Narrative film

Last updated

Narrative film, fictional film or fiction film is a motion picture that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. Commercial narrative films with running times of over an hour are often referred to as feature films, or feature-length films. The earliest narrative films, around the turn of the 20th century, were essentially filmed stage plays and for the first three or four decades these commercial productions drew heavily upon the centuries-old theatrical tradition.

Contents

In this style of film, believable narratives and characters help convince the audience that the unfolding fiction is real. Lighting and camera movement, among other cinematic elements, have become increasingly important in these films. [1] Great detail goes into the screenplays of narratives, as these films rarely deviate from the predetermined behaviours and lines of the classical style of screenplay writing to maintain a sense of realism. Actors must deliver dialogue and action in a believable way, so as to persuade the audience that the film is real life.

General

Probably the first fictional film ever made was the Lumières' The Waterer Watered (L'Arroseur Arrosé), which was first screened at the Grand Café Capucines on December 28, 1895. [2] A year later in 1896, Alice Guy-Blaché directed the fictional film The Fairy of the Cabbages (La Fée aux Choux). Perhaps the best known of early fictional films is Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon from 1902. [3] Most films previous to this had been merely moving images of everyday occurrences, such as The Arrival of a Train at The City Station (L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat) by Auguste and Louis Lumière. Méliès was one of the first directors to progress cinematic technology, which paved the way for narratives as style of film. [4] Narrative films have come so far since their introduction that film genres such as comedy or Western films, were, and continue to be introduced as a way to further categorize these films. [5]

Narrative cinema is usually contrasted to films that present information, such as a nature documentary, as well as to some experimental films (works such as Wavelength by Michael Snow, Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov, or films by Chantal Akerman). In some instances pure documentary films, while nonfiction, may nonetheless recount a story. As genres evolve, from fiction film and documentary a hybrid one emerged, docufiction.

Many films are based on real occurrences, however these too fall under the category of a "narrative film" rather than a documentary. This is because films based on real occurrences are not simply footage of the occurrence, but rather hired actors portraying an adjusted, often more dramatic, retelling of the occurrence (such as 21 by Robert Luketic). [5]

Unlike literary fiction, which is typically based on characters, situations and events that are entirely imaginary/fictional/hypothetical, cinema always has a real referent, called the "pro-filmic", which encompasses everything existing and done in front of the camera.

Since the emergence of classical Hollywood style in the early 20th century, during which films were selected to be made based on the popularity of the genre, stars, producers, and directors involved, narrative, usually in the form of the feature film, has held dominance in commercial cinema and has become popularly synonymous with "the movies." [6] Classical, invisible film making (what is often called realist fiction) is central to this popular definition. This key element of this invisible film making lies in continuity editing.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Documentary film</span> Nonfictional motion picture

A documentary film is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". The American author and media analyst Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries".

The history of film chronicles the development of a visual art form created using film technologies that began in the late 19th century.

Film style refers to recognizable cinematic techniques used by filmmakers to create specific value in their work. These techniques can include all aspects of film language, including: sound design, mise-en-scène, dialogue, cinematography, editing, or direction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinematography</span> Art of motion picture photography

Cinematography is the art of motion picture photography.

<i>A Trip to the Moon</i> 1902 French short film by Georges Méliès

A Trip to the Moon is a 1902 French science-fiction adventure trick film written, directed and produced by Georges Méliès. Inspired by Jules Verne's 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon and its 1870 sequel Around the Moon, the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites, and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. Méliès leads an ensemble cast of French theatrical performers as the main character Professor Barbenfouillis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Guy-Blaché</span> French film director (1873–1968)

Alice Ida Antoinette Guy-Blaché was a French pioneer film director. She was one of the first filmmakers to make a narrative fiction film, as well as the first woman to direct a film. From 1896 to 1906, she was probably the only female filmmaker in the world. She experimented with Gaumont's Chronophone sync-sound system, and with color-tinting, interracial casting, and special effects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Actuality film</span> Film genre using footage of real events

Actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that uses footage of real events, places, and things, a predecessor to documentary film. Unlike documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger narrative or coherent whole. During the era of early cinema, actualities—usually lasting no more than a minute or two and usually assembled together into a program by an exhibitor—were just as popular and prominent as their fictional counterparts. The line between "fact" and "fiction" was not as prominent in early cinema as it would become once documentaries became the predominant non-fiction filmmaking form. Actuality as a film genre is related to still photography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Europe</span>

Cinema of Europe refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Europe. The history of Italian cinema began a few months after the French Lumière brothers, who made the first public screening of a film on 28 December 1895, an event considered the birth of cinema, began motion picture exhibitions. The history of cinema in Germany can be traced back to the years of the medium's birth. Ottomar Anschütz held the first showing of life sized pictures in motion on 25 November 1894 at the Postfuhramt in Berlin. On 1 November 1895, Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil demonstrated their self-invented film projector, the Bioscop, at the Wintergarten music hall in Berlin. A 15-minute series of eight short films were shown – the first screening of films to a paying audience.The first Italian director is considered to be Vittorio Calcina, a collaborator of the Lumière Brothers, who filmed Pope Leo XIII in 1896. The Lumière brothers established the Cinematograph; which initiated the silent film era, a period where European cinema was a major commercial success. It remained so until the art-hostile environment of World War II. These notable discoveries provide a glimpse of the power of early European cinema and its long-lasting influence on cinema today.

