Narration and focalization - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Narration and focalizationSlide2

Stories

Stories don’t just exist—they must be told

The telling affects the story and how it is experiencedSlide3

Narration

Narration is the telling of the story

The narrator is the person (entity) who tells the storySlide4

Storytelling levels in literature

Source: Jahn, NarratologySlide5

Narration in audiovisual texts

However, in audiovisual content the concept of narration is more problematic than in literature

There may be no single narrator

Some say there is no narrator at all

Others say that the ‘auteur’ is the narrator (usually the director)

Jahn

: “Filmic Composition Device” [FCD]Slide6

Narration in filmSlide7

An important piece of vocabulary

The fictional world within which the characters live and act is know as the ‘

diegesis

’Slide8

Narration

Narration can come from ‘within’ the fictional world (“homodiegetic”) or ‘outside’ the fictional world (“heterodiegetic”)

Narration can be very obvious (“overt”) or may be hard to detect (“covert”)

The narrator may take the viewpoint of a character, may present the views of several characters or may approach the story from a godlike view (“omniscience”)Slide9

Homodiegetic narrative

The

homodiegetic

narrative is delivered by a story character—someone actively involved in the narrative. Usually, but not always, she uses the first-person pronoun in her address. She may be the protagonist or just a bit player, but she is somehow affecting or affected by the actions going on in the story.Slide10

The Wonder Years

Inside Man

Desperate HousewivesSlide11

Homodiegetic narrator

The author/auteur must decide which character will narrate.

The perspective of the narrator influences what the audience member will see, hear and know about the plot, other characters, etc.

Minor characters may have very limited knowledge

The nature of the narrator will also affect the tone and emotional implications of the narrativeSlide12

Limitations of homodiegetic narration

“she is subject to '

ordinary human limitations

' . . . she is restricted to a personal and subjective point of view; she has no direct access to (or authority on) events she did not witness in person; she can't be in two places at the same time . . . and she has no way of knowing for certain what went on in the minds of other characters.”

Jahn

,

NarratologySlide13

Homodiegetic

narrators

The Lovely Bones

Atonement

Apocalypse Now

Malcolm in the Middle

Fight Club

Rashomon

Goodfellas

The Usual Suspects

Apocalypse Now

A Clockwork OrangeSlide14

Displacement of time

Homodiegetic

narrators often tell a story about things that they experienced some time in the past

A common form of such narration gives an account of the narrator’s earlier life

The Wonder Years

Stand By Me

TitanicSlide15

Heterodiegetic narration

Heterodiegetic narration comes from a narrator who is not a character in the story.

Heterodiegetic narrators vary widely in their knowledge and perspective. They may be restricted to the perspective of a single ‘person’ or may have ‘omniscience’—boundless ability to know all there is to know about the plot, characters, setting, etc. in a story.Slide16

Heterodiegetic

narrators

News anchors

Documentary voice-overs

Commercials

Scroll in Star Wars

VO in Lord of the Rings

Almost all Westerns

The Lost Boys

The Client

The Graduate

The Hulk

Stranger than Fiction

Lord of the RingsSlide17

Narrator personality

The personality and characteristics of the narrator will affect the audience response to the narrative

How serious is he?

How authoritative is he?

How ‘normal’ is he?

Some voices project certain traits

VO Narrators can make a lot of moneySlide18

Overtness

How obvious (or overt) is the narration? An overt narrator is out in the open—a focus of the audience member’s attention. A hidden narrator is covert.

