Narrative Centres
Thoughts On: Modes Of & Approaches To Storytelling
A look into how stories begin to be told and how this impacts a final product.
In the previous post, we outlined 'how cinema works' with this diagram:
There were many ambiguities in the description of cinema's functioning, and one of the unexplored details that I'd like to zoom in on today concerns the mode, the philosophy, the approach, the (, of the cinematic space.
The major modes of cinematic storytelling are: narrative, animation, documentary and experimental. These four modes combine at times, and there are further implicit modes that counter-point others, such as live-action. There is then live-action narrative, narrative animation, live-action experimental, animated experimental, animated documentary, docu-drama (narrative documentary) and more in addition to the basic narrative, animation, documentary and experimental. These four types of cinema do not define all of the ways in which cinema can be approached; thus, they are not the only modes of storytelling/filmmaking.
Narrative, animation, etc. are rather simple, ubiquitous modes that needn't really be specified. There are, however, less obvious modes or approaches to storytelling that I'd like to formalise here. Being a practising screenwriter, I am quite aware of what it means to think up a story and to start writing it. One of the first things I outline - and I always recognise in other works - is what it is that I will play with or focus upon within a given story whether it be a certain character, a created world, set of rules, an idea, etc. This indicates to me that one of the fundamental means of approaching a story concerns choosing what is central and most important. We will be very familiar with this idea in regards to certain 'character studies'. These are the kind of films - American Psycho, Citizen Kane, Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Charulata, Jean Dielman, Taxi Driver - that ask first and foremost who a character is and how they will react in various given situations. What matters most in these kind of films is the reality of human existence and human behaviour itself. The mode or approach to story taken here is then characterogical. And it is here that we find ourselves the first narrative-centre modes: character.
We can continue to find an array of other narrative centres by simply trying to identify all of the manifestations of drama, that is, all of the agents and facilities of drama. Character is the most obvious agent of drama, of action and conflict. However, I believe there are at least 6 other agents:
We start with theme. Thematic stories are often abstract, archetypal and allegorical. All stories have theme, but not all stories focus on them. Thematic stories are so often akin to character-based stories as characters typically embody theme in becoming an archetype. A very clear example of a thematic film would be Tarkovky's Stalker. To make sense of this story, one has to see characters as bodies of theme. This then follows a man who guides people into an ominous 'Zone', which is protected by the government and apparently home to a Room which provides anyone who enters all of their earthly desires. The guide, the stalker, takes a writer and a scientist into this place and they attempt to reach the room. As they travel we come to see these characters less as individuals and more as forces: the scientist is reason, the writer is curiosity, the stalker is a sage with one foot in each world, a bridge, the zone is life, the room is truth, heaven, something ultimate and definite. The substance of Stalker emerges from understanding its themes and seeing how they conflict.
There are many other films that do this in less abstract terms, one example being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White is innocence and goodness, the dwarfs are personalities of men, the witch is tyranny and jealousy. Understanding this story in terms of its thematic substrates, it becomes clear that this is seemingly about the coming of age of a young girl, her escape from naivety and emergence into adulthood with help from caricatures of the multiple faces of a man (Prince Charming) and her fight against she who kept her naive, her evil step-mother.
With these examples of thematic films, we can come to grip this next fundamental mode of approaching story. And so we come to plot. Plot is the sequence of things that must happen to make a story work; it is the beats of a given story. We must think of plot as the necessary stops a story must take to get from point A to point B. To understand plot fully, however, we must know what it is not: plot is not story. Story is a whole, it is an amalgamation of all movements of, and those entities that move, drama. Story is then theme, character, plot and world. Plot is not very concerned with how, for example, Steve finds out that his girlfriend is cheating on him, rather, the plot simply dictates that Steve finds this out. Theme, character and world often fill in the gap. Plot-centric stories and films, however, are so rife with things that must happen that plot often eats at all else; characters then flatten, thematic expression suffers and story is so often lax. Plot-centric films can be engaging and fun on the first watch - convoluted and thought provoking even - and there is, of course, an art to plotting. But, there is a distinct lack of depth in plot-centric films, furthermore, writing often becomes a form of spectacle within this mode of storytelling, meaning that it also dresses up something very basic (a simple much-seen story) with convolution and twists and turns.
