Hyperlink cinema

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Hyperlink cinema is a style of filmmaking characterized by complex or multilinear narrative structures with multiple characters under one unifying theme. [1]

Contents

History

The term was coined by author Alissa Quart, who used the term in her review of the film Happy Endings (2005) for the film journal Film Comment in 2005. [2] Film critic Roger Ebert popularized the term when reviewing the film Syriana in 2005. [3] These films are not hypermedia and do not have actual hyperlinks, but are multilinear in a more metaphorical sense.

In describing Happy Endings, Quart considers captions acting as footnotes and split screen as elements of hyperlink cinema and notes the influence of the World Wide Web and multitasking. [2] Playing with time and characters' personal history, plot twists, interwoven storylines between multiple characters, jumping between the beginning and end (flashback and flashforward) are also elements. [2] Ebert further described hyperlink cinema as films where the characters or action reside in separate stories, but a connection or influence between those disparate stories is slowly revealed to the audience; illustrated in Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu's films Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), and Babel (2006). [3] [4]

Quart suggests that director Robert Altman created the structure for the genre and demonstrated its usefulness for combining interlocking stories in his films Nashville (1975) and Short Cuts (1993). [5] However, his work was predated by several films, including Satyajit Ray's Kanchenjunga (1962), [6] Federico Fellini's Amarcord (1973), [7] and Ritwik Ghatak's Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (1973), [8] all of which use a narrative structure based on multiple characters.

Quart also mentions the television series 24 and discusses Alan Rudolph's film Welcome to L.A. (1976) as an early prototype. [2] Crash (2004) is an example of the genre, [9] as are Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000), Fernando Meirelles's City of God (2002), Stephen Gaghan's Syriana (2005) and Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives (2005).

One of the 2017 Tamil Language action thriller film Maanagaram involves an everyman who moves to the an Indian megacity Chennai, were he gets intertwined with four other lives as they strive to achieve success in the city when a vicious gangster threatens them. The director Lokesh Kanagaraj mentioned one of the female protaganist's role as the link among these characters throughout the film and that the theme of the entire film had a heavy influence from his admiration on the works of director Quentin Tarantino.

The style is also used in video games. French video game company Quantic Dream has produced games, such as Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human , with hyperlink cinema style storytelling, and the style has also influenced role-playing games such as Suikoden III (2001) and Octopath Traveler (2018).

Analysis

The hyperlink cinema narrative and story structure can be compared to social science's spatial analysis. As described by Edward Soja and Costis Hadjimichalis spatial analysis examines the "'horizontal experience' of human life, the spatial dimension of individual behavior and social relations, as opposed to the 'vertical experience' of history, tradition, and biography." [10] English critic John Berger notes for the novel that "it is scarcely any longer possible to tell a straight story sequentially unfolding in time" for "we are too aware of what is continually traversing the story line laterally." [10]

An academic analysis of hyperlink cinema appeared in the journal Critical Studies in Media Communication , and referred to the films as Global Network Films. Narine's study examines the films Traffic (2000), Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Beyond Borders (2003), Crash (2004; released 2005), Syriana (2005), Babel (2006) and others, citing network theorist Manuel Castells and philosophers Michel Foucault and Slavoj Žižek. The study suggests that the films are network narratives that map the network society and the new connections citizens experience in the age of globalization. [11]

Alberto Toscano and Jeff Kinkle have argued that one popular form of hyperlink cinema constitutes a contemporary form of it-narrative, an 18th- and 19th-century genre of fiction written from the imagined perspective of objects as they move between owners and social environments. [12] In these films, they argue, "the narrative link is the characters' relation to the film's product of choice, whether it be guns, cocaine, oil, or Nile perch." [12]

Examples

Films

Video games

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ritwik Ghatak</span> Indian Bengali filmmaker and script writer

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<i>Syriana</i> 2005 film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan

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<i>Babel</i> (film) 2006 film by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Babel is a 2006 psychological drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga. The multi-narrative drama features an ensemble cast and portrays interwoven stories taking place in Morocco, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. An international co-production among companies based in the United States, Mexico and France, the film completes Arriaga and Iñárritu's Death Trilogy, following Amores perros (2000) and 21 Grams (2003).

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<i>Titash Ekti Nadir Naam</i> 1973 Bangladeshi film

Titash Ekti Nadir Naam, or A River Called Titas, is a 1973 India-Bangladesh film directed by Ritwik Ghatak. The movie was based on a novel of the same name, by Adwaita Mallabarman. The movie explores the life of the fishermen on the bank of the Titas River in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh.

