Incoative Theory in the
Fiction Film
Principles of paradigmatic structure
Lauro Zavala
Paradigmatic Theory
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Aesthetical Principles of
Film Language
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Classical Cinema = Logical Sequence Chronological Order
Modern Cinema = Auteur Cinema
Formal Autonomy
Postmodern Cinema = Simultaneity of Classic and Modern Elements
Incoative Theory
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Structural Principles of
Narrative Beginning
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Classic Beginning = Didactic / Cataphoric
Logical / Chronological
Modern Beginning = Metaphoric / Anaphoric
Irrepeatable / Asynchronic
Postmodern Beginning = Ludic / Paradoxical
Simulacra / Simultaneity
Terminative Theory
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Structural Principles of
Narrative Ending
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Classic Ending = Epiphanic / Anaphoric
Logical / Chronological
Modern Ending = Open / Cataphoric
Ambiguous / Indeterminate
Postmodern Beginning = Ludic / Paradoxical
Simulacra / Simultaneity
CLASSICAL BEGINNING
Didactic: From PV to CU in terms of space, time and dramatic
sequence . Case in Point: Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Intrigue of Predestination: Announcing the ending in the 1st
sequence
Case in point: Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)
Narrative Suspense: The viewer knows more than the
characters
Case in Point: Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)
CLASSICAL BEGINNING
Dramatic Contrast of the first and the following images
Case in Point: Policeman who takes care of Elsie Beckmann in M
Ironic Contrast of the first images and the following in the first
sequence
Case in Point: Policeman who takes care of children in Rope
CLASSICAL BEGINNING
Identification of main character and his / her context
Case in point: Nort by Northwest (A. Hitchcock, 1959)
Narrative Epigraph: Short allegorical story announces the tone for the rest of the fdeature film
Case in Point: Sin City (Robert Rodríguez, 2008)
Thematization of the Title: Allusion to the contents of the title
in terms of design or narration
Case in Point: Watchmen
CLASSICAL BEGINNING��--------------------------------------------��
Classical beginning moves from a panoramic viewing (in terms of time, space and dramatic situation), as an establishing shot, to a close up.
FORMULA OF CLASSICAL BEGINNING PV (t, s) → CU (t, s)
CLASSICAL BEGINNING�-------------------------------------�
PV (t, s) → CU (t, s)
This beginning is often accompanied by other narrative resources, such as explicit cataphora (announcing what will be narrated), intrigue of predestination (announcing the end of the story) and establishing narrative suspense (and a complicity between the viewer and the narrator by offering the knowledge of something that most characters ignore).
This beginning is typical of thde nineteenth novel and classical crime story. The canonical example is the first minute of Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960).
CLASSICAL ENDING�-------------------------------------�
Classical ending is epiphanic, that is, it solves all narrative enigmas posed during the story. It is usually surprising and at the same time coherent with the rest of the story.
Classical ending is closed and unique. It is a necessary ending in order to solve the posed enigmas, and it produces in the reader the bsensation of Inevitability in Retrospect.
CLASSICAL ENDING�-------------------------------------�
FORMULA OF CLASSICAL ENDING
C (E) = T (1)
The classical ending is the solution of a circular labirynth, where there is only one true solution. The classical ending contains the fictional truthof the story, and it belongs in the fictional epistemic revelation.
The classical ending is surprising inasmuch as it materializes the irruption of the recessive and guest story along the discourse, which this ways reveals itself as actually dominant and host. It isn anaphoric ending, which shows The Host Paradox (the host reveals as guest and viceversa).
MODERN BEGINNING
Plane-Sequence
Cases in Point:
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1959)
The Player, Robert Altman
Danzón (María Novaro, Mexico, 1992)
Retrochronological
Case in Point: Memento (Christopher Nolan)
Surprising (CU in visual, chronological or dramatic terms) Case in Point: El perro andaluz (Luis Buñuel)
Metonymical (fragmentary images), specially when there is
violence or sex. Case in Point: M (Fritz Lang, 1932)
MODERN BEGINNING�-------------------------------------�
Narrative modern beginning is any one that takes a distance from the rules of the classical beginning. Inasmuch as classical narrative is supported by tradition, instead modern narration is casuistic (meaning that each case is unique), unrepeatable (it cannot be reduced to any formula), and it depends on the vision of each creator (art film, author cinema).
MODERRN BEGINNING�-------------------------------------�
FORMULA OF MODERN BEGINNING
M (b) ≠ C (b)
The modern beginning is usually expressionistic (it expresses some kind of anxiety), and oftentimes it is confusing, complexa nd enigmatic.
