Realism in Classical American Film

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Realism in Classical American Film

• Hollywood Narrative

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Table of Contents

• 1 Realistic Narrative
• 2 Non-realistic Narrative
• 3 Purer Form of Realist Narrative

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Narrative

• Narrative - structured or constructed story which
  tells fictional or non-fictional events.
• Narration an act of narrating, telling a
  narrative
• Narrator - the one who tells a narrative
  (generally by voice-over in the case of cinema)
• Narratology - study on narrative, narration and
  narrator.

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Realistic Narrative

• The most important component of Classical
  American Films is narrative (story).
• The bottom line - their narratives are
  constructed in such a way that they give the
  viewer an impression that he/she is watching
  something plausible and probable - that is,
  real - render reality and truth effects in
  story.

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Realistic Narrative

• The classical Hollywood film created reality and
  truth effects by concealing artistry.
• ? Narrative and narration, too, like various
  filming techniques, must be 'invisible' and
  unobtrusive so that most viewers barely notice
  its narrative technique and artificiality.

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Realistic Narrative

• Narrative techniques and devices employed to
  create illusion of reality but kept invisible
• Formulae -CHRONOLOGICALITY and CAUSALITY
• CHRONOLOGICALITY - events occur in a 1-2-3 order
  (occasional flashbacks - the only permissible
  manipulation)

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Realistic Narrative

• Formalistic Narrative
• Christopher Nolans Memento (2000)
• The entire story is told in backward ( from the
  present to the past).
• Leonard, as a result of a blow received on his
  head during an assault on him, he has no short
  term memory.

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Realistic Narrative

• He is looking for the real killer of his wife,
  with the assistant of a Polaroid camera and
  tattooing on himself the important facts he
  finds. Each scene the viewer watches is one
  earlier than the last one he/she has watched.
  (In normal storytelling, the scene you have just
  seen is the one later than the last

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Realistic Narrative

• CAUSALITY - actions are joined together as a
  series of CAUSES and EFFECTS
• 'Plot is a careful and logical working out of
• the laws of cause and effect. The mere
• sequence of events will not make a plot.
• Emphasis must be laid upon causality,
• and the action - reaction of the human will.'
• Francis Patterson, 'Manual for Aspiring
  Screenwriters', 1920

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Realistic Narrative

• e.g. A storm isolate a group of characters
• a war separate lovers
• a lack of care kills tropical fish
• a cheat leads to a divorce
• a betrayal prompts a revenge.

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Realistic Narrative

• Mulholand Drive (2001) - divided into two main
  sections the first, which could be interpreted
  as a dream (1 hour 56 minutes) and the final 25
  minutes. Important events in the first section
  are repeated in the second section, but with
  significant differences.

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Realistic Narrative

• Different characters repeat the same actions, and
  these different characters are played by the same
  actors. Furthermore, the important events in the
  first part are mysterious, but there is a more
  mundane repetition of them in the second half.

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Realistic Narrative

• There is not much logic of cause and effect in
  the first section. The lack of causality is
  compensated by the repetition, which gives the
  film more textual coherence.

14
Realistic Narrative

• COINCIDENCE
• According to the Hollywood narrative formula
  coincidence should be confined to the initial
  situation
• The later in a film a coincidence occurs, the
  weaker it is - the loss of credibility

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Realistic Narrative

• A case in which a coincidence takes place in the
  middle of a film. People in a local community
  discussing about the birds attack on school
  children.
• Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds (1963)

16
Realistic Narrative

• Actions must have their MOTIVATIONS
• One must have a good reason for what one does.
• When an action is unmotivated, it would lose its
  credulity

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Realistic Narrative

• In order that the motion picture may convey the
  illusion of reality that audiences demand, the
  scenario writer stresses motivation - that is, he
  makes clear a character's reason for doing
  whatever he does that is important. Frances
  Marion, 'Scenario Writing' 1938

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Non-realistic Narrative

• An example completely ignoring the (realist)
  narrative formulae developed in classical
  American films
• Chronologicality, Causality, Motivation

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Non-realistic Narrative

• Surrealist film by Louis Bunuel designed by
  Salvatore Dali
• Un Chien Andalou (1929)

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Illusion of Reality in Realist Narrative

• The film drama is
• LIFE WITH THE DULL BITS CUT OUT
• (Alfred Hitchcock)

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Illusion of Reality in Realist Narrative

• Classical realist narrative is NOT retelling of
  what happens in reality as it does because it
  extracts from the world of its characters almost
  only elements which are relevant to its progress.
• The realistic narrative in classical American
  films, which is achieved through various
  techniques and devices, is the one which gives
  the viewer reality and truth effects, but is not
  exactly real.

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Purer Form of Realist Narrative

• Purer form of realism in narrative is found in
  non-diegetic elements.
• Diegetic - being relevant to the progress of a
  story
• Non-diegetic - being irrelevant to the progress
  of an imaginary story

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Purer Form of Narrative

• Siegmund Kracauer finds an inverted relation
  between those images that further the story and
  those retain a degree of independence of the
  intrigue and thus succeed in summoning physical
  reality.

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Purer Form of Narrative

• Roland Barthes characterizes literary reference
  to objects that have no discernible narrative
  function except to give a material, worldly
  weight to the description as reality effects.

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Purer Form of Narrative

• LAmore in citta (1953) - a omnibus film about
  various forms of love and lovers. Dino Risis
  Paradiso per tre ore (Three hours of paradise)
• Stick to the realist narrative formulae -
  chronological, causality and motivation
• Story time is equal to real time. Duration of
  story is the same to that of reality.

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Purer Form of Narrative

• A purer form of film realism is found in an
  incidental or contingent element in narrative.
  in the middle of the chase the little boy
  suddenly needs to piss. So he does. (André
  Bazin)
• Vittorio de Sicas Ladri di biciclette (1948)