TERM PAPER SUBMITTED
for
Ph.D ( FILM HISTORY AND THEORY)
semester-I
Topic:
Film Narration : Implicit fictional narrator and the role of medium
Authored & Submitted by:
G.NARSING RAO
Ph.D Participant
Admission Enrollment no : 10/P/185
Department of Film Studies & Visual Communication
The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad.
2010-11
“A fiction is something that we are mandated to Imagine”
-- Nöel Carroll (2009:197)
This study tries to explore some issues regarding the narrative patterns adopted and being practiced by film makers and engaged in discussions and debates among film scholars for decades and also focuses on issues in relation with current filmic scenario. The discussion regarding the term “Narration”, nevertheless, narrative motion picture are so pervasive that a discussion of cinematic narration is an avoidable topic for the philosophy of the moving image(Carroll 2009) this is would be one of the reason I am confining myself to the extent of the role played by the medium as one of the narrator.
When we are trying to decode the image of any film text usually leads us to just watch what has been shown in the context of already established out look regarding what is truth and what is false. We are being entrapped in these philosophically intricate situation through out times. Without any opinion about what we are seeing is always an apparent reality rather than to receive what has been offered and to share faithfully. The mechanism in which, finally, the faith formation takes place is, in our psychology, which again a product of the social phenomenon.
We as human being never was or is away from societal dynamics whether in changing or being subjected to change. If we go back to history we find that the “Myth” or “Faith” has had an impact on the lives of human beings. The reason behind mincing this here is to no any medium which played vital role in transforming societies throughout the centuries were not beyond the concept of philosophical or even religious interpretations.
As far as the question of 'reality' is concerned the philosophers can give sufficient explanation as 'an individual is nothing but a reality molded through techniques of Power' (Foucault 1946) here, the 'techniques' and 'power' remains to be discussed further which may go beyond the scope of my study, being this, I am taking Foucault’s account on the reality and its subsequent elementary participants in reality formation process. Foucault's interpretation of reality is solely depends on the concept of human beings as “subjects” of the Power to which people ought to respond desperately. His main contention was that people were never been 'considered' or 'treated' as people rather they are just been seen as if they are meant to be “subjected” to their Power. This applies to, as he says, all fields in all studies through out the history. What here I want to mention is that in the context of philosophy of Film, also this applies, if we consider the audience as people and they are being considered the same while writing a story-to-tell.
Actual author, Implied Author and the Narrators
The narration of any film story cannot be envisaged with out story-teller or in other words-Narrator. Because it seems reasonable to presuppose that narration implies a narrator(Chatman 1990).This means that there is something to deliberate beyond and regarding who actually narrates the story. If we take the narrator in the context of film narration; because in theatre also story telling practice was there before the invention and the practice of story telling which standardized in film as narration later. The narrator is just the motion picture maker or makers responsible for the work at hand (Carroll 2009) as the main brains works behind any narration is a person called narrator who actually decides, better to call 'mandates', the story telling. Which is to manifold through the Scenes and Shots on the film screens or celluloid. In films, the essence is to narrate through visuals that correspond to its sub-text or in other words Film sound.
We can find different categorizations in story-telling right from the emergence of literary tradition in history. When language has established itself as a means of expression had undergone different transitions to promote communication and to record the history itself. During course the language has become an evidence to the times and manifestation of different artistic mileu for tastes and knowledge. When language was the medium for creative expression which established through drama and theatre before the advent of film, has given different dimensions to the literature as being the only viable option for entertainment and happy situations. The development of theatre and drama before the film has reached a peak stage as different theatre and drama groups gripped the society in a nail biting competition in which the impetus has led authors to test their literary skills through thorough experimentations while meeting the creative urge of the differentiated audience. Another reason what we can find is the literary tradition was being the only viable option as a profession for the writers/authors for their livelihood. With respect to the study of literary fiction, distinctions are often made between the actual author, the implied author, and the narrator (Carroll, 2009:196).
The competition in which the authors of different Plays, Dramas and Theatre were so busy writing, experimenting and in due course indirectly standardizing the literary tradition itself for the future generations. This competitive process eventually led to manifestations of different outputs of creative literary products of which the fiction, particularly in theatre, being the dominant form for entertainment and happy moments. The fiction as part of literary tradition had suitable options in terms of story-telling and entertainment which gave ample space for dramatic experimentations and along with creative suitable expressions in the concerned play or theatre.