The best example of plot-centricity is probably found in serialised detective or whodunnit books, such as Sherlock Holmes or Mrs. Marple, in which everyone knows the basic structure - a crime occurs, the character goes out to solve it and they eventually do (there are likely further recurrent beats I won't try to detail). This simple, repetitive structure is spruced up by twists and turns, by deceptive plot beats, leads that go nowhere and mysterious subplots. We see this in cinema with crime and detective films, thrillers and, to a good degree, horrors. These select genres are often defined by rather basic primary equilibriums and new equilibriums; that is, the end and beginning are predictable. Unifying all of these genres is often a murder or major crime that, by the end, is solved. The difference between a crime and detective film can often be perspective; a crime film may look at a crime from above, from the eyes of a victim, or even the criminal, a detective film follows the detective. The thriller genre encapsulates both of these two genres, but often integrates action, suspense, a psychological aspect and sometimes horror or gore into them. Finally, the horror film is somewhat similar to the crime film in that a crime of some sort (murder, invasion, kidnap - performed by humans or apparitions) often motivates the start of the story whilst the solving of the crime concludes it. However, what so often differentiates the horror from the crime is tragedy and/or spectacle - a gruelling ending and a case that maybe shouldn't have been solved. These two elements, tragedy and spectacle, can be at odds, and so do not always appear in a story together, but their function is to take us into the emotion of the story. That is to say that crime films are so often analytical, we focus on events, whilst horror films have us focus on our reaction to events. What nonetheless makes each of these genres (or rather, this mode as not all thrillers, horrors and crime films have to be plot-centric - though, they often can be described as such) exciting is the manner in which the plot takes us on various new roots from A to B, from predictable start to predictable end.
With plot-centric stories briefly outlined, we come to story-centric stories. This seems something of a double-negative, but this is a rather important mode. Story-focused films yearn for unity and wholeness. There is something deeply abstract about each of the phenomena we have so far outlined, yet, what story-centric narratives want to achieve is for harmony and purpose to emerge from their coming together. Story-centric films are then deeply engaged with theme, character, plot, world, spectacle and more; they mean to manage each minor aspect in regards to another, and so whilst they may not explore their characters as well as character-studies, execute plots as well as crime films, evoke theme like thematic think-feel-pieces, they retain a quality of equal depth in executing a story well.
I often find that the best storytelling emerges from fairy tale, fairy tale-esque and mythological narratives. These narratives drive deep into the practise of storytelling itself, capturing a world, a feel, characters, a journey and more that liven the imagination. Pixar, Disney and Studio Ghibli so often produce great story-centric films. If we take the example of The Lion King, we find a story we are all rather familiar with as well as archetypal characters. In addition to this, however, is a unique world and an abundance of entertainment and spectacle that is not necessarily classical, but nonetheless fits into and uplifts a 'classical' mode of storytelling. And such is another term we could use to describe this mode: classical. There is a way of telling stories that humans have utilised for millennia. They are basic, but wondrously affecting and so often profoundly expressive - and all because they seek unity and balance among the multiple elements of narrative.
Next, we come to world. This mode is tantamount to an escapist mode of storytelling, one that centralises setting, time and context, and often derives drama from external forces as opposed to problems within small confines or characters themselves. World-focused films so often find themselves in the adventure, sci-fi, historical and monster movie genres. This is to be expected as, like character-studies, these films find story in the manifestation of drama. Where character films see drama emerge from people, however, world films see drama emerge from the world itself. Some of the best examples can be found in sci-fi and adventure films whose worlds dictate the story to come. We can think here of a selection of Spielberg's sci-fi films: Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Minority Report and Ready Player One. Each of these films contrive not just a set of events, but places and beings that cause events and cultivate drama inherently. In Jurassic Park, the world is that of a dinosaur park. The focus of this story is to understand this world and to see how it conflicts with the human world - such can be found to be true of all the other mentioned films. Another example of a world film is Avatar. This is a particularly good example as so much of the film is dedicated to understanding the world created. A pure world film where all that occurs is the exploration of a given space is quite rare. However, films that utilise both modes, world and character, can come close to being pure world films. Richard Linklater is a great example of a filmmaker who sometimes does this. In Slackers and his Before... trilogy, Linklater gives us a world to explore and we dive into it with our characters. We then so often get a feel for the people, place and time he wants us to know. This is true of many historical films as well as other romantic world-focused films, too.
