Film forms and narrative conventions PDF

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Film form and narrative conventions Classical Hollywood narrative 

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Because Hollywood narrative has a primary purpose to entertain, its narrative codes and conventions are deliberately designed to arouse a sense of interest and fun in the mind of the viewer. The quest to arouse interest and fun in the mind of the viewer is achieved through the placement of principal emphasis on character or the presentation of active characters whose actions are based on motives, with which the film-goer can easily identify. Beside the use of easily identifiable characters and their accompanying motivations, Hollywood cinema also appeals to its audiences using the twin-concepts of ‘benevolence’ and ‘transparency’. Benevolence and transparency makes the story easily comprehensible to an audience without necessarily being simplistic. Benevolence = the evolution of sophisticated filmic conventions, which help to guide the viewer through the story without too much mental exertion. - These techniques are referred to as ‘transparent’ because they are easy to distinguish, and yet unremarkable that they help to keep the viewer focused on the story without getting the viewer distracted by how the story is told. Benevolence and transparency allows Hollywood cinema to be sophisticated even as it requires no mental or physical effort on the part of the viewer to access the narratives. Hollywood narrative profits immensely from its close devotion to the principle of cause-to-effect. character plays an essential role as the main driver of the cause-toeffect principle in Hollywood narratives. Hollywood narratives often feature heroes or heroines as central characters who show definite goals or desires as they seek to go on a quest in order to achieve something. The story then consists of the actions that these heroic characters take in order to achieve their goals The stories or narratives often end with a sense of closure for the goal of the principal character. In the case of a series, the ending often sets up appropriate expectations for the next in the series (the sequel). - In instances where the hero pursues several goals at once, all these are designed to reinforce each other into one principal goal. Most Hollywood narratives will throw in a romantic storyline for good measure, where the main goal or quest is interwoven with romance.

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In Hollywood narratives, the method and strategy of achieving goals is shaped by easily identifiable character traits (such as bravery, chivalry, sheer strength and cunning etc.) In mainstream narratives, character provides direction for the story (narrative) while narrative (story) provides basis for what the characters are, as well as what they want.

Structure of the classical Hollywood narrative   

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Classical narrative is considered to have dominated Hollywood cinema from the 1930’s to the late 60s. David Bordwell (1985) refers to classical Hollywood cinema as an “excessively obvious cinema” in which cinematic style serves to explain, and not to obscure the narrative. Hollywood narrative is marked by strong loyalty to lived reality that is marked by the following triad in terms of sequencing: - “Order/disorder/order restored” also known as “disruption/resolution”. - The “order/disorder/order restored” sequencing is always character-led, the narrative is psychologically and individually motivated in ways that approximate Aristotle’s theorization of the dramatic form in his famous Poetics. Classic Hollywood narrative always ends with a sense of closure, whether happy or sad and closure must articulate a message that propagates certain dominant ideologies. These ideologies may include some or all of the following: - The law apprehending criminals, - good and virtuous gunmen routing rebels, - chivalrous or valiant heroes saving women, children and societies under siege or in distress etc. Classical Hollywood narratives often spice up their stories with a fair amount of heterosexual romance as part of the action. In narratives based on romance, closure often means marriage In this cinema, style is always secondary to narrative that camera shots, lighting, editing, mise-en-scene and sound all function to enhance or to manufacture realism and not to complicate it. As Susan Hayward (2006) observes - uncertainty must be dissolved through the provision of spatial and temporal contiguity. - In other words the spectator must know where he or she is in time and space and in relation to the logic and chronology of the narrative and its events. the narrative must be goal-oriented at all times,

Classical narrative structure follows a THREE-Act format that organizes story in a certain way as outlined below:

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consists of a set-up (exposition in dramatic plot structures) in which the viewer is introduced to the main characters, their goals, their obstacles and the potential antagonists. The main character (protagonist) and his/her antagonist(s) are introduced. In film criticism, Act One is referred to as the Hook. It is the Hook - sets up the parameters of the story - engages the attention of the audience. Act One or the Hook takes up about one-quarter of the overall length of the film.

Act two:      

the Development. when complications (inciting incident and rising action in terms of dramatic plot structure) are added to the story as it takes off. The complication is occasioned by the realization that there will be obstacles to the hero or the heroine’s quest Act Two usually occupies the second and third quarter of the filmic narrative action and character are propelled through a clear cause-to-effect sequencing of events. The basic cause-to-effect sequencing of events is always predicated on the actions of one character who reacts to what another character does, so the events proceed on the basis of action, reaction and escalation.

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The Resolution. the main quest or conflict comes to end with a decisive resolution– this is the final showdown. constitutes the climax. the final battles are fought and a final victor emerges. the victor is almost always the hero or heroine of the narrative. The climax = the closure of the narrative, which is designed to leave the spectator with an abiding sense of satisfaction that he or she too vicariously partakes of that victory through empathy....