QUESTIONS OF NARRATION AND A LOOK AT MEMENTO

Symbols

Universal
Cultural
Personal.

Scopophila: A love of looking. A kid of drive to see things (movie goers are scopophiliacs). Related to voyeurism but without the sexual force

Specularize: To make a specific piece significant. Often used for the handling of a scene which is critical in the film. - a "set piece" or "requirement" for a genre - the appearance of the monster in monster films; scenery or gunfights in westerns, the miraculous event in fantasy etc.

Diegetic: The world of the film. That which is within the character's involvement. Usually used for music and sound. A radio playing in the film is diegetic, background music is not. Some people discuss "inserted elements" as non diegetic such as titles, sub titles, intertitles and even images which have no connection to the film such as the cowboy who shoot directly at the camera at the end of The Great Train Robbery. For example, an insert shot that depicts something that is neither taking place in the world of the film, nor is seen, imagined, or thought by a character, is a non-diegetic insert. Some people regard titles, subtitles, and voice-over narration (with some exceptions) as non-diegetic.

Gaze: In feminist film criticism, this term usually applies to the idea that the camera represents a predominantly male gaze which tends to objectify women. There is some question how to deal with the idea of "beefcake" as opposed to "cheese cake" in "specularizing" the male body rather than the fenale one.

Narration

Linear vs non Linear

Events in the real world occur in a linear manner - that is chronologuically) (story/event/fabula (a Russion term)) . When a story is told (discourse/narration/sjuzhet (a Russion term)), the linear organization may be broken in a number of ways:

Elipsis (flash forward or Prolepsis): In a linear sequence there is a "deletion" of time. A person gets on a train in Brooklyn and gets off 15 seconds later in Manhattan. The actual time of the trip is "deleted".

Flashbacks (analepsis) (break linear sequences). The forward chronology is interrupted and something from the past appears

In medias res (in the middle of things)

The Narrator: Where does the text and the images come from? There are three grammatical persons in English: first (the speaker), second person (the person addressed) and third person (the person discussed). Only the 1st and 3rd occur as narrators

First Person Narration: The telling of a story in the grammatical first person, i.e. from the perspective of an "I," for example Moby Dick, including its famous opening: "Call me Ishmael." Common in literatire but more difficult in film. It is possible through a first person voice-over narrative the use of POV and over-the-shoulder shots. Such narrators can be active characters in the story being told or mere observers. First-person narration tends to underline the act of transmission and often includes an embedded listener or reader, who serves as the audience for the tale. It is possible to have different parts narrated by different people each of whom speaks as their own 1st person.

Third-Person Limited Narration or Limited Omniscience: Focusing a third-person narration through the eyes of a single character. The creator of the work may shift between an omniscient narrator and a third person narrator who is a character in the film. It is possible to shift between several third person narrators

Third-Person Narration: Any story told in the grammatical third person, i.e. without using "I" or "we": "he did that, they did something else." In other words, the voice of the telling appears to be akin to that of the author him- or herself. This is perhaps the most common sort of narration and was particularly popular with the nineteenth-century realist novel. See also third-person omniscient narration; third-person-limited narration; and objective treatment.

Third-Person Omniscient Narration: Perhaps the most common form of third-person narration. The person often appears to speak with the voice of the author assuming an omniscient (all-knowing) perspective on the story being told. The omniscient narrator can reveal the private thoughts, narrating secret or hidden events, jumping between spaces and times. Of course, the omniscient narrator does not therefore tell the reader or viewer everything, at least not until the moment of greatest effect. In other words, the hermeneutic code is still very much in play throughout such narrations. Such a narrator will also discursively re-order the chronological events of the story.

Voice-Over Narration: A voice (sometimes that of the main character) narrates the events that are being presented. This technique is one of the ways for film to represent "first-person narration," which is generally much easier to represent in fiction.

Unreliable Narrator: There is always a question of the narrator's reliability. The narrator may be unreliable for any number of reasons (mental incapacitation, duplicity etc.)

Notes on Memento