-
logical version of his life. Even if events are shown in chronological order, most plots
don't show every detail from beginning to end. We assume that the characters spend
uneventful time sleeping, eating, traveling, and so forth, so the periods containing such
irrelevant action can be skipped over. Another possibility is to have the plot present
the same story event more than once, as when a character recalls a traumatic incident.
In John Woo's The Killer, an accident in the opening scene blinds a singer, and later
we see the same event again and again as the protagonist regretfully thinks back to it.
In short, filmmakers must decide how the film's plot will treat chronological
order and temporal duration and frequency. In turn, the viewer must actively pick
up the cues about these time-based factors. Each one harbors important artistic
possibilities.

Temporal Order: How Are Events Sequenced? Filmmakers

canchoose
to present events out of story order. A flashback, like the ones we proposed for our
hypothetical romantic comedy, is simply a portion of the story that the plot presents
out of chronological sequence. In Edward Scissorhands, we first see the Winona Ryder
character as an old woman telling her granddaughter a bedtime story. Most of the film
then shows events that occurred when the old lady was in high school. Likewise,
80 CHAPTER 3 NarrativeForm

The Hangover starts at a point of crisis, when the bridegroom's buddies report that
he's missing. The plot then flashes back to them assembling for their bachelor party.
Flashbacks usually don't confuse us, because we mentally rearrange the events
into chronological order: teenage years precede old age, the hangover comes after a
night of partyi ng. If story events can be thought of as 1-2-3-4, then the plot that uses
a flashback presents something like 2-1-3-4, or 3-1-2-4. The filmmaker can also
shuffle story order by employing a flashforvvarcl. This pattern moves from present
to future, then back to the present, and could be represented as 1-2-4-3. In either
case, given the plot order we figure out story order.
Even a si mple reordering of scenes can create complex effects. The plot of Quentin
Tarantino's Pulp Fiction begins with a couple deciding to rob the diner they're sitting
in. This scene actually takes place somewhat late in the story's chronology, but the
viewer doesn't learn this until the final scene. At that point, the robbery interruptsa
dialogue involving other, more central, characters eating in the same diner. Just by tak_
CONNECT TO THE BLOG ing a scene that occurs late in the story and placing it at the start of the plot, Tarantino
creates a surprise that maintains our interest through the film's last moments.
Mark Romanek learned the Tarantino was influenced by the film noir trend of the 1940s and 1950s,which
D.O.A. lesson in directing One exploited time ordering in ingenious ways. D. O.A. (1949) shows how flashbacks
Hour Photo. "Creating suspense can shape the viewer's expectations across a whole film. A man strides into a police
through film form" discusses how, station to report a murder. "Who was murdered?" asks the officer. The man replies:
after preview screenings fizzled, "I was." As he starts to explain, we move into an extended flashback. The earliest
Romanek rearranged his plot to story action in the past is rather innocuous and slowly paced. Had the plot presented
start late in the story action and to the story in chronological order, viewers might have found these scenes flat. But
flash back to the beginning. "Now knowing that the protagonist is dying makes us vigilant. Every encounter he has
the audience is paying closer puts us on the alert: Is this what will kill him? Our anticipation wouldn't have been
attention." aroused so keenly if the story had been told in 1-2-3 order.

Temporal Duration: How Long Do the Events Take? Theplotof

North by Northwest presents four crowded days and nights in the life of Roger
Thornhill. But the story stretches back far before that, indicated by the information
about the past that is revealed in the course of the plot. The story events include
Roger's past marriages, the U.S. Intelligence Agency's plot to create a false agent
named George Kaplan, and the villain Van Damm's smuggling activities.
In general, a film's plot selects only certain stretches of story duration. As
a filmmaker you might decide to concentrate on a short, relatively cohesive time
span, as North by Northwest does. Or you might let your plot unfold across many
years, highlighting significant stretches of time in that period. Citizen Kane shows
us the protagonist in his youth, skips over some time to show him as a young man,
e
skips over more time to show him middle-aged, and so forth. The sum of all thes
slices of story duration yields an overall plot duration.
But we need one more distinction. Watching a movie takes time—20
minutes
So there's a
or two hours or seven-plus hours (as Béla Tarr's Satan's Tango does).
duration.
third duration involved in a narrative film, which we can call screen
and screen duration are
The relationships among story duration, plot duration,
can manipulate
complicated, but for our purposes, we can say this. The filmmaker
plot duration. For
screen duration independently of the overall story duration and (includ-
years
example, Norih by Northwest has an overall story duration of several and
and nights,
ing all relevant story events), an overall plot duration of four days
a screen duration of about 136 minutes.
duration selects
Just as plot duration selects from story duration, so screen
the plot's four
from overall plot duration. In North by Northwest, only portions of
TwelveAngry
days and nights are shown to us. An interesting counterexample is
of the movie
Men, the story of a jury deliberating a murder case. The 95 minutes
approximate the same stretch of time in its characters' lives.
to override
At a more specific level, the filmmaker can use screen duration famous
story time. For example, screen duration can expand story duration. A
 Principles of Narrative Form 81

