Narratology

About: Narratology is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2833 publications have been published within this topic receiving 50998 citations. The topic is also known as: narrative theory.

What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (And Vice Versa)

Abstract: The study of narrative has become so popular that the French have honored it with a term-la narratologie. Given the escalating and sophisticated literature on the subject, its English counterpart, "narratology," may not be as risible as it sounds. Modern narratology combines two powerful intellectual trends: the Anglo-American inheritance of Henry James, Percy Lubbock, E. M. Forster, and Wayne Booth; and the mingling of Russian formalist (Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Eichenbaum, Roman Jakobson, and Vladimir Propp) with French structuralist approaches (Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Gerard Genette, and Tzvetan Todorov). It's not accidental that narratology has developed during a period in which linguistics and cinema theory have also flourished. Linguistics, of course, is one basis for the field now called semiotics-the study of all meaning systems, not only natural language. Another basis is the work of the philosopher Charles S. Peirce and his continuator, Charles W. Morris. These trees have borne elegant fruit: we read fascinating semiotic analyses of facial communication, body language, fashion, the circus, architecture, and gastronomy. The most vigorous, if controversial, branch of cinema studies, the work of Christian Metz, is also semiotically based. One of the most important observations to come out of narratology is that narrative itself is a deep structure quite independent of its medium. In other words, narrative is basically a kind of text organization, and that organization, that schema, needs to be actualized: in written words, as in stories and novels; in spoken words combined with the movements of actors imitating characters against sets which imitate

A companion to narrative theory

Abstract: • Comprises 35 original essays written by leading figures in the field • Includes contributions from pioneers in the field such as Wayne C. Booth, Seymour Chatman, J. Hillis Miller and Gerald Prince • Represents all the major critical approaches to narrative and investigates and debates the relations between them • Considers narratives in different disciplines, such as law and medicine • Features analyses of a variety of media, including film, music, and painting • Designed to be of interest to specialists, yet accessible to readers with little prior knowledge of the field

Overhearing Film Dialogue

Abstract: Since the birth of cinema, film has been lauded as a visual rather than a verbal medium; this sentiment was epitomized by John Ford's assertion in 1964 that, 'When a motion picture is at its best, it is long on action and short on dialogue'. Little serious work has been done on the subject of film dialogue, yet what characters say and how they say it has been crucial to our experience and understanding of every film since the coming of sound. Through informative discussions of dozens of classic and contemporary films - from "Bringing Up Baby" to "Terms of Endearment", from "Stagecoach" to "Reservoir Dogs" - this lively book provides the first full-length study of the use of dialogue in American film. Sarah Kozloff shows why dialogue has been neglected in the analysis of narrative film and uncovers the essential contributions dialogue makes to a film's development and impact. She uses narrative theory and drama theory to analyze the functions that dialogue typically serves in a film. The second part of the book is a comprehensive discussion of the role and nature of dialogue in four film genres: westerns, screwball comedies, gangster films, and melodramas. Focusing on topics such as class and ethnic dialects, censorship, and the effect of dramatic irony, Kozloff provides an illuminating new perspective on film genres.