Fiction allows flexible ways to experiment through real life characters in society where audience resemble themselves and also the meaning can be decoded easily. Not only the evolution of fiction writing had profound impact on the theatre but also its authors who personally had influenced the course of writers which paved a new ways of literary fiction. Now we can know about different authors and their distinct literary qualities in writing fiction for theatrical practices.
The Actual author:
The actual author is the real person who wrote the text and is presumably collecting royalities for it.(Carroll, 2009:196) this refers to the person and the main source for any theatre play or in nowadays film script. Generally called script writer who actaully created a vast space or canvas of the world of fiction and telling directly to the audience/readers the story through different characterizations. In this case he may take a stand to establish the context of the fiction world. The actual author cannot report things as true in the story world; what the actual author does is establish that is “fictional” that thus and such ( rather than asserting that, or, reporting that it is true that thus and such)(Carroll, 2009:197).
This implies that the author's main intention was to 'establish' rather than 'report' while telling the story. We should know first that what makes difference in establishing and reporting. The main differentiation can be seen as compared to film as how a medium can determine the fate of a story-telling both in literary tradition and in films. This differentiation also provides ample suggestion to the study of the limitation of a medium in story-telling practices. In story-telling, the actual author relies solely on the medium and its nature and characteristics. When the author writing for a fiction play for a theatrical performance, have to keep in mind the nature of the medium. Because the medium for theatre before the film was through literature or text or in other sense language. The target audience for the play were to read through text and to get what actually the author is being expressing through a peculiar pattern or form which meant for the genre of theatrical performance: through different characters, dialogues, peculiarities in phonetics and semantics of the background.
Not having been the options except the medium such as language and the concerned generic pattern, the actual authors used to prefer to establish first that what actually happening in fictional, who were involved in it and what were the background for all. When a novel begins with “I am alone here, now, sheltered”(from The Labyrinth, Alain Robbe-Grillet,1959), the reader immediately asks: who is this “I?”,when is “now” in the story? And what defines “here” and being “sheltered”? These questions cannot be answered until we can identify the storyteller with a name or description, along with the place or moment of speaking.(Miller and Stam,ed; 2004: 47) Without establishing the story-world in the text it may lead to confusion to the readers because the only text being the corresponding connection between the author and the readers. Not only the limitation of the text makes the actual author to establish the 'fiction' rather than reporting through assertions about the nature of characters and their relations with other fictional elements as true to the readers but also the universally held prenotion about the fiction giving the actual author the moral courage in doing so 'as we are mandated to imagine the events in the fiction as true - as obtaining in the world of the fiction.' (Carroll, 2009:197)
Actual author believes that the fiction is being mandated for the readers/audience in judging whether the fiction world and the on-going events in it were true or believable or not. Because “the correlatives of the situation allow one not to describe the places, situations, and objects in great details, because it is common knowledge”(Slama-Cazacu 1961:213).
The events the actual author portraying in the fiction world may be already been seen or heard by the readers/audience earlier which needs no mentioning again and even that self-reflexivity actually serves the purpose of actual author both in not compelling him/her to assert again repeatedly and making flexible in adopting, moulding the characters while adding creative/expressive touches to the fiction world in story-telling. The actual author-a romantic at- heart-may don the persona or mask of a cynic for the purpose of telling her tale in a certain way.(Carroll, 2009:196)
Implied Author:
The implied author is the author as he or she manifests him or herself in the text.(Carroll, 2009:196) by drawing the intention of the actual author's text and reproducing the same through out the fictional world with his own way. It does not necessary to imply each and everything as actual author's text instead the implied author may show case his own creative mark in presenting the story to the readers/audience. This can be seen in the film industry; mostly in Hollywood; where films are based on any novel written by some author, usually we refer to him as Original writer or adapted story, here we can take such authors as actual authors. There is no mandatory time or space relation to the implied author while writing the story for any film. Some times the time gap between the text written by actual author and the time of implied author writing the story may have huge. In this case the role and the skill used by implied author makes different in terms of making the story-telling relevant and timely to the present readers/audience by incorporating other relevant elements and experiences into the script that makes viable and turns that script into a meaningful text for production.