instance is that of the raising of the bridges in Sergei Eisenstein's October. Here an CONNECT TO THE BLOG
event that takes only a few moments in the story is stretched out to several minutes www.davidbordwell.net/blog
of screen time by means of the technique of film editing. As a result, this action
gains a tremendous emphasis. The plot can also use screen duration to compress A repeated scene is used to
story time. A process taking hours or days is often condensed into a few swift shots. convey fuller story information
These examples suggest that film techniques play a central role in creating screen at the climax of Mildred Pierce.
duration, and we'll see how in Chapters 5 and 6. To accomplish this, however, the
film plays a further trick with story
Temporal Frequency: How Often Do We See or Hear an Event? time. See our "Twice told tales:
Most commonly, a story event is presented only once in the plot. Occasionally, Mildred Pierce." Repetition may
however, a single story event may appear twice or even more in the plot treat- mislead us in other ways, as we try
ment. If we see an event early in a film's plot, and then, later in the plot, there is to show in "Memories are unmade
by this."
a flashback to that event, we see that same event twice. Some films use multiple
narrators, each of whom describes the same event; again, we see it take place
several times. This increased frequency may allow us to see the same action in
several ways. Repetition can take place simply on the soundtrack. Sometimes only
a single line of dialogue will reappear, haunting a character who can't escape the
memory of that moment.
Why would a filmmaker want to repeat a story event in the plot? Sometimes it's
to remind the audience of something. Or the repetition reveals new information. This
occurs in For a Few Dollars More, in which the repeated scene gets expanded more
fully each time that characters recall it. In Amores Perros, a traffic accident is shown
three times, and each iteration reveals how a different person is affected by the crash.
The manipulations of story order, duration, and frequency in the plot illustrate
how viewers actively participate in making sense of the narrative film. The film- The multiplepoints of
maker designs the plot to prompt us about chronological sequence, the time span of view replaced the linear story.
the actions, and the number of times an event occurs. It's up to the viewer to make Watching a repeated action or an
intersection happen again and
assumptions and inferences and to form expectations. Fortunately, we can usually put
again they hold the audience
things together by appealing to our ordinary sense of time and cause and effect. A
in the story. It's like watching a
flashback, for instance, is often motivated as a character's memory. Other cues, such
puzzle unfold."
as clothing, age, settings, and the like can help us sort out a film's story time. —Gus van Sant, director, on Elephant
Still, some filmmakers have offered quite complicated time schemes. In The
Usual Suspects, a petty criminal spins an elaborate tale of his gang's activities to
an FBI agent. His recounting unfolds in many flashbacks, some of which repeat
events we witnessed in the opening scene. Yet a final twist reveals that some of the
flashbacks must have contained lies, and we must piece together both the chronol-
ogy of events and the story's real cause-effect chain. Christopher Nolan's Inception
creates several stories-within-stories, all unfolding simultaneously in dream-time,
but the plot makes each one take place at a different rate. One second in one dream
might last many minutes in another, so that we have several scales of plot duration.
Through magic, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban permits action we've
already seen to run again, with different results (3.11).

3.11 Creating complex time

schemes. In Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and his
friend Hermioneuse a magical device
to go back in time. Here they watch
themselves playing out the action from
a scene we had witnessed earlier in
the film.
 Space
In film narrative. space is usually an important factor. Events occur in particu_
lar locales. such as Kansas or Oz; the Flint, Michigan, of Roger and Me; or the
Manhattan of North by Northwest. We'll consider setting in more detail whenwe
examine mise-en-scene in Chapter 4, but we ought briefly to note how plot and
story can manipulate space.
Normally, the locale of the story action is also that of the plot, but sometimes
the plot leads us to imagine story spaces that are never shown. In Otto Preminger's
Exodus, one scene is devoted to Dov Landau's interrogation by a terrorist organiza-
tion he wants to join. Dov reluctantly tells his questioners of his duties in a Nazi
concentration camp (3.16). Although the film never shows this locale througha
flashback, much of the scene's emotional power depends on our using our imagina-
tion to fill in Dov's sketchy description of how he survived.
Further, we can introduce an idea akin to the concept of screen duration.
Besides story space and plot space, cinema employs screen space: the visible space
within the frame. Just as screen duration selects certain plot spans for presentation,
so screen space selects portions of plot space. We'll consider screen spaceand
offscreen space when we analyze framing in Chapter 5.