To fully understand what world films are, we must move on to explore conceptual films. The conceptual mode of storytelling can overlap with world-centric storytelling. It is in the conceptual story that a situation motivates all drama. These films then so often are written by a writer who asks: What if? What if dinosaurs could be brought back to life? It is here, with Jurassic Park, where we see the world and conceptual film confused with one another. Admittedly, they are difficult to fully separate, but the key difference between world and concept films is that world films exist in a wider block of time. Concept films on the other hand emerge from a moment in time, a happening. Jurassic Park is then arguably less a conceptual film and more a world film as it explores its world and finds drama in it, rather than using the world to ponder upon existential questions. Inception is a good film to look at here. This is a film that does not necessarily explore the world of dreams within dreams - though, this is a part of the narrative. What Inception spends much of its time doing is playing with the rules of the world and outlining its conceptual existence. Thus, the drama of the film emerges not necessarily from within the world of dreams, but is a consequence of the idea the writers had. What we can then begin to see now is that world films physically explore a space, whilst conceptual films explore an idea.
It is not at all unthinkable that multiple modes be used to tell one story - we see this already with the story-centric mode. So, it is acceptable to think that world and narrative films do overlap because the two modes are so easily used together. There is, however, a class of world films that have no real focus on concept, this is often the world film that does not create its space; Linklater's Slackers for example. Likewise, there are concept films that do not focus on a world. An example of this would be Predestination. The idea explored here is a philosophical one concerning time-travel. The "what if?" is then not usually bound to a noun, but a verb, not a thing existing, but actions occurring, in a conceptual film. Another good example of a conceptual film may then be 2001: A Space Odyssey. So much of this film is spent in the world mode - however, its ultimate purpose is conceptual. This asks not necessarily of a monolith appearing, but of the existence of the monolith and what this means for the future, of humans and robots attempting to surpass one another in the evolutionary race.
We come now to one of the last modes of cinematic storytelling: spectacle. The spectacle-driven narrative is all too easily understood and recognised; it is that which both exploits its content for, and sells itself on, scale and extravagance. The essence of the spectacular mode is then: Look at this!
There are two key kinds of spectacle-driven storytelling that are best separated. On one hand, we have spectacle of form and, on the other, there is spectacle of sensation. It is important to note these two kinds of spectacle as spectacle itself is so often used as a derogatory term that implies emptiness - and, to a degree, this is how I am using it. However, the results of formal and sensory spectacle are hugely different and are in turn criticised as a world apart from one another.
Starting with spectacle of form, we come to films that utilise and exploit, often, technology. The most common kind of spectacle of form comes from CGI blockbusters like Bay's Transformer films. Here, it is huge robots that punch each other that the drama facilitates and allows to be put on screen. It is not too common that spectacle produces drama or meaning by itself. Instead, story works to make space for spectacle to inject emphasis. Alejandro Iñárritu utilises spectacle of form in both The Revenant and Birdman via gritty realism, huge set-pieces and the long-shot (a common device seen is spectacle of form-centric narratives). We see this in many different kinds of cinema and so, rather simply, what we are dealing with here is the equivalent a novelist who can produce highly flowery language. The flowery language tells the story, and in a sense it certainly uplifts it. However, formal spectacle's creative abilities are sometimes questionable as it does not always build drama. In many cases, however, great camera work and CGI does give something to a scene, does help express the story all the better, and does secure (not necessarily build, but emphasise) meaning.