Here, what we have to think is that any attempt to write anything for fiction is not just a linear way of communication and to throw loads of information to audience without any creative, cause- effect formulation. The notion of logic works inherently in order to present the characters to the readers/audience where as they seem natural as if seeing some event or spectacle taking place in front of readers. The caricature of the story and its surroundings always demands certain universality and also with logic to its presentation that audience may receive/accept without any prejudice. The nature and power of intensity in grasping the details around us would be crucial in establishing the characterization and the story events. The implications other than the original text has on the implied author may be contextual and dependable in formulating the fiction world and its context in which entire other fictional elements are interdependent. Here, the actual author text or his off-text experiences either personal or professional may be as an inspiration to implied author. The implied author may in fact share all her beliefs, desires, attitudes, allegiances, and so forth with actual author, but, equally, she may not.(Carroll, 2009:196)
This implies that to an author who is writing the text something secondary to the original, need not always been a mandatory to be written as an extracted copy instead has some feasibility in order to tell the story creatively with renewed approach that actual author might not have seen or heard, here the time scale does not makes any sense to see relevance to the story text and the time in which it was written by.
When writing a story the implied may find space in which he mend the storyline or event placing the events in sequence as he may thinks fit for the purpose of story-telling. Implied author may have inspired by the original text or actual author yet the presentation of same be indifferent to in telling the story through creative bent on the language used for sub-text and also designing the characterization in the fiction world with powerful visualization while being as an agency in promoting the spirit of actual author because 'the implied author is the agent who is responsible for the way the fiction is written – its tone, structure, ellipses, emphases, etc. “qua”-fiction.(Carroll, 2009:196)
Implied author’s works some time defined by the medium through which he or she is presenting the story. The important medium for theatrical plays is the text that represented through characters on the stage. Film differs, however, from novels in that a film can show an action rather than tell it.(Miller and Stam,ed; 2004:45) Film is quite dissimilar on telling story through characters as film being the technical medium through which the story be presented that can be compatible in both technically and also textually. Film text could be in both the visual and audible forms which is seen on screen and heard through sound systems.
In Film, What actually characters speaks on the stage is heard through sound systems and also what is seen is from visuals on screen. The effective understanding of film text is concomitant with the technicalities involved in the process right from pre-production stage to post production for seamless presentation where the discursive instance is less apparent than in a written tale.(Miller and Stam,ed; 2004:45)Contrary to this , in theatre the presentation in both audible and visual forms are live in front of the audience and there is no medium except text or dialogues.
Implied author has to see that what ever being shown in the fiction world should have a confine that demarking categorically to suggest that the story is of “fiction”, instead of making us believe as “true”. If implied could not achieved this distinction during the story-telling, has to face illogical or confusion over the fiction world where audience could hardly understand the story which is a paramount aim of any author. Here, the obligation of establishing the sense of “fiction” paves the way for instilling author's version of telling that is typical and specified. This notion again refers to a context in which an author(Here, in Film) generally pitching out his own typified or peculiar dramatic narrative structure against universal notion of narration. Putatively, we are forced to posit the aforesaid narrator universally or ubiquitously because narration presupposes a narrator.(Carroll, 2009:198)
While maintaining the difference between confinement of fiction establishment and without asserting or reporting the events in the fiction world as true, there be some other fictional elements which works independently of the story-telling which actually constructs the meaning of a story-to-tell the audience. There may be also be so called narrators, there are fictional creatures, they are part of the fictional world as it is presented by the text, often these presenters appears as characters in the story.(Carroll, 2009:196)
The implied author being the a person relying on the original text and having the privilege of molding through creative bent, also envisaging the possibilities to enlarge the original story to suit his perspective by exploring across different subjective experiences that could be imparted in renewed script or text that manifests distinct characterization and with ample experimentation in order to impress the audience while making them understand the story-telling effectively. Both the actual author and the implied author stand, so to speak, on the wrong side of the fiction operator (the “it is fictional that...” operator) with respect to making assertions or reports about what is the case in the fictional world.(Carroll, 2009: 197)
Implicit fictional narrator:
If we have to understand what's the fictional narrator means, we have to have an understanding of their definition and related functional elements. Before going to know about what goes in to making a narration or narratology, we should know the difference between the communication system and the possibility of narrative instances. In any communication system there would be two predominant agents: addresser and addressee.