stayIna
3.16 Imagining offscreen locales. In Exodus, Dov Landau recounts his traumatic onhis
If)'.tead of presenting this through a flashback, the narration dwells
face, (or(Jedi,
 Principles of Narrative Form 85

Openings, Closings, and Patterns of Development

Our early experiment in romantic-comedy plotting began with beginnings and end-
ings: How will you start your film? How will you conclude it? This echoed our
discussion of formal development in Chapter 2, where we suggested that it's often
useful to compare beginnings and endings. A narrative usually presents a series of
changes from an initial situation to a final situation, and by considering how that
pattern works, we can better understand the film.

Openings A film does not just start, it begins. The opening provides a basis for
what is to come and initiates us into the narrative. It raises our expectations by set- CONNECT TO THE BLOG
www.davidbordwell.net/blog
ting up a specific range of possible causes for what we see. Indeed, the first quarter
or so of a film's plot is sometimes referred to as the setup. Sometimes a film's opening will
Very often, the film begins by telling us about the characters and their situ- signal that we are not going to
ations before any major actions occur. Alternatively, the plot may seek to arouse get much exposition. See "How to
curiosity by bringing us into a series of actions that has already started. (This is watch an art movie, reel 1."
called opening in medias res, a Latin phrase meaning "in the middle of things.")
The viewer speculates on possible causes of the events presented. Close Encounters
of the Third Kind begins with investigators arriving in the desert to study World War
Il airplanes. An in ntedias res opening grabs our interest, but as Robert Towne notes
(p. 51), sooner or later the filmmaker has to explain what led up to these events.
In either case, some of the actions that took place before the plot started—often
called the backstory—will be stated or suggested so that we can understand what's
coming later. The portion of the plot that lays out the backstory and the initial situa-
tion is called the exposition. Usually exposition takes place early in the film, but the
filmmaker may postpone chunks of exposition for the sake of suspense and more
immediate impact. James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd did this in their screenplay No exposition except under
for The Terminator. For nearly 40 minutes the plot provides chases, gunplay, and heat, and break it up at that."
glimpses of a war-torn future before the fighter Reese explains what has caused the —Raymond Chandler, novelist and
plight that he and Sarah Connor are in. screenwriter for Double Indemnity

Development Sections As a film's plot proceeds, the causes and effects cre-
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ate patterns of development. Some patterns are quite common. Change is essential www.davidbordwell.net/blog
to narrative, and a common pattern traces a change in knowledge.Very often, a
character learns something in the course of the action, with the most crucial knowl- Some filmmakersdevelop their
plot in large blocks—more or
edge coming at the final turning point of the plot. In Witness, John Book, hiding out
less self-contained episodes
on an Amish farm, learns that his partner has been killed and his boss has betrayed
or "chapters." We discuss this
him. His rage leads to a climactic shoot-out. strategy in "The 1940s are over,
Another common pattern of development is the goal-oriented plot, in which and Tarantino's still playing with
a character takes steps to achieve an object or condition. Plots based on searches blocks."
would be instances of the goal plot. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the protagonists try
to find the Ark of the Covenant; in North by Northwest, Roger Thornhill looks for
George Kaplan. The goal-oriented plot pattern often takes the shape of investiga-
tion, itself a kind of search. Here the protagonist's goal is not an object, but infor-
mation, usually about mysterious causes.
Time may also provide plot patterns. A framing situation in the present may initi-
ate a series of flashbacks showing how events led up to the present situation, as in The
Usual Suspects ' flashbacks. Hoop Dreams is organized around the two main characters'
high school careers, with each part of the film devoted to a year of their lives. The plot
may also create a specific duration for the action—a deadline. In Back to the Future, the
hero must synchronize his time machine with a bolt of lightning at a specific moment
in order to return to 1985. This creates a goal toward which he must struggle. Space
can structure plot development, too. The filmmaker might confine the action to a single
locale, such as a home (as in the Paranormal Activity films). In Lebanon, the action is
restricted to the inside of a military tank, and the plot develops as the tank moves to
different locations. Similarly, in Locke, after a brief introduction the plot attaches us to
 86 CHAPTER 3 Narrative Form

