5 - Cinematic narration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2010
Summary
The nature of cinematic narration is a central topic in the philosophy of cinema, and in particular for the project of the present book. Almost all films have a narrative (story) and therefore have a narration (they convey a story). This is true not only of fiction films; most documentaries are also narrative films; and narrative is central to determining viewers' responses to films. Moreover, a central question of this book concerns how the nature of the cinematic medium conditions cinema as an art. So we will examine the similarities and differences between film's narrational capacities and those of other arts, and in so doing will shed light on the nature of cinema and on how it differs from the other arts. Narration is a trans-medium capacity: many works in media besides cinema narrate – narrative works include some dances, musical works and paintings, and almost all comic strips and literature. There has to be some degree of commonalty between these different media by virtue of the fact that they can all narrate, but there may also be interesting differences between them in respect of how they narrate, differences which throw light on their different capacities as media. I will argue that there are some salient differences between cinema and literature in respect of their narrational capacities, particularly in respect of the greater role for implicit narrators in the case of literature than of cinema; and I will trace this to differences between the different media.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Philosophy of Cinematic Art , pp. 197 - 243Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010