It was this same notion which believed and adapted to the process of communication either for Theatre or Film. According to this, they believed that if communication has to be effective, there should be a total intact between addressor and addressee and in the process of their decoding and encoding mechanism in order to send or receive the message. It defines that the message sent by sender to be received intact by a receiver. This notion was later questioned asking, should narratology start from the spectatorial perception, however flawed, or look for a system of narrative instances capable of explaining the textuality of film? Here we have to differentiate between the theatre and of film and their nature presentation.
As earlier said, theatre being the live performance where we can 'see' the performance and 'hear' the sound on stage. Which is at one instance and as a spectacle. But the story telling in film cannot be imagined without a medium which is mechanical in nature and involving technical regressions for seamless performance. Both the audio and video constitutes the film text.
Film, as a double narrative, in such cases where the soundtrack allows us to hear the words of a narrator, film calls on two narrative instances. But while one tells one story in an overt manner, as in a living voice, the grand-image maker does now show himself. For example, “a fictional, invisible person turns the leaves of an album, drawing our attention to a specific item”(Laffay 1964:81-2). This corresponds to the notion that in film there are approaches to same story which actually manifolding in two ways: one that telling the written textual story what an implied/actual author intended to tell through dialogues from the characters from film sound and another which actually constituting the story parallel to the sub-text in visual form on the screen in different dimensions. Here the visual narrative may not correspond to the sub-text. How should we conceptualize the narrative relationship between this instance and those characters who, from within the film themselves, tell us oral or written stories?
There are two approaches as, André Gaudreault and François Jost, says :
1. The first answer focusses on the spectators’ grasp of what is seen and heard. This solution envisions the ways that the presence of a grand image-maker can be made more or less felt as responsible for the filmic enunciation, an organizer of various narratives.
2. The second answer focusses on the properties of the film. This concentrates on
film narrative per se, leaving to one side spectatorial reading.
( Miller and Stam, ed; 2004: 46)
Among above, the first point which actually the subject I am dealing with in this study regarding the implicit fiction narrator and the role of diegetic elements in the narrative process. In this context of story-telling in a film, the spectator or audience what they see and heard is very crucial and the functioning of those elements and its impact on the audience to be worth studying as they actually decides the effectiveness of story presentation and also its understanding.
It is this implicit fictional narrator/presenters who makes it possible for us to perceive imaginarily the sight and sound of the fictional world, something the actual filmmaker cannot do, since he/she only has access to the actual world.(Carroll 2009: 199) this implies that the visual narrative: what we see o the screen and the way it has been presented through in camera angles, how we perceive in order to understand the story(sub-text) simultaneously. In this sense we can understand implicit fictional narrator as someone, in other terms grand image-maker, who is not in the story as a character and also being independent to himself while contributing to construct the story of the fiction world which the actual or implied author intended to tell through subtext. This also implies that the implicit narrator actually having a story to tell visually in his own terms that may sometimes contradict with authors fictional story.
It could be useful to know the example, termed to Currie.G, by Nöel Carroll while explaining how implicit narrator leads us towards contrdictons:
“In theT.V. Series Six feet under (2005-05) the character, Nathan Fisher, buries his wife in the desert; in the fiction, it is given that no one see this. Yet, if there is an implicit fictional narrator/presenter, who enables us to see the burial imaginarily, then someone has witnessed the event. But this yields the contradiction that it both is the case that, in the fiction no one witnessed the burial and that someone witnessed the burial. To avoid the problem, the obvious solution is to eschew the notion of an implicit fictional narrator/presenter. (Currie 1995)
The above example implies what actually makes us to see on the screen even subtext does not allow us to witness the event in the fiction world,generally, through fictional intermediaries. The visual on the screen itself giving witness to us (audience) because it has been shown without any other fictional elements, such as other characters, who were actually part of the fiction world having life only through sub-text: they speak through sound or dialogues as written by implied author/actual author.
The fiction world witnessed in any film text is, generally, with the authorial expressions which falls under the confinement of fictional establishment. When audience think in realistic sense through reasoning and logic, the contradictions posed by such events, as said above in example, raises logical questions, that what to believe? And, if there is mentioning/creating the sense of 'nobody is taking part' in the fiction world, or there is silence on sub-text : No dialogues or conversations among characters; yet, Why ? we can see on the screen some action which is also telling something of its own in a peculiar dimensions with a verifiable dynamics beyond sub-text. If this is the case, then, how to satify the reasoning and self in those mental conditions, is very crucial.