the protagonist during his long car drive; the drama

arises
from several phone calls he conducts on the trip.
A filmmaker can combine any of these plot patterns
Many films built around a journey, such as The Wizardof
Oz or North by Northwest, also involve deadlines. Jacques
Tati's Mr. Hulot's Holiday uses both spatial and temporal
patterns to structure its comic plot. The plot confines
itself to a beachside resort and its neighboring areas,and
it consumes one week of a summer vacation.Eachday
certain routines recur: morning exercise, lunch, afternoon
outings, dinner, evening entertainment. Much of the
film's humor relies on the way that Mr. Hulot disruptsthe
routines of the guests and townspeople (3.17). Although
cause and effect still operate in Mr. Hulot's Holiday, time
and space are central to the plot's formal patterning.
Any pattern of development will encourage the viewer
3.17 Time and space in plot patterning. In Mr.Hu/ot'sHoliday, to create specific expectations. As the film trains
Hulot's aged, noisy car has a flat tire that breaks up a funeral— the
viewer in its particular form, these expectations become
consistent with a comic pattern in which the vacationing ML Hulot
repeatedly disturbs townspeople and other guests. more and more precise. Dorothy's trip through Oz isn'ta
casual sightseeing tour. Once we understand her desireto
go home, each step of her journey (to the Emerald City, to the Witch's castle,to the
Emerald City again) is seen as delaying or furthering her goal.
In any film, the middle portion may delay an expected outcome. When Dorothy
at last reaches the Wizard, he sets up a new obstacle for her by demanding the Witch's
broom. North by Northwest's journey plot constantly postpones Roger Thornhill's
discovery of the Kaplan hoax, and this, too, creates suspense. The pattern of devel-
opment may also create surprise, the cheating of an expectation, as when Dorothy
discovers that the Wizard is a fraud or when Thornhill sees the minion Leonardfire
point-blank at his boss Van Damm. Patterns of development encourage the spectator
to form long-term expectations that can be delayed, cheated, or gratified.

Climaxes and Closings A film doesn't simply stop; it ends. The plot will typi-
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eco
www.davidbordweli.net'o;og
cally resolve its causal issues by bringing the development to a high point, or climax.
In the climax, the action is presented as having a narrow range of possibleout-
How do we learn to recognize comes. At the climax of North by Northwest, Roger and Eve are dangling off Mount
saved.
that an ending is coming? Starting Rushmore, and there are only two possibilities: they will fall, or they will be
serves to
from an anecdote about a three- Because the climax focuses possible outcomes so narrowly, it typically
Primary, the
year-old watching Snow Whiteand settle the causal issues that have run through the film. In the documentary
the Seven Dwarfs, we speculate await the voters'ver-
climax takes place on election night; both Kennedy and Humphrey
on this subject in "Molly wanted climax in the destruction
dict and finally learn the winner. In Jaws, battles with the shark
of Hooper, and Brody's final
more." of the boat, the death of Captain Quint, the apparent death
chains of cause and effect
victory. In such films, the ending resolves, or closes off, the
degree of tension•
Emotionally, the climax aims to lift the viewer to a high
ways the action can be
Because the viewer knows that there are relatively few the
outcome. When Brody slays
resolved, she or he can hope for a fairly specific
relief echoes ours. In the climax
shark and discovers that Hooper has survived, their
emotional satisfaction.
of many films, formal resolution coincides with an
After creatingexpec-
CONNECT TO THE BLOG A few narratives, however, are deliberately anticlimactic.
the film scotches them
www.davidbordwell.netUog tations about how the cause-effect chain will be resolved, The
settle things definitely. One famous example is the last shot Of
by refusing to the two
A film is constantly giving us story ("The Eclipse"),
400 Blows (p. 79). In Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse the
information. How much do we doing so. When
remember, scene by scene? Some lovers vow to meet for a final reconciliation but aren't shown
leaves us uncertain
filmmakers exploit our difficulties filmmaker has chosen to let the ending remain open, the plot clear-cut climax
a
in remembering what happened about the final consequences of the story events. The absence of
next or to reflect
earlier, as we show in "Memories and resolution may encourage us to imagine what might happen
are unmade by this." on other ways in which our expectations might have been fulfilled.
 Narration:The Flow of Story Information 87