<i>Jukti Takko Aar Gappo</i> 1974 film by Ritwik Ghatak

Jukti Takko Aar Gappo is a 1974 Bengali film directed by auteur of Indian cinema Ritwik Ghatak. Jukti Takko Aar Gappo was Ritwik Ghatak's last film. The film was believed to have a cinematography way ahead of its time. The film won National Film Award's Rajat Kamal Award for Best Story in 1974.

<i>Nagarik</i> 1953 film by Ritwik Ghatak

Nagarik, also spelled as Nagorik, was the first feature-length film directed by legendary Indian director Ritwik Ghatak. Completed in 1952, it preceded Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali as perhaps the first example of an art film in Bengali cinema, but is deprived of that honor, since it was released twenty-four years later, after Ghatak's death. On 20 September 1977, it finally premiered at the New Empire theatre in Kolkata, India. Ghatak directed only eight feature films, but is generally regarded as one of the auteurs of Indian cinema and virtually unsurpassed as a creator of powerful imagery and epic style by directors such as Satyajit Ray and of transcendental power and extraordinariness by critics such as Derek Malcolm.

<i>Komal Gandhar</i> 1961 Indian film

Komal Gandhar, also known as A Soft Note on a Sharp Scale, is a 1961 Bengali film written and directed by legendary film maker Ritwik Ghatak. The title refers to the Hindustani equivalent of "E-flat". It was part of the trilogy composed of Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komal Gandhar and Subarnarekha (1962), all dealing with the aftermath of the Partition of India in 1947 and the refugees coping with it, though this was the most optimistic film of his oeuvre. The film explores three themes juxtaposed in the narrative: the dilemma of Anusuya, the lead character, the divided leadership of IPTA, and the fallout from the partition of India.

<i>Contagion</i> (2011 film) American medical disaster thriller film by Steven Soderbergh

Contagion is a 2011 American medical disaster thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Its ensemble cast includes Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Elliott Gould, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, Jennifer Ehle, Sanaa Lathan, and Gwyneth Paltrow. The plot concerns the spread of a highly contagious virus transmitted by respiratory droplets and fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order as the virus turns into a worldwide pandemic, and the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. To follow several interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative "hyperlink cinema" style, popularized in several of Soderbergh's films. The film was inspired by real-life outbreaks such as the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak and the 2009 flu pandemic.

<i>Chinnamul</i> 1950 Indian film

Chinnamul was a 1950 Bengali film directed by Nemai Ghosh. This was the first Indian film that dealt with the partition of India. The story revolved around a group of farmers from East Pakistan who were forced to migrate to Calcutta because of the partition of Bengal in 1947. Russian film director Vsevolod Pudovkin came to Calcutta at that time, watched this film, and being inspired, he bought the print of this film to release in Russia. The film was shown in 188 theaters in Russia.

<i>Meghe Dhaka Tara</i> (2013 film) Indian Bengali film by Kamaleshwar Mukherjee

Meghe Dhaka Tara is a 2013 Indian Bengali film directed by Kamaleswar Mukherjee and made under Shree Venkatesh Films banners. The film is inspired from the life and works of Bengali film director Ritwik Ghatak. The entire film is in black and white except the last scene which has been shot in colour. In this film Saswata Chatterjee plays the character of Nilkantha Bagchi and Ananya Chatterjee plays the role of Durga, Nilkantha's wife. The film was released on 14 June 2013. Besides giving an account of Ghatak's life, the film also depicts the socio-political environment of contemporary West Bengal during the Tebhaga and Naxalite movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nilkantha Bagchi</span> Fictional character

Nilkantha Bagchi is an iconic Bengali cinema character that first appeared in 1977 in Ritwik Ghatak's Jukti Takko Aar Gappo. In the 2013 film Meghe Dhaka Tara, the character portrayed by Saswata Chatterjee was named Nilkantha Bagchi. Chatterjee's character was based on the personality of Ritwik Ghatak.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alissa Quart</span> American nonfiction writer, critic, journalist, editor, and poet

Alissa Quart is an American nonfiction writer, critic, journalist, editor, and poet. Her nonfiction books are Republic of Outsiders: The Power of Amateurs, Dreamers and Rebels (2013), Hothouse Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child (2007), Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (2003), Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America (2018), and Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream (2023); her poetry books are Monetized (2015) and Thoughts and Prayers (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shoma A. Chatterji</span> Indian film scholar, author and freelance journalist

Shoma A. Chatterji is an Indian film scholar, author and freelance journalist. She has been the recipient of a number of awards including the National Film Award for Best Film Critic in 1991 and the National Awards for Best Writing on Cinema for her study of the works of Aparna Sen in the publication, Parama and Other Outsiders: The Cinema of Aparna Sen (2002). Notably, she is the only woman to have won both the national awards. She is the author of several biographies including those on Pramathesh Barua, Ritwik Ghatak and Suchitra Sen.

References

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