Bordwell Narrative as a Formal System


This informative article dives into depth over narration, plot, cause and effect, space, time, and many other aspects in creating a story with a new perspective. Personally, I have never really analyzed narrative construction and the things filmmakers think about when writing a story, but this article really opened my eyes about production and filmmaking. Bordwell mentions viewers' anticipations going into a film frequently in the article. Because stories are all around us, spectators approach narrative films with definite expectations. It was interesting to think about what we assume about plot and characters before even watching a movie. As spectators watch, films shape their expectations by bringing curiosity, suspense, and surprise. Also, I had no idea that parallelism is used among characters, settings, situations, and times. It was super interesting learning about the use of parallelism in Hoop Dreams, and how it made the documentary more complex. Some new terms for me were nondiegetic elements, screen duration, screen space, and perceptual/mental subjectivity. Bordwell helped me understand narrative films a lot better and the hard work it takes to write and produce them.

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