Narration: The Flow of Story Information

In looking at how a filmmaker tells a story, we've emphasized matters of plot struc-
ture: how the parts, from beginning to end, are fitted together to shape the viewer's
experience. Filmic storytelling involves decisions about another sort of plot orga-
nization. Back when we were sketching alternatives for a romantic comedy (p. 74),
we also faced the question of whether to build the scenes around one member of the
couple, both members, or the couple and other characters around them. We could
tell the same story from different characters' perspectives.The story of Little Red
Riding Hood will be very different depending on whether we attach ourselves to
the girl or to the wolf.
This means deciding what information to give the spectator, and when to
supply it. Thinking like a filmmaker, should you restrict the viewer just to what
the character knows? Or should you give the viewer more informationthan the
character has? In a stalking scene, should you showjust the person being pur-
sued, watching and listening for a threat we never see? Or should you show both
the victim shrinking away and the stalker in pursuit? There is no right or wrong
answer. The choice depends on the effect you want to achieve. What is clear is
that a filmmaker can't avoid choosing how much information to reveal and when
to reveal it.
Similarly, you might ask how objective or subjective your scene should be.
Should you show only how characters behave, without any attempt to get inside
their heads? Or should you add voice-over monologues that expose what they're
thinking, or point-of-view shots that show what they can see? Should you try to
dramatize their dreams, fantasies, or hallucinations? Again, it's a forced choice, and
again you can imagine presenting the same story in a plot that is deeply subjective
or one that is more objective.
These decisions involve narration, the plot's way of distributing story informa-
tion in order to achieve specific effects. Narration is the moment-by-momentpro-
cess that guides viewers in building the story out of the plot. Many factors enter into
narration, but the most important ones for our purposes involve the factors we've
just sketched out: the range and the depth of story information that the plot presents.

Range of Story Information:

Restricted or Unrestricted?
D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation begins by recounting how slaves were
brought to America and how people debated the need to free them. The plot then
shows two families, the northern Stoneman family and the southern Camerons. The
war.
plot also dwells on political matters, including Lincoln's hope of averting civil
knowledge is very broad. The plot takes us across
From the start, then, our range of
historical periods, regions of the country, and various groups of characters.This
Cameron
breadth of story information continues throughout the film, When Ben
moment the idea strikes him,
founds the Ku Klux Klan, we know about it at the
we know that the Klan
long before the other characters learn of it. At the climax,
but the besieged people
is riding to rescue several characters besieged in a cabin,
do not know this.
We know
On the whole, in The Birth of a Nation, the narration is unrestricted.
the characters can. Such extremely knowl-
more, we see and hear more, than any of
edgeable narration is often called omniscient ("all-knowing") narration.
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Now consider the plot of Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep. The film begins www.davidbordwell.net/blog
with the detective Philip Marlowe visiting General Sternwood, who wants to hire
him. We learn about the case as Marlowe does. Throughout the rest of the film, We examine the idea of restrict-
he is present in every scene. With hardly any exceptions, we don't see or hear ing the narration to what one
anything that he can't see and hear. The narration is restricted to what Marlowe character knows in "Alignment,
knows. allegiance, and murder."
 88 CHAPTER 3 Narrative Form

advantages. The Birth of a Nation seeks to pres.

In the first section [of Reservoir Each alternative offers certain American history (based on a racist ideology).
period in
Dogs), up until Mr.Orange shoots ent a panoramic vision of a to creating the sense of many destinies
Mr.Blonde,the charactershave Omniscient narration is thus essential Had Griffith restricted narration the way
country.
far more informationabout what's intertwined with the fate of the
would have learned story information solely through one
going onthan youhave—and they The Big Sleep does, we not witness the prologue scene, or the
have conflictinginformation.Then character—say,Ben Cameron. We could
battle episodes, or the scene of Lincoln,s
the MnOrange sequence happens scenes in Lincoln's office, or most of the
these events. The plot would now
and that's a great leveler.You start assassination, since Ben is present at none of
Civil War and Reconstruction.
getting caught up with exactly concentrate on one man's experience of the
restricted narration. By limiting
what's going on, and in the third Similarly, The Big Sleep benefits from its
can create curiosity and surprise.
part, when you go back into the us to Marlowe's range of knowledge, the film
warehouse for the climax youare Restricted narration is important to mystery films, since such films engage our
totallyahead of everybody—you interest by hiding important causes. Confining the plot to an investigator's range
know far more than any one of the of knowledge plausibly motivates concealing important story information. The
had alternated scenes
characters." Big Sleep could have been less restricted if the screenwriter
—Quentin Tarantino, director
of Marlowe's investigation with scenes that show the gambling boss, Eddie Mars,
planning his crimes. But this would have given away some of the mystery. In both
The Birth of a Nation and The Big Sleep, the narration's range of knowledge func-
tions to elicit particular reactions from the viewer.