Moving on, we stop on spectacle of sensation. This is the kind of spectacle that exploits the audience's yearning to be made to feel something in a cinema. Exploitation films are a prime example of the spectacle of sensation mode, as they are not necessarily concerned with the building of character, of story, of plot, etc. All falls subservient to sensory spectacle in the exploitation film; they want to, first and foremost, arouse, scare, disgust or offend us as quickly and as profoundly as they can manage. And so the drama that emerges in these films is in the air between the audience and the screen; it is palpable, presented as a game in the theatre, and not necessarily locked into the cinematic space. It is not too uncommon to see technical proficiency concerning other modes - especially that of spectacle of form - with sensory spectacle because of its yearning to affect. This can be seen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Whilst this may have horrific acting and may primarily only want to scare and disgust, this is a terrifically edited and shot movie that uses spectacular (I mean spectacle-drenched) close-ups that require imagination and skill. Less extremes of spectacle of sensation can be found in spectacle of form storytelling - a good example being, again, Bay's Transformer trilogy, which means to exploit its ability to keep interest with a lot of noise, women, etc.
Before concluding the section of spectacle, it is important to note that this is not necessarily a lesser mode of storytelling, instead, I believe it is crucial. Spectacle so often accounts for entertainment, and I hold fast to the belief that cinema is both meant to capture meaning and to entertain. What is more, in every mode that we have identified, we can easily see hints of spectacle - especially in the plot, world and concept modes. So, whilst I don't believe the spectacular mode is strictly lesser than all else, I do believe it holds the least merit when used as the only narrative centre, but that it ultimately retains a very important place in cinema more generally.
We have now outlined 8 narrative centres that are used to focus a story, to tell and have it received in a certain way. These 8 centres are:
Each of these modes overlap with one another and may appear alongside each other in any given film, and what they ultimately represent is the intention of a writer/filmmaker and their desire to experiment and highlight a certain attribute(s) of storytelling. There is one important mode missing, however: the unconscious mode.
Here we have a mode born of a writer's decision, or indecision, to not give their script a centre or focus. There is more to this mode, however, as it also represents the kind of storytelling that does not come from conscious thought. So often there are ideas, scenes, dialogue or action that just finds its way to a page through a writer's fingers. They know not what they intended, but it is there and it serves a function in the story - maybe it is a deeply important and affective function, but they do not understand it fully and nor did they choose to put it there with reason. This mode of storytelling is expressed in novels by the famous stream of conscious writers, but it also exists in poetic, abstract and absurd cinema. David Lynch's Eraserhead then seems to be a prime example of the unconscious mode. However, the unconscious mode creeps into many scripts that are supposedly written with full consciousness. It is here where Jungian analysis can be used to suggest that there are elements of and reasons for storytelling that lie deep in our primordial past and have been carried through in the collective unconscious of humankind. The unconscious mode lets this collectively unconscious truth through, and I believe this can be felt best in the story mode where a classical approach to storytelling is used. To briefly provide an example, Disney used to best project this in the 40s and 50s with Dumbo being the greatest example with its incredible surreal scenes.
It's here, before we come to a close, where we have to make mention of modes outside of narrative cinema (which we have of course been discussing primarily this whole post). It is in the experimental mode of cinematic storytelling that the unconscious is widely used. Documentary on the other hand doesn't often utilise the unconscious mode as it is so often engaged with tangible reality. It will, however, utilise the spectacle, character, theme, plot, world and more modes quite readily.
We will now conclude somewhat openly as I do not want to imply that I have provided every mode of cinematic storytelling. However, it is worth ending with a final repetition of some of the major identified forms. Firstly, the obvious: narrative, animation, documentary, experimental. Next, the narrative centres: character, theme, story, plot, world, concept, spectacle of form, spectacle of sensation, the unconscious.
Previous post:
How Cinema Works
Next post:
End Of The Week Shorts #70
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
A look into how stories begin to be told and how this impacts a final product.
