Weekly Reading September 6th - Luke Smith
Hey everyone, Luke here.
I've read through the "Bordwell and Thompson-Narration as a Formal System," and was pretty intrigued by what I read. While some of the content was part of our lecture, some of the things mentioned in the reading that weren't present in our lecture really interested me and gave me new insight on film as a whole. I had a general idea of what narration was, but I was surprised to find out how much film uses narration in both restriced and unrestricted forms, and how each type of narration complements each film. The use of restricted narration in films such as Silence of the Lambs works incredibly well and presents suspense in an excellent way. I've found out that using certain forms of narration and different points of a film can draw in the audience incredibly well, and after thinking about it, I can definitely recall some examples where this has happened to me in a theater. The example that shines to me the most at the moment would be during The Hunger Games. All throughout the movie, we are constantly shifting from restricted narration to build up suspense, to some slight unrestricted narration that can still draw in more suspense. One prime example I can think of is the forest fire scene. Outside forces (in this case, people) cause a forest fire to happen to Katniss Everdeen, protagonist of the film, and while she's trying desperately to escape, the scene constantly cuts to a control room, where workers are trying to encase her in the forest fire through various means, both natural and unnatural. If you watch the scene while thinking about shifts in restricted and unrestricted narration, you'll notice quite a few small shifts throughout the scene that manage to build up a conflict and the suspense with it. I'll post the url to the clip here. https://youtu.be/YRcIFwFZeU8
All in all, I was very interested in what the reading provided to me as insight, and I went back to watch a few clips of films to see if I could identify shifts between restricted and unrestricted narration. I found value out of the reading, and hope you all do too.
I've read through the "Bordwell and Thompson-Narration as a Formal System," and was pretty intrigued by what I read. While some of the content was part of our lecture, some of the things mentioned in the reading that weren't present in our lecture really interested me and gave me new insight on film as a whole. I had a general idea of what narration was, but I was surprised to find out how much film uses narration in both restriced and unrestricted forms, and how each type of narration complements each film. The use of restricted narration in films such as Silence of the Lambs works incredibly well and presents suspense in an excellent way. I've found out that using certain forms of narration and different points of a film can draw in the audience incredibly well, and after thinking about it, I can definitely recall some examples where this has happened to me in a theater. The example that shines to me the most at the moment would be during The Hunger Games. All throughout the movie, we are constantly shifting from restricted narration to build up suspense, to some slight unrestricted narration that can still draw in more suspense. One prime example I can think of is the forest fire scene. Outside forces (in this case, people) cause a forest fire to happen to Katniss Everdeen, protagonist of the film, and while she's trying desperately to escape, the scene constantly cuts to a control room, where workers are trying to encase her in the forest fire through various means, both natural and unnatural. If you watch the scene while thinking about shifts in restricted and unrestricted narration, you'll notice quite a few small shifts throughout the scene that manage to build up a conflict and the suspense with it. I'll post the url to the clip here. https://youtu.be/YRcIFwFZeU8
All in all, I was very interested in what the reading provided to me as insight, and I went back to watch a few clips of films to see if I could identify shifts between restricted and unrestricted narration. I found value out of the reading, and hope you all do too.
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