Because, if not given any proper logical solution to audience within the fictional world through any other fictional intermediaries, it may leads to confusion and logical fallacy which makes audience disturbed and even understandable of the film sub-text by author, finally, culminating into a failure of the entire fictional story or film text or the film itself. Supposedly, we are in need of these fictional intermediaries because actual and implied authors lack the right meta-physical relationship to the world of fiction. They cannot provide us with the proper meta-physical access to the fictional world, because they live in the wrong side of the fiction operator.(Carroll 2009:200)
There is need to get answer regarding the grand-image maker and its role in filmic enunciation. What purpose of the author to use this kind at certain places in film narration is actually makes us to think. This may seem political in nature while communicating to audience. Even though the study regarding enunciation in film is being accepted as part of filmic narrative discourse today but had its precedence from the literary background where the authors, in an intense competition, had experimented with writing by using the feasibility of the language. Before clarifying the notion whether the Implicit fictional narrator can be equated with Enunciation, we should know what it is.
What we see on the screen except the dialogues of the author, there are situations or contexts made around in which that dialogues takes place, in other sense, filmic enunciation. The literary meaning of the dialogue or sub-text may differ based on its own dynamics, but, with the contextual meaning which actually serves the purpose of the author. This implies that, how to or what should be keep in mind while writing film text.
The process of enunciation actually depends on the subjectivity in language which transformed into a visual representation on the screen by grand image-maker. In a more restricted sense, enunciation refers to everything from the narrow sense of “linguistic traces of the speaker's presence within his utterance”(Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1980:30-1) to the broader phenomena that Benveniste groups under “subjectivity in language”. Above, The term “subjectivity” itself connotes “peculiar” nature of the subject; here as character or the context, which can be seen through peculiar actions/presentation on screen that marks some “identity” to be asuumed by audience/reader whenever they appeared or presented within the fiction world. In the literary fiction world, the character consistings names actually were the external narrative elements of the implied or actual author, but to explain the “peculiar actions”-marked with subjectivity and identity- done by them requires some special skills to write the context which by reading those lines the audience/readers should imagine the context or the situation the author intends puts us in.
This points to the notion of enunciation is subjective manifestation of both the peculiar actions of the story/characters through dialogues and the contextual discourse or conditions in which the actions takes place. Both are bound to tell a story of their own through subjectivity in language where we can trace the presence of speaker (character) within his utterance (discourse).Enunciation has several meanings. In the broadest sense, it signifies “the relations between what is said and the different sources that produce statements:
-- the Protogonists of discourse [sender and receiver]
-- the situation of communication” (Miller and Stam,ed; 2004:46)
Here we can see the demarcation between the “story” and the “way” story, as said above, (situation of communication), has been explained in a given peculiar condition. If , in the story, “events seem to recount themselves, “ then in discourse we see a mode of enunciation that “presumes the presence of both a speaker and a listener”(Benveniste 1966:241) which refers that story that is written by the actual/implied author which can be read, but, in film, heard through sound from dialogues of characters. The way of telling the story reflects the subjectivity in language as the story resembles the author placed events in a fiction world, and subjectivity presumes the presence of a speaker and listener which presumes the subjective or peculiar actions of both the story and discourse. In literary sense, the speakers and listeners are the characters responding peculiarly to each other in an event occurred based on logical consequences in a given discursive condition because 'no story exists without discourse.(Miller and Stam,ed; 2004:47)
If we compare with above said literary way of writing fiction, usually found in the fiction of novel--which stresses on detailing the context/surroundings of events in the form of language along with dialogue of a characters for better understanding of the story-- with film way explaining (showing) the discourse- context/surroundings of events--in which the way characters behave and utters the dialogues. The only difference found here is that, in film, the discourse should be shown independently of the script written where as the script reflects the authorial version of what characters should speaks in a fiction world. Here the challenge of visualizing the text discourse; establishing the context, which was not related to the authorial world of fiction, yet presenting on the screen, amicably, is very important in creating visual discursive conditions with peculiar appearance for both the story and discourse in which events of authorial expression is taking place.