In the previous post, we outlined 'how cinema works' with this diagram:
There were many ambiguities in the description of cinema's functioning, and one of the unexplored details that I'd like to zoom in on today concerns the mode, the philosophy, the approach, the (, of the cinematic space.
The major modes of cinematic storytelling are: narrative, animation, documentary and experimental. These four modes combine at times, and there are further implicit modes that counter-point others, such as live-action. There is then live-action narrative, narrative animation, live-action experimental, animated experimental, animated documentary, docu-drama (narrative documentary) and more in addition to the basic narrative, animation, documentary and experimental. These four types of cinema do not define all of the ways in which cinema can be approached; thus, they are not the only modes of storytelling/filmmaking.
Narrative, animation, etc. are rather simple, ubiquitous modes that needn't really be specified. There are, however, less obvious modes or approaches to storytelling that I'd like to formalise here. Being a practising screenwriter, I am quite aware of what it means to think up a story and to start writing it. One of the first things I outline - and I always recognise in other works - is what it is that I will play with or focus upon within a given story whether it be a certain character, a created world, set of rules, an idea, etc. This indicates to me that one of the fundamental means of approaching a story concerns choosing what is central and most important. We will be very familiar with this idea in regards to certain 'character studies'. These are the kind of films - American Psycho, Citizen Kane, Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Charulata, Jean Dielman, Taxi Driver - that ask first and foremost who a character is and how they will react in various given situations. What matters most in these kind of films is the reality of human existence and human behaviour itself. The mode or approach to story taken here is then characterogical. And it is here that we find ourselves the first narrative-centre modes: character.
We can continue to find an array of other narrative centres by simply trying to identify all of the manifestations of drama, that is, all of the agents and facilities of drama. Character is the most obvious agent of drama, of action and conflict. However, I believe there are at least 6 other agents:
Theme
Plot
Story
World
Concept
Spectacle
We start with theme. Thematic stories are often abstract, archetypal and allegorical. All stories have theme, but not all stories focus on them. Thematic stories are so often akin to character-based stories as characters typically embody theme in becoming an archetype. A very clear example of a thematic film would be Tarkovky's Stalker. To make sense of this story, one has to see characters as bodies of theme. This then follows a man who guides people into an ominous 'Zone', which is protected by the government and apparently home to a Room which provides anyone who enters all of their earthly desires. The guide, the stalker, takes a writer and a scientist into this place and they attempt to reach the room. As they travel we come to see these characters less as individuals and more as forces: the scientist is reason, the writer is curiosity, the stalker is a sage with one foot in each world, a bridge, the zone is life, the room is truth, heaven, something ultimate and definite. The substance of Stalker emerges from understanding its themes and seeing how they conflict.
There are many other films that do this in less abstract terms, one example being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White is innocence and goodness, the dwarfs are personalities of men, the witch is tyranny and jealousy. Understanding this story in terms of its thematic substrates, it becomes clear that this is seemingly about the coming of age of a young girl, her escape from naivety and emergence into adulthood with help from caricatures of the multiple faces of a man (Prince Charming) and her fight against she who kept her naive, her evil step-mother.
With these examples of thematic films, we can come to grip this next fundamental mode of approaching story. And so we come to plot. Plot is the sequence of things that must happen to make a story work; it is the beats of a given story. We must think of plot as the necessary stops a story must take to get from point A to point B. To understand plot fully, however, we must know what it is not: plot is not story. Story is a whole, it is an amalgamation of all movements of, and those entities that move, drama. Story is then theme, character, plot and world. Plot is not very concerned with how, for example, Steve finds out that his girlfriend is cheating on him, rather, the plot simply dictates that Steve finds this out. Theme, character and world often fill in the gap. Plot-centric stories and films, however, are so rife with things that must happen that plot often eats at all else; characters then flatten, thematic expression suffers and story is so often lax. Plot-centric films can be engaging and fun on the first watch - convoluted and thought provoking even - and there is, of course, an art to plotting. But, there is a distinct lack of depth in plot-centric films, furthermore, writing often becomes a form of spectacle within this mode of storytelling, meaning that it also dresses up something very basic (a simple much-seen story) with convolution and twists and turns.