Range of Knowledge: A Matter of Degree Unrestricted

narration
and
restricted narration aren't watertight categories but rather two ends of a continuum.
A filmmaker may choose to present a broader range of knowledge than does The
Big Sleep and still not attain the omniscience of The Birth of a Nation.
Early scenes of North by Northwest, for instance, confine us pretty much to
what Roger Thornhillsees and knows. After he flees from the United Nations
building, however, the plot takes us to Washington, where the members of the
U.S. Intelligence Agency discuss the situation. Here the viewer learns something
that Roger won't learn for some time: the man he seeks, George Kaplan, doesn't
exist. From then on, we have a greater range of knowledge than Roger does. And
we know a bit more than the Agency's staff: we know exactly how the mix-up
took place. But we still don't know many other things that the narration could have
divulged in the scene in Washington. For instance, the Agency's staff members
don't identify the secret agent they have working under Van Damm's nose.
This oscillation between restricted and unrestricted narration is commonin
films. Typically the plot shifts from character to character, giving us a little more
than any one character knows while still withholding some crucial items from us.
Even if the plot is focused on a single protagonist, the narration usually includesa
few scenes that the character isn't present to witness. Tootsie's narration remains
almost entirely attached to actor Michael Dorsey, but a few shots show his acquain-
tances shopping or watching him on television.
Lebanon, set during the June 1982 Israeli-Lebanese war, comes very close to purely
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restricted narration. Apart from the beginning and ending, the entire film is set inside
a tank, where we are limited to what the four team members know. Usually films with
Cloverfie/duses an unusually such strong attachments to characters cheat a little by cutting to action taking place Oilt-
restricted narration,confining itself side. Here there
is no violation of the setting (3.18, 3.19). Necessary information from
to a video recording shot by the
outside comes via radio communications. Director Samuel Maoz has said that his goal
main characters. See our analy-
was to make audience members experience young soldiers' sense of the horror Ofwar
sis, "A behemoth from the Dead
Zone." As if corresponding to
and their oppressive confinement. "You see only what they see. You know only what
C/overfie/d,the teenage superhero they know." Yet there are still moments when one soldier's reactions aren't noticed by
movie Chronicle found ingenious the others, so we gain a slightly wider range of knowledge than any one character has•
ways to expand the video record-
ing as the plot develops. We dis- Analyzing Range of Narration An easy way to analyze the range ofnarration
cuss this problem of motivatjonin is to ask, "Who knows what when?" This
question applies to the characters and the
"Return to paranormalcy." spectator as well. At any given moment,
we can ask if we the audience knows more
than, less than, or as much as the characters
do. Sometimes we may get information
that no character possesses. We shall
see this happen at the end of Citizen Kane•
 Narration:The Flow of Story Information 89

3.18

3.19
318—3.19 Severely restricted range of knowledge. In Lebanon,we see the world
outside a tank as the characters do, through a gunner's crosshairs (3.18)or when the hatch IS
bne 4iy opened (3 19).

Filmmakers can achieve powerful effects by manipulating the range of story Narrative tension is primarily
information. Restricted narration tends to create greater curiosity and surprise for about withholding information."
the vieuer. For instance, if a character is exploring a sinister house, and we see and —Ian McEwan, novelist
hear no more than the character does, a sudden revelation of a hand thrusting out
from a doorway will startle us,
In contrast, as Hitchcock pointed out, a dose of unrestricted nat'ration helps to
build suspense. He explained it this way to Frangois TrulTaut;
We are now having a very innocent little chat, Let us suppose that there is a bomb
underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden,
"Boom!" There is an explosjon. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it
has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a
suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, prob-
ably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware that the
bonib is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor, The public
can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions this innocuous conversation
becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is
 90 CHAPTER 3 NarrativeForm

longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such
trivial matters. There's a bomb beneath you and it's about to explode!"
In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment
of the explosion. In the second case we have provided them with fifteen minutesof
pense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed.