This implies that the way of showing the discourse on screen actually falls under the enunciation which seeked subjectivity of speakers and utterance in the world of fiction. When the term “enunciation” is used in film which is to be shown-visual medium-refers to the peculiar way of presenting the visuals which could simultaneously serve the purpose of telling a story for authorial expression. This points to the technical apparatus used in different dimensions and variation by an agency or a person(s) in a peculiar way for the purpose of the visual creation or manifestation in process of constructing the discourse for the world of fiction.
Here we can see, the process of visual construction which actually constructs the discourse or enunciating(narrating) the situation, for the fiction world of an author, by which speaking or telling a story of his own in a peculiar visual manner, being independent of story and invisible or implicit, yet speaking through a peculiar visual presentation, is known as implicit fiction narrator/narration because ' it (visual presentation) signifies “ the relations between what is said, protogonists of discourse(sender/receiver), and the different sources that produce statements, situation of communication”.(Miller and Stam;ed,2004:46)
In film, by applying the meaning of enunciation, The construction of a story or a discourse through visuals demands that authorial expressions should be presented effectively and understandably. Here, role of the person who actually makes or creates or presents the visuals for the film text is very crucial. He is the person who transforms or organizes the the literary intention of the implied/actual author. In our usual term call this process as Cinematography and the person who operate as Cinematographer. We can call them as who writes the story in visual form.
But the study is regarding the way story presented on the screen and as an organizer, how he organizes visuals and various narratives that remains predominant in story-tellin in any film.This process resembles how authors adapted the techniques from the phenonena of subjectivity in language to the world of ficton in film in order to create discourse where, nevertheless, one can see discourse as a sort of “cyst,” because language has marks, signs, that bear the trace of the teller, the holder of the discourse: these marks are deictics (Miller and Stam,ed; 2004:47).
Phot:1
Here, the implicit fictional narrator ,shows the grandeur of Grand Canyan, where the character,James Franco, a rock climber, is showing joy as he reached atop one of the cave. The portryal of him on screen(Low-Angle Shot, as in the picture) illustrates not just an authorial expression of one event in the story based on the book,instead, it connotes the implicit narrators view of the how small a human being can be(Franco seems very little in the picture), if compared with grand creation of the nature. This impression has been achieved by framing the shot in low-angle which shows superiority to the spectator-addressee.
Source: Film, 127 hours(2011),Directed by: Danny Boyle;
Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle. Photo Courtesy: Twentieth Century Fox
Now, we see how the deictics works in film in order to create fiction world which usually accompains the expressions of implied/actual author. The decictics in films correspnds to the way deictics used in language for the purpose of authorial expression beyond the implied/actual author, in other words, the peculiar way of story-telling as primary instance in films expression. As , André Gaudreault and François Jost, explains the expression “undertelling” as follows:
“ The expression is a function of this second narratological approach, which tries to respect the order of things versus how they appear to the spectator. It makes the only real narrator of the film the grand image-maker, or the meganarrator (Gaudreault 1998), the equivalent of the implicit narrator mentioned earlier. From this perspective, all the other narrators present in the film are only delegated narrators, second narrators, whose activity is a sub-narration. ” (Miller and Stam,ed;2004:53)
Now we know the implicit narrator as grand image-makers who actually enunciates the primary narration to second narration or delegated sub-narration of the actual or implied author. It exemplifies that there is no authorial expression without the primary narrative instance for which the enunciation takes place which indirectly implying that secondary or sub-narration ought to depend on the filmic narrative or enunciator (narrator) or -- who is also called grand image-maker or implict fictional narrator. The problem of sub-narration varies depending on whether we are referring to written or filmic narrative (Miller and Stam,ed;2004:53).
Photo:2
In this picture: James Franco,who is a rock climber, is heading towards Grand Canyan, to take on his adventure well planned with all “necessary accessories”. This picture's authorial expression is to tell audience that he is on his adventure which an event in the story. But, the implicit narrator, shows him in the context. We observe the position of him(small) in the context where he is surrounded and about to be trapped by the grandeur of the place(Arial wide-angle shot) which shows its supriority over him in terms of space while melding with audience. Which connotes that humans are being very little comparatively with nature that they think about to adventure on it, here, Grand Canyan.