The best example of plot-centricity is probably found in serialised detective or whodunnit books, such as Sherlock Holmes or Mrs. Marple, in which everyone knows the basic structure - a crime occurs, the character goes out to solve it and they eventually do (there are likely further recurrent beats I won't try to detail). This simple, repetitive structure is spruced up by twists and turns, by deceptive plot beats, leads that go nowhere and mysterious subplots. We see this in cinema with crime and detective films, thrillers and, to a good degree, horrors. These select genres are often defined by rather basic primary equilibriums and new equilibriums; that is, the end and beginning are predictable. Unifying all of these genres is often a murder or major crime that, by the end, is solved. The difference between a crime and detective film can often be perspective; a crime film may look at a crime from above, from the eyes of a victim, or even the criminal, a detective film follows the detective. The thriller genre encapsulates both of these two genres, but often integrates action, suspense, a psychological aspect and sometimes horror or gore into them. Finally, the horror film is somewhat similar to the crime film in that a crime of some sort (murder, invasion, kidnap - performed by humans or apparitions) often motivates the start of the story whilst the solving of the crime concludes it. However, what so often differentiates the horror from the crime is tragedy and/or spectacle - a gruelling ending and a case that maybe shouldn't have been solved. These two elements, tragedy and spectacle, can be at odds, and so do not always appear in a story together, but their function is to take us into the emotion of the story. That is to say that crime films are so often analytical, we focus on events, whilst horror films have us focus on our reaction to events. What nonetheless makes each of these genres (or rather, this mode as not all thrillers, horrors and crime films have to be plot-centric - though, they often can be described as such) exciting is the manner in which the plot takes us on various new roots from A to B, from predictable start to predictable end.
With plot-centric stories briefly outlined, we come to story-centric stories. This seems something of a double-negative, but this is a rather important mode. Story-focused films yearn for unity and wholeness. There is something deeply abstract about each of the phenomena we have so far outlined, yet, what story-centric narratives want to achieve is for harmony and purpose to emerge from their coming together. Story-centric films are then deeply engaged with theme, character, plot, world, spectacle and more; they mean to manage each minor aspect in regards to another, and so whilst they may not explore their characters as well as character-studies, execute plots as well as crime films, evoke theme like thematic think-feel-pieces, they retain a quality of equal depth in executing a story well.
I often find that the best storytelling emerges from fairy tale, fairy tale-esque and mythological narratives. These narratives drive deep into the practise of storytelling itself, capturing a world, a feel, characters, a journey and more that liven the imagination. Pixar, Disney and Studio Ghibli so often produce great story-centric films. If we take the example of The Lion King, we find a story we are all rather familiar with as well as archetypal characters. In addition to this, however, is a unique world and an abundance of entertainment and spectacle that is not necessarily classical, but nonetheless fits into and uplifts a 'classical' mode of storytelling. And such is another term we could use to describe this mode: classical. There is a way of telling stories that humans have utilised for millennia. They are basic, but wondrously affecting and so often profoundly expressive - and all because they seek unity and balance among the multiple elements of narrative.
Next, we come to world. This mode is tantamount to an escapist mode of storytelling, one that centralises setting, time and context, and often derives drama from external forces as opposed to problems within small confines or characters themselves. World-focused films so often find themselves in the adventure, sci-fi, historical and monster movie genres. This is to be expected as, like character-studies, these films find story in the manifestation of drama. Where character films see drama emerge from people, however, world films see drama emerge from the world itself. Some of the best examples can be found in sci-fi and adventure films whose worlds dictate the story to come. We can think here of a selection of Spielberg's sci-fi films: Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Minority Report and Ready Player One. Each of these films contrive not just a set of events, but places and beings that cause events and cultivate drama inherently. In Jurassic Park, the world is that of a dinosaur park. The focus of this story is to understand this world and to see how it conflicts with the human world - such can be found to be true of all the other mentioned films. Another example of a world film is Avatar. This is a particularly good example as so much of the film is dedicated to understanding the world created. A pure world film where all that occurs is the exploration of a given space is quite rare. However, films that utilise both modes, world and character, can come close to being pure world films. Richard Linklater is a great example of a filmmaker who sometimes does this. In Slackers and his Before... trilogy, Linklater gives us a world to explore and we dive into it with our characters. We then so often get a feel for the people, place and time he wants us to know. This is true of many historical films as well as other romantic world-focused films, too.