CONNECT TO THE BLOG Hitchcock put his theory into practice. In Psycho, Lila Crane explores the Bates
www.davidbordwell.net]blog mansion in much the same way as our hypothetical character was doing. Thereare
In a series of entries starting with isolated moments of surprise as she discovers odd information about Normanand
"Hitchcock, Lessing, & the bomb his mother. But the overall effect of the sequence is built on suspense becausewe
under the table," we consider know, as Lila does not, that Mrs. Bates is in the house. (Actually, as in Northby
where Hitchcock may have gotten Nort/nvest, our knowledge isn't completely accurate, but during Lila's investigation
his ideas on suspense and surprise. we believe it to be.) As in Hitchcock's anecdote, our greater range of knowledge
creates suspense because we can anticipate events that the character cannot. Once
more, the filmmaker guides the viewer's expectations.

Depth of Story Information:Objective or Subjective?

A film's narration manipulates not only the range of knowledge but also the depth
of our knowledge. The filmmaker must decide how far to plunge into a character's
psychological states. As with restricted and unrestricted narration, there is a spec-
trum between objectivity and subjectivity.
A plot might confine us wholly to information about what characters say and
do. Here the narration is relatively objective. Or a film's plot may give us accessto
what characters see and hear. The filmmaker might give us shots taken from a char-
acter's optical standpoint, the point-of-view (POV) shot. For instance, in North
by Northwest, point-of-view editing is used as we see Roger Thornhill crawl up to
Van Damm's window (3.20—3.22).Or we might hear sounds as the character would

3.20 3.21

3.20—3.22 Perceptual subjectivity in North by Northwest.

Roger Thornhlll looks in Von Darnrn•swindow (objective
narration;320), and an optical POV shot follows (perceptual
subjectivityu 3 21), This is followed by another shot of Roger
(ob)ecuvlty again: 3 22).
ioob<jrv.l 3.22
 Narration: The Flow of Story Information 91

hear them, what sound recordists call sound perspective. In short, through either
sight or sound, the filmmaker gives us what we might call perceptual subjectivity.
The filmmaker can go deeper, beyond the character's senses and into her or
his mind. We can call this mental subjectivity. We might hear an internal voice
reporting the character's thoughts, or we might see the character's inner images,
representing memory, fantasy, dreams, or hallucinations. In Slumdog Millionaire,
the hero is a contestant on a quiz show, but his concentration is often interrupted
by brief shots showing his memories, particularly one image of the woman he loves
(3.23, 3.24). Here Jamal's memory motivates flashbacks to earlier story events.
Either sort of subjectivity may be signaled through particular film techniques.
If a character is drunk, or drugged, the filmmakers may render those perceptual
states through slow motion, blurred imagery, or distorted sound. Similar techniques
may suggest a dream or hallucination.
But some imaginary actions may not be so strongly marked. Another scene in
Slumdog Millionaire shows Jamal reuniting with his gangster brother Salim atop
a skyscraper under construction. Jamal hurls himself at Salim, and we see shots of
both falling from the building (3.25, 3.26). But the next shot presents Jamal still on
the skyscraper, glaring at Salim (3.27). Now we realize that the images of the falling

3.23 3.24
3.23-3.24 Memories motivate flashbacks. Early in Slumdog Millionaire,it's established that during the quiz show (3.23) Jamal
recalls his past—most often, his glimpse of Latika at the train station (3.24).

3.25 3.26

3.25-3.27 Suppressed cues for subjectivity in Slumdog

Millionaire. Furious with Salim, Jamal grabs him and rushes
towardthe edge of the building (3.25). Several shots present
their fall (3.26), but then the narration cuts back to Jamal, glaring
at Salim (3.27).This shot reveals that he only imagined killing both
3.27 of them.
92 CHAPTER 3 NarrativeForm