Source: Film, 127 hours(2011),Directed by: Danny Boyle;
Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle. Photo Courtesy: Twentieth Century Fox
As the mode of filmic expression:
When we talk about the authorial expressions it signifies the role of the implied/actual author who speaks through charaters in language. But the essence of his story not just dependent on the fiction world he had created but the language itself, yet there has to be the subjectivity in it which actually makes difference in telling the story by allowing touching upon the fictional intermediaries in order to access between fictional world of the story where author speaks and implicit fictional narrator who is independent of fictional world yet crucial in authorial expression. The need of fictional intermediaries when authors does not provide proper meta-physical access in the story. That is, if need a fictional intermediary to secure access to whatever is fictional, and the implicit narrator/presenter is fictional, then to make contact with first implicit fictional narrator/presenter, we will need to postulate a second fictional narrator/presenter , and then, for the same reason, a third, and so on ad infinitum. The thinking behind the idea of such a narrator threaten to drag us into an endless regress, such that we could never secure access to the fictional world. But do we have access to fictional world.
Thus, so much the work for the implicit fictional narrator/presenter( Carroll 2006). This implies that endless regression and the inability to secure access to and confusion of duality of both in being accessible and not accessible simultaneously, in order to, access the fictional world, clearly indicates the lack of coherence between enunciator and primary narrator. This also indicates the gaps between them and the chances of implicit manipulative attempts while authorial expression going on. The implicit narration being the enunciation -- which is resultant of primary narrator comes from the implied/actual author, who can , in order to give diverse narrative information -- may tend to attempt for manipulation as a mean of his different modes of creative expressions independently of the world of fiction world and as part of using subjectivity in language through deictics.
Photo:3
Here, Implicit narrators, appears as a framing device through which he shows us that he(Character,James Franco), entering himself into the ” mouth” of the Danger( Cave). Low-angle shot which constitutes the superiority of the character and yet connotes the adventure into the danger.
Source: Film, 127 hours(2011),directed by: Danny Boyle;
Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle. Photo Courtesy: Twentieth Century Fox
Here, we see that the fundamental instance of filmic narration is not unitary, since the cinema, as a mixture of modes of expression, is not unitary. ( Miller and Stam,ed;2004:57)
In order to tell the story effectively the primary narrator, who is also implied/actual author, manipulates the diverse modes of filmic expressions, to orchestrate them, make them function, and regulate their play in order to provide the spectator with diverse narrative information.(Miller and Stam,ed;2004:53) Which also intensifies the notion that of chances to regrouping of all diverse filmic expressions in establishing a “stitching mechanism” which connotes the strive of the author to make some coherence in threat process to find seamless flow of the ideas behind the stitch and also giving a system to story in the world of fiction. There can be a chance of being more than singular mode of filmic expression which may also direct towards some other particular sub-instances.
Photo:4
Here, the Implicit narrator, appears as a Camere,which constitutes the enunciator being revealed through and being concealed in the character where , as franco, tells the story on behalf of him-implicit narrator(camera). Camera represents the enunciator who usually concealed or invisible can appear on the screen as discursive figurations, in this case, configuration of addressee, where “I”, the enunciator, is concealed in the “he”(character) that constitutes the whole of the utterance to interpellate the “you,” the addresse-spectator.
Source: Film, 127 hours(2011),directed by: Danny Boyle;
Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle. Photo Courtesy: Twentieth Century Fox
As termed to André Gardies , regarding chances of sub-grouping of diverse modes of expression as follows:
“ One could even imagine regrouping the modes of expression in terms of their particular sub-instances: thus André Gardies(1987) divides into three sub-groups the diverse narrative responsibilities of the real conductors, who is the “filmic enunciator” who would modulate the voice of three sub-enunciators , each one responsible , respectively, for the iconic, the verbal, and the musical. “
(Miller and Stam,ed;2004:57)
By this , subgrouping into an articulation not only serves in conducting operation of significance but also assist to mold into a story system. The three sub-enunciators or sub-implicit narrators who are independent of each other, being diverse in nature and lack of coherence in terms of inaccessible meta-physical attributes, and by molding into a story system gives an articulation with a sense of coordination between diverse operations of signification through which the fictional world of implied/actual author is being constructed. To the extent that the filmic process implies a certain kind of articulation between diverse operations of signification( mise-en scène, framing, and sequencing), it is also possible to mold a “story system” which takes account of what has been called “the process of filmic discursivization”(Graudreault 1988:119). This hypothesis is based on the diverse operations necessary to the material making of a film and on the diverse manipulations by the agency responsible for the production of a film.( Miller and Stam,ed;2004:57)
This truly manifests the role an agency or as a person(s) who are at a stage of material making of a film in which the finality of the fictional story cane be seen. They would be held responsible for the diverse operations which determines the significance of the implicit narrator. As discussed earlier, if we take the implicit narrator as real narrator that who could modulate the nature of other three sub-enunciators, then onus of the basic story telling form is vested with the operations of signification and the agency or creative brains involves in this process.