To fully understand what world films are, we must move on to explore conceptual films. The conceptual mode of storytelling can overlap with world-centric storytelling. It is in the conceptual story that a situation motivates all drama. These films then so often are written by a writer who asks: What if? What if dinosaurs could be brought back to life? It is here, with Jurassic Park, where we see the world and conceptual film confused with one another. Admittedly, they are difficult to fully separate, but the key difference between world and concept films is that world films exist in a wider block of time. Concept films on the other hand emerge from a moment in time, a happening. Jurassic Park is then arguably less a conceptual film and more a world film as it explores its world and finds drama in it, rather than using the world to ponder upon existential questions. Inception is a good film to look at here. This is a film that does not necessarily explore the world of dreams within dreams - though, this is a part of the narrative. What Inception spends much of its time doing is playing with the rules of the world and outlining its conceptual existence. Thus, the drama of the film emerges not necessarily from within the world of dreams, but is a consequence of the idea the writers had. What we can then begin to see now is that world films physically explore a space, whilst conceptual films explore an idea.
It is not at all unthinkable that multiple modes be used to tell one story - we see this already with the story-centric mode. So, it is acceptable to think that world and narrative films do overlap because the two modes are so easily used together. There is, however, a class of world films that have no real focus on concept, this is often the world film that does not create its space; Linklater's Slackers for example. Likewise, there are concept films that do not focus on a world. An example of this would be Predestination. The idea explored here is a philosophical one concerning time-travel. The "what if?" is then not usually bound to a noun, but a verb, not a thing existing, but actions occurring, in a conceptual film. Another good example of a conceptual film may then be 2001: A Space Odyssey. So much of this film is spent in the world mode - however, its ultimate purpose is conceptual. This asks not necessarily of a monolith appearing, but of the existence of the monolith and what this means for the future, of humans and robots attempting to surpass one another in the evolutionary race.
We come now to one of the last modes of cinematic storytelling: spectacle. The spectacle-driven narrative is all too easily understood and recognised; it is that which both exploits its content for, and sells itself on, scale and extravagance. The essence of the spectacular mode is then: Look at this!
There are two key kinds of spectacle-driven storytelling that are best separated. On one hand, we have spectacle of form and, on the other, there is spectacle of sensation. It is important to note these two kinds of spectacle as spectacle itself is so often used as a derogatory term that implies emptiness - and, to a degree, this is how I am using it. However, the results of formal and sensory spectacle are hugely different and are in turn criticised as a world apart from one another.
Starting with spectacle of form, we come to films that utilise and exploit, often, technology. The most common kind of spectacle of form comes from CGI blockbusters like Bay's Transformer films. Here, it is huge robots that punch each other that the drama facilitates and allows to be put on screen. It is not too common that spectacle produces drama or meaning by itself. Instead, story works to make space for spectacle to inject emphasis. Alejandro Iñárritu utilises spectacle of form in both The Revenant and Birdman via gritty realism, huge set-pieces and the long-shot (a common device seen is spectacle of form-centric narratives). We see this in many different kinds of cinema and so, rather simply, what we are dealing with here is the equivalent a novelist who can produce highly flowery language. The flowery language tells the story, and in a sense it certainly uplifts it. However, formal spectacle's creative abilities are sometimes questionable as it does not always build drama. In many cases, however, great camera work and CGI does give something to a scene, does help express the story all the better, and does secure (not necessarily build, but emphasise) meaning.