men were purely mental, representing Jamal's rage. Because the shots weren,t
marked as subjective, we briefly thought that their fall was really taking place.
Typically, moments of perceptual and mental subjectivity come in bursts.Th
tend to be embedded in a framework of objective narration. POV shots, like those
assigned to Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest, and flashbacks or fantasiesare
bracketed by more objective shots. We are able to understand Jamal's memory of
Latika and his urge to kill Salim because those images are framed by shots of actions
that are really happening in the plot. Other sorts of films, however, may avoidthis
convention. Fellini's 81/2,Luis Bufiuel's Belle de Jour, Peter Haneke's Caché,and
Memento mix objectivity and subjectivity in ambiguous ways. Inception doesn,t
signal its dreams with the usual special effects, so that often we're not sure whether
we're in reality or a dream (or a dream nested inside another dream).
If a filmmaker restricts our knowledge to a single character, does that restriction
create greater subjective depth? Not necessarily. The Big Sleep is quite restrictedin
its range of knowledge, as we've seen. But we very seldom see or hear things from
Marlowe's perceptual vantage point, and we never get direct access to his mind.
The Big Sleep uses almost completely objective narration. The omniscient narra_
tion of The Birth of a Nation, however, plunges to considerable psychological depth
CONNECT TO THE BLOG with optical POV shots, flashbacks, and the hero's final fantasy vision of a world
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without war. To maximize suspense, Hitchcock's films may give us slightly greater
For more on the distinction knowledge than his characters have. But at certain moments, he confines us to their
between perceptual and mental perceptual subjectivity (usually relying on POV shots). For the filmmaker, range
subjectivity in narrationsee and depth of knowledge are independent variables. These examples show that for
"Categorical coherence: A closer the filmmaker, choices about the range of knowledge can be made independently
look at character subjectivity." of choices about depth of knowledge.
Incidentally, this is one reason why the term "point of view" is ambiguous.It
can refer to range of knowledge (as when a critic speaks of an "omniscient pointof
view") or to depth (as when speaking of "subjective point of view"). In the rest of
this book, we'll use "point of view" only to refer to perceptual subjectivity, as in
the phrase "optical point-of-view shot," or POV shot.
Why would a filmmaker manipulate depth of knowledge? Plunging into mental
subjectivity can increase our sympathy for a character and can cue stable expecta-
tions about what the characters will later say or do. The memory sequences in Alain
Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour and the fantasy sequences in Federico Fellini's
8 1/2 yield information about the protagonists' traits and possible future actions that
would be less vivid if presented objectively. A subjectively motivated flashback can
create parallels among characters, as does the flashback shared by mother and son
in Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff (3.28—3.31).A plot can create curiosity
le
about a character's motives and then use some degree of subjectivity—for examp ,
vior.
inner commentary or subjective flashback—to explain what caused the beha
be ins
In The Sixth Sense, the child psychologist's odd estrangement from his wife g
his young patient
to make sense when we hear his inner recollection of something
had told him much earlier.
infor-
On the other hand, objectivity can be an effective way of withholdingis that
mation. One reason that The Big Sleep does not treat Marlowe subjectively from
concealed
the detective genre demands that the investigator's reasoning be
the investigator'S
the viewer. The mystery is more mysterious if we do not know
hunches and conclusions before he reveals them at the end. nar-
restricted
A film need not be in the mystery genre to exploit objective and
has been
ration. Julia Loktev's Day Night DCIYNight follows a young woman who
orders'
recruited as a suicide bombell We see her accepted into the group, awaiting view
Of
and eventually embarking on the mission. One scene utilizes optical point
of auditory
extensively, while another does so briefly. There are a few moments
subjectivity, when the noises of street traffic drop out. Yet these flashes Ofsubjec-
nearly
tive depth stand out against an overwhelmingly objective presentation. For her
the entire film, we have to assess the woman's state of mind purely through
 Narration: The Flow of Story Information 93

3.28 3.29 3.30

3.28—3.31 Characters sharing memories. One of the early flashbacks in Sansho the
Bailiff starts with the mother, now living in exile with her children. kneeling by a stream
(3.28). Her image is replaced by a shot of her husband in the past, about to summon his
son Zushio (3.29). At the climax of the scene in the past, the father gives Zush10 an image
of the goddess of mercy and admonishes him always to show kindness to others (3 30).
Normal procedure would come out of the flashback showing the mother again. empha-
sizing it as her memory. Instead, we return to the present with a shot of Zustio. bearing
the goddess's image (3.31).It is as if he and his mother have shared the memory of the
father's gift.

physical behavior. Moreover, our information about the story action is very limited.
We are never told u hat political group has recruited her or why she has volunteered
for the task. The uornan herself does not know the plan, the members of the ter-
rorqst group. or the reasons she was picked. In fact, we know less than she does,
because we get only hints about her past life. The impersonal, tightly restricted nar-
ration of Dav Vighl Day Sight not only creates suspense about her mission but also
encourages curiosity about a rather large number of story events. These responses
nvakeJudging her decisions difficult, and they lead us to reflect on why someone
would volunteer for a suicide mission.
At any moment tn a film, we can wsk,"How deeply do I know the characters'
'E
perceptions, feelings, and thoughts'? llie answer will point directly to how the
Ciliumakerhas chosen to present or withhold story information. We can then ask
about the narration has on us, the viewers,