1. Chapter 1: The Nature of Narrative

2. Elements of Narrative The fictive stance Structure: story and plot
Plot: the way events are sequenced
Story: all the events that make up the narrative in proper chronology
Plot is a subset of the story
Narration and point-of-view

3. Authorship and Point of View
A film does not have a ‘sole’ author
Filmmaking is a collaborative act
Point of view in cinema is typically third person
Subjective shots can create brief, first-person perspective

4. The Classical Hollywood Narrative
The prevalent narrative type in popular cinema
A main line of action with subplots
The plot is activated by a main character pursuing a goal
One plot event follows another, as links in a chain
A line of rising interest and tension as characters face obstacles to their goals
At the conclusion, all story issues are resolved
Example: The Searchers (1956)

5. Alternatives to the Classical Hollywood Narrative
Narratives may emphasize
Ambiguity
Minimal or implicit causality
Nonlinear narratives or ‘anti-narrative’
Alternative designs often found in
Independent productions
Avant garde cinema
European and other foreign film traditions

6. The Viewer’s Contribution to Narrative
The search for pattern
Stories activate the viewer’s desire to know ‘what happens next’
Viewers infer connections among story events to complete the pattern
‘Meaning’ is not in the film
The viewer helps create it

7. Film Genres The basic American film genres: The Western
The Gangster film
The Musical
The Horror film

8. The Western The genre pre-exists cinema, emerging in late 19th century
dime novels
Puritan captivity narratives
the Leatherstocking Tales ( )
painting (ethnographic studies, action scenes)
theater

9. The Western Defined by period, setting, and theme
The stories address contradictory cultural values
the individual/community
violence/law
wilderness/civilization
The Western resolves these contradictions by suggesting that violence is necessary for the preservation of community

10. The Gangster Film Emerges as mature genre in early 1930s
Little Caesar (1930)
The Public Enemy (1931)
Scarface (1932)
The classical structure portrays the ‘rise and fall’ of a charismatic criminal

11. Cultural Roots of the Gangster Film
the Horatio Alger myth of success
classical narrative arc
19th century robber barons
the Great Depression
Prohibition
Sound filmmaking
These elements combine to establish a critique of American society

12. The Musical
A new genre tied to the beginning of sound filmmaking ( The Jazz Singer, 1927)
Two figures dominate the 1930s:
Busby Berkeley (Warner Bros.)
kaleidoscopic effects
Gold Diggers of 1933

13. MGM and the Freed unit
responsible for the great MGM musicals of the 1940s and 1950s
Freed collaborated with Vincente Minnelli, Fred Astaire, and Gene Kelly

14. Thus, the stories are episodic
The genre descended from theater, vaudeville, comedy sketches and songs
Thus, the stories are episodic
Narrative is slight, and it furnishes basis for song-and-dance
of all genres, the musical is least oriented toward narrative
Narrative gives way to a stylized fantasy of music, movement, and color in the production numbers

15. The Horror Film Silent era – Lon Chaney and the German expressionists
Sound era:
Universal Pictures creates the classic movie monsters:
Dracula
Frankenstein
The Mummy
The Wolf Man

16. Evolution of the Genre Universal Pictures (1930s) Contemporary horror
Atmosphere, suggestion, triumph of ‘normality’
Contemporary horror
Explicit gore and shock, triumph of the monster

17. Horror’s Purpose Horror films question ‘normality’ and human identity
Reveal doubts & anxieties about what makes us human
Deal with the question: What is required to remain human?