Moving on, we stop on spectacle of sensation. This is the kind of spectacle that exploits the audience's yearning to be made to feel something in a cinema. Exploitation films are a prime example of the spectacle of sensation mode, as they are not necessarily concerned with the building of character, of story, of plot, etc. All falls subservient to sensory spectacle in the exploitation film; they want to, first and foremost, arouse, scare, disgust or offend us as quickly and as profoundly as they can manage. And so the drama that emerges in these films is in the air between the audience and the screen; it is palpable, presented as a game in the theatre, and not necessarily locked into the cinematic space. It is not too uncommon to see technical proficiency concerning other modes - especially that of spectacle of form - with sensory spectacle because of its yearning to affect. This can be seen in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Whilst this may have horrific acting and may primarily only want to scare and disgust, this is a terrifically edited and shot movie that uses spectacular (I mean spectacle-drenched) close-ups that require imagination and skill. Less extremes of spectacle of sensation can be found in spectacle of form storytelling - a good example being, again, Bay's Transformer trilogy, which means to exploit its ability to keep interest with a lot of noise, women, etc.
Before concluding the section of spectacle, it is important to note that this is not necessarily a lesser mode of storytelling, instead, I believe it is crucial. Spectacle so often accounts for entertainment, and I hold fast to the belief that cinema is both meant to capture meaning and to entertain. What is more, in every mode that we have identified, we can easily see hints of spectacle - especially in the plot, world and concept modes. So, whilst I don't believe the spectacular mode is strictly lesser than all else, I do believe it holds the least merit when used as the only narrative centre, but that it ultimately retains a very important place in cinema more generally.
We have now outlined 8 narrative centres that are used to focus a story, to tell and have it received in a certain way. These 8 centres are:
Character
Theme
Plot
Story
World
Concept
Spectacle of Form
Spectacle of Sensation
Each of these modes overlap with one another and may appear alongside each other in any given film, and what they ultimately represent is the intention of a writer/filmmaker and their desire to experiment and highlight a certain attribute(s) of storytelling. There is one important mode missing, however: the unconscious mode.
Here we have a mode born of a writer's decision, or indecision, to not give their script a centre or focus. There is more to this mode, however, as it also represents the kind of storytelling that does not come from conscious thought. So often there are ideas, scenes, dialogue or action that just finds its way to a page through a writer's fingers. They know not what they intended, but it is there and it serves a function in the story - maybe it is a deeply important and affective function, but they do not understand it fully and nor did they choose to put it there with reason. This mode of storytelling is expressed in novels by the famous stream of conscious writers, but it also exists in poetic, abstract and absurd cinema. David Lynch's Eraserhead then seems to be a prime example of the unconscious mode. However, the unconscious mode creeps into many scripts that are supposedly written with full consciousness. It is here where Jungian analysis can be used to suggest that there are elements of and reasons for storytelling that lie deep in our primordial past and have been carried through in the collective unconscious of humankind. The unconscious mode lets this collectively unconscious truth through, and I believe this can be felt best in the story mode where a classical approach to storytelling is used. To briefly provide an example, Disney used to best project this in the 40s and 50s with Dumbo being the greatest example with its incredible surreal scenes.
It's here, before we come to a close, where we have to make mention of modes outside of narrative cinema (which we have of course been discussing primarily this whole post). It is in the experimental mode of cinematic storytelling that the unconscious is widely used. Documentary on the other hand doesn't often utilise the unconscious mode as it is so often engaged with tangible reality. It will, however, utilise the spectacle, character, theme, plot, world and more modes quite readily.
We will now conclude somewhat openly as I do not want to imply that I have provided every mode of cinematic storytelling. However, it is worth ending with a final repetition of some of the major identified forms. Firstly, the obvious: narrative, animation, documentary, experimental. Next, the narrative centres: character, theme, story, plot, world, concept, spectacle of form, spectacle of sensation, the unconscious.
Previous post:
How Cinema Works
Next post:
End Of The Week Shorts #70
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