A pseudo-documentary or fake documentary is a film or video production that takes the form or style of a documentary film but does not portray real events. Rather, scripted and fictional elements are used to tell the story. The pseudo-documentary, unlike the related mockumentary, is not always intended as satire or humor. It may use documentary camera techniques but with fabricated sets, actors, or situations, and it may use digital effects to alter the filmed scene or even create a wholly synthetic scene.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to film:

<i>Baron Munchausens Dream</i> 1911 French film

Baron Munchausen's Dream, also known as Les Aventures de baron de Munchausen and Monsieur le Baron a trop bien dîné, is a 1911 French short silent film in the fantasy film genre, directed by Georges Méliès.

<i>The Conquest of the Pole</i> 1912 French film

The Conquest of the Pole is a 1912 French silent science fantasy trick film directed by and starring Georges Méliès. The film, loosely inspired by contemporary events and by Jules Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires, follows the comic misadventures of an international group of explorers on an expedition to the North Pole, where they encounter a man-eating frost giant and a dangerous magnetic needle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Docufiction</span> Film genre

Docufiction is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is and which simultaneously introduces unreal elements or fictional situations in narrative in order to strengthen the representation of reality using some kind of artistic expression.

Ethnofiction refers to a subfield of ethnography which produces works that introduce art, in the form of storytelling, "thick descriptions and conversational narratives", and even first-person autobiographical accounts, into peer-reviewed academic works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges Méliès filmography</span>

Georges Méliès (1861–1938) was a French filmmaker and magician generally regarded as the first person to recognize the potential of narrative film. He made about 520 films between 1896 and 1912, covering a range of genres including trick films, fantasies, comedies, advertisements, satires, costume dramas, literary adaptations, erotic films, melodramas, and imaginary voyages. His works are often considered as important precursors to modern narrative cinema, though some recent scholars have argued that Méliès's films are better understood as spectacular theatrical creations rooted in the 19th-century féerie tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges Méliès</span> French filmmaker and illusionist (1861–1938)

Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès was a French magician, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the early days of cinema, primarily in the fantasy and science fiction genres. Méliès rose to prominence creating "trick films" and became well known for his innovative use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour. He was also one of the first filmmakers to use storyboards in his work. His most important films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and The Impossible Voyage (1904).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Found footage (film technique)</span> Film genre

Found footage is a cinematic technique in which all or a substantial part of the work is presented as if it were film or video recordings recorded by characters in the story, and later "found" and presented to the audience. The events on screen are typically seen through the camera of one or more of the characters involved, often accompanied by their real-time, off-camera commentary. For added realism, the cinematography may be done by the actors themselves as they perform, and shaky camera work and naturalistic acting are routinely employed. The footage may be presented as if it were "raw" and complete or as if it had been edited into a narrative by those who "found" it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of works on Georges Méliès</span>

The French filmmaker and magician Georges Méliès (1861–1938) is the subject of various written works, including biographies, essays, and monographs. The literature about him is abundant and spans many decades and languages, including English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German. Frank Kessler, a professor of media history, believes Méliès is arguably the most written about early filmmaker. Conversely, his name often appears in the titles of works not necessarily because his films are discussed but rather to signify the concept or time period of early cinema. Works in this bibliography have been reviewed in magazines or journals or are included in annotated bibliographies by Stéphane Tralongo or Elizabeth Ezra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges Méliès in culture</span>

The life and works of the French filmmaker Georges Méliès (1861–1938), including his famous short film A Trip to the Moon, have been referenced many times in creative works, including the following examples.

References

  1. ↑ Brown, Blain, Lighting as story telling, Cinematography: Theory & Practice, Focal Press(2002)
  2. ↑ Alison McMahan, Alice Guy Blaché, Lost Visionary of the Cinema (New York: Continuum, 2002) p. 13.
  3. ↑ Rosalind Leveridge, "Fantastic voyages of the cinematic imagination: George Méliès’s Trip to the Moon" Early Popular Visual Culture (May 2012), 10 (2), pg. 197–199
  4. ↑ Rosalind Leveridge, "Fantastic voyages of the cinematic imagination: George Méliès’s Trip to the Moon" Early Popular Visual Culture (May 2012), 10 (2), pg. 197–199
  5. 1 2 Barsam, Richard Meran and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010
  6. ↑ Kaplan, E. Ann. Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera. New York: Methuen, 1988
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.