An overt narrator makes the

telling

or

construction

of the story an important focus for the audienceSlide19

Indicators of narration in audiovisual media

In film, television, videogames, etc. five main indicators of narration are present:

Voice over (VO) narration—an off-camera voice speaks to the audience member

More rarely, an onscreen narrator is present

The point of view of the camera

Intrusive visual effects

Onscreen writing

Much of the craft of traditional Hollywood style is in making the narration

covert

. Slide20

Overtness

Overt narration

News anchors

Game show hosts

Inside Man

Extreme Makeover

Covert narration

Big Bang Theory

CSI Miami

But note visual effects

The Client

A History of ViolenceSlide21

Point of View

Physical point of view: the position or angle from which the camera or a particular narrator or character observes an event or a scene

Mental point of view: the perspective taken by a particular narrator or character in a story in seeing and hearing an even or scene, reflecting on an idea, creating a relationship between two or more things, or remembering events or

dreamsSlide22

Focalization

Focalization refers to the

viewpoint

from which the story is told

Usually the viewpoint of the narrator

omniscient

However, the viewpoint can be split from the narration

The narrator (or FCD) can tell the story from a character’s perspectiveSlide23

Three major types of POV (

Jahn

)

View of narrator

Homodiegetic

first-person

Heterodiegetic

omniscient

Narrator becomes covert and presents viewpoint of story character

Internal focalizationSlide24

Advantages of omniscience

The viewer/reader can be made aware of things that are unknown to the characters

plot, characters (and what they are thinking), setting,

backstory

The maniacal killer is right behind you, idiot!

The position allows for

evaluation

of characters and their actions

He got what he deserved

He knew he would get caught—that’s why he did itSlide25

Advantages of omniscience

The story can be more ‘expansive’—it can include a much wider set of characters, motives, actions

While he was doing this, she was doing that, and her friend was with her brother, etc.Slide26

Internal focalization

The story can be told from the viewpoint of a character even if the narrator is

heterodiegetic

The narrator ‘gets inside the head’ of that character, often relating their perceptions, fears, beliefs, etc. to the implied audience member.Slide27

Internal focalization

“One of the main effects of internal focalization is to attract attention

to

the mind of the reflector-character and

away

from the narrator and the process of

narratorial

mediation.” (

Jahn

)

The goal in this case is to draw attention to the story

and not its tellingSlide28

Representing focalization

Focalization can be represented by ‘subjective’ camerawork

over-the-shoulder camera shots, shot-reverse shot representations of interactions among characters, focus on a character looking into the distance then turning to adopt the sightline of the looker, etc.

Things that only one character can see may be presented to the audience

Sixth Sense

Internal thoughts may be represented by VOSlide29

Objective and subjective visualization

Objective

CSI

Big Bang Theory

NCIS

Subjective

A Beautiful Mind

Gladiator

Lord of the Rings

Rashomon

Wolfen

The Fisher KingSlide30

Shifting narration and focalization

Narration and/or focalization can shift within a given text—perhaps between omniscient and first-person or from one character to another.

Commonly, narrative begins with character narration, then it shifts to omniscient

heterodiegetic

FCD

Grey’s AnatomySlide31

Can You Trust the Narrator?

Sometimes narrators can’t be trusted. A narrator whose account you cannot trust is known as an “unreliable narrator.”

Limited view/Limited access

Self interest/Deception

Personal perspective

Mental instabilitySlide32

Unreliable narrators

Rashomon

The Usual Suspects

A Clockwork Orange

The Murder of Roger

Aykroyd

Goodfellas

Fight Club

Dexter

A Beautiful MindSlide33

Paralepsis (Jahn)

An infraction caused by saying too much; a narrator assuming a competence he does not properly have; typically, a first-person narrator (or a historiographer) narrating what somebody else thought . . . or what happened when he was not present.Slide34

Paralipsis (Jahn)

An infraction caused by omitting crucial information; saying too little; typically, an omniscient narrator pretending "not to know" what happened in her/his characters' minds, or what went on at the same time in another place, or

distortively

censoring a character's thought, or generally pretending to be restricted to ordinary human limitations. Slide35

“

Paralepsis

and

paralipsis

are instances of violations of Grice's (1975) famous principle of co-operation -- the notion that speakers (narrators) are socially obliged to follow an established set of 'maxims': to give the right amount of information, to speak the truth, to speak to a purpose (tell something worth telling), to be relevant, etc.” Slide36

Audiences will

assume

narrators are following the rules until it is demonstrated that they are not.