The modern beginning is often anaphoric, which means that the most important in the story (often the ending) is implicit in the beginning. This means that when the story begins, the most important part of the story has already happended.
MODERN BEGINNING�-------------------------------------�
FORMULA OF MODERN BEGINNING
M (b) ≠ C (b)
The modern beginning is usually expressionistic (it expresses some kind of anxiety), and oftentimes it is confusing, complexa nd enigmatic.
The modern beginning is often anaphoric, which means that the most important in the story (often the ending) is implicit in the beginning. This means that when the story begins, the most important part of the story has already happended.
MODERN ENDING�-------------------------------------�
The modern ending is open, uncertain and multiple. It leaves the possible conclusion of the story to the imagination of the viewer.
This uncertainty puts the emphasis not in the text and its epstemic or moral meaning, but in the reader and his / her personal and reading experience.
MODERN ENDING�-------------------------------------�
FORMULA OF THE MODEN ENDING
M (e) = ∑ (e) (Open Ending)
M (e) = ∑ (T(n) ) (Multiplication of possible truths)
The modern ending belongs in the structure of the arboreal labirynth, where there is one single entrance (posing specific narrative enigmas) and multiple solutions, either simultaneous or alternative.
It is a cataphoric enbding, inasmuch as it provokes an ironic re-reading of the text.
POSTMODERN BEGINNING
Simulacra
Blade Runner: Simulacra of intrigue of predestination
Simultaneities
Amélie: Instant of conception of the main character
Simulacra and simultaneities
La femme d’a cote: Omniscious Narrator
Borderline
Zoot Suit: Crossing of semiotic and social borders
Social Boundaries: language / race / class / sex / age
Semiotic Boundaries: seeing – being seen / colour - b & w
past – present / spectacle – distancing
POSTMODERN BEGINNING�-------------------------------------�
The postmodern beginning is produced by the juxtaposition of classical and modern beginnings. This paradoxical nature produces two characteristic mechanims of postmodern aesthetics, namely, simultaneities and simulacra (that is, simulacra of modern and classical beginning).
POSTMODERN BEGINNING�-------------------------------------�
FORMULA OF POSTMODERN BEGINNING
PM (b) = ∑ (C (b) + M (b) )
The postmodern beginning may be read (alternatively or simultaneously) as classical or as modern, that is to say, as simultaneously conventional and allegorical (at once didactical and irrepeatable).
The postmodern beginning is often hybrid and metafictional, and ir thematizes its own incoative nature, displaying resources that belong in opposite narrative traditions (black and white vs colour / static images vs moving pictures / past vs present / to see vs to be seen / documentary vs fiction / spectacularity vs reflexivity).
POSTMODERN ENDING�-------------------------------------�
The postmodern ending is paradoxical and ironical, as it contains, as simulacra, the coexistence of a true and unique ending (classical) and an open and multiple ending (modern).
The final meaning of a postmodern ending depends of the interpretation and the use that each reader makes out of it, so it may be different in each particular reading.
POSTMODERN ENDING�-------------------------------------�
FORMULA OF THE POSTMODERN ENDING
PM (e) = ∑ (C(e), M(e) )
(Simultaneously Open and Closed) PM (e) = ∑ (T (1), T (n) )
(One and many fictional truths)
POSTMODERN ENDING�-------------------------------------�
PM (e) = ∑ (C(e), M(e) )
Simultaneously Open and Close PM (e) = ∑ (T (1), T (n) )
One and many fictional truths
The postmodern ending belongs in the rhizomatic or net labirynth, where there may be at the same time one and many solutions (as the possible connections in a net).
This ending is usually parodical and it plays with an generic intertextuality (that is to say, with ironic allusions to the rules of the classical narrative genres).
CONCLUSIONS
CONCLUSIONS
GENERAL REFERENCES
Russian Formalism
Boris Tomachevski / Roman Jakobson
French Structuralism
Roland Barthes / Gérard Genette
Literary Narratology
Wayne Booth / Gerald Prince
Suzanne Keen / Mieke Bal
Film Narratology
Seymour Chatman / André Gaudreault
Peter Wollen / Peter Verstraten
GENERAL REFERENCES II
Realist Film Theory
Bill Nichols / André Bazin
Formalist Film Theory
Sergei Eisenstein / Béla Bálász
Film Semiotics
Robert Stam / Jean Mitry
Historical Poetcis of Film
David Bordwell / Eleftheria Thanoiul