The diverse operations of significations in film refers to practical operations carried out at the level of field where the shooting takes place with the contribution of different creative persons in the process of film production. They may not be directly involved in the process of primary narration which is a crux of the entire phenomena of film making through which the implied/actual speaking to the audience through fictional characters in a world of fiction. Here we can envisage such field operations of film making where the direct exposure of the diverse signs/significations to the film medium is taking place.
Here we can refer to that the operations of signification also denotes the operations of exposing “signs” to the filmic medium for their recording. The question of how these sub-enunciations has been operationalised through the process of signification, which as a resultant of properly organized and operationalised exposure of signs to the filmic medium, always remains crucial. Thus, the operation of signification refers to the properly organized way of signs in which the practicality of exposition of them has been carried out in conformity with the authorial expression of the world of fiction.
Again , when we are talking about the operation of signification means we are talking about the process of signs which are organized and operationalised for the purpose of exposure, which presumes the way it has been exposed. There is no film without medium such as technical apparatus bringing in the film as a material product. As said above, the modes of expression of an implied/actual author or of primary narrator has to be communicated through the filmic narrative which refers to enunciator that corresponds to its sub-enunciator which consequently refers to operations of signification that finally to the process of organising the signs and the way it has been exposed to the filmic medium while recording in the field.
This entire process reminds us of the role filmic medium in carrying out the responsibilities if diverse operations of signification which involves the practical aspects of the medium and its ability and limitation in fulfilling the needs of manifestation of authorial expression of the fiction world. The agency or the creative brains involved in this process, practicality of making and organising the signs while recording with medium, has a greater role in manipulating the discursive conditions or filmic expression of the story/events in the fiction world which may having a “say” in molding the story system that is beyond the primary narrator or implied/actual author which could be carried out at while practically dealing with the filmic medium when the medium itself becomes the instrument of the enunciator or implicit fictional narrator.
As we are talking about the role of the operations of signification through medium in manipulating discursive conditions in which story events takes place, should consider the role of medium's ability and its limitation in the process of story telling.(In constructing the Mise-en Scene, Frames, Sequencing) Because the filmic expression and primary narration cannot be achieved without the medium compared to literary practice where the author can directly speak to the readers without any intervention. But in films, being a collective or collaborative making process, authorial expression always dependent on the elements of both medium ability and the people operating it with the creative contribution of production crew.
The role of medium:
Now, we look at the way implicit narrator or enunciator appears on the screen. Till we have discussed the scope of the implicit narrator as an insider who could be traced in literary form which manifesting the expression of the implied/actual author by using literary technics called deictics in its narration. The main aspect of filmic narration is to tell the the story in audio-visual form through a medium. The narrativity consists that certain superimposed layers which could provide strong foundation on which the entire filmic narrativity continues. The construction of narrativity through the operations of significstion can be seen on the screen in terms of Mise-en-Scene, Framing, Sequencing, and also can assume the importance of filmic medium and its operator.
The film, narrativity has two superimposed layers which plays viatal role in its construction. First of these layers, resulting from the combined work of mise-en-scene and framing, is limited to what has been called monstration(Miller and Stam,ed;2004:58). The layer of narrativity, at a level superior to that of monstration,is equivalent to narration, if only as a function of its greater possibilities for a temporal modulation(Miller and Stam,ed;2004:58).
Both layers together constructing the narrativity where both implicit narrator and actual/implied author were superimposing each other. There are again two level units of articulation by which we get a sense of presentation and narrativity on the screen as,André Gaudreault and François Jost, says :
“ It arises from a first form of cinematic articulation, that between frames , which forms the very basis of cinematic process and permits the presentation, in continuity on the screen, of successive photographic frames. Once articulated with each other, these first level units,calles frames, create an illusion of continuous movement, giving birth to second-level units—the shot.”(Miller and Stam,ed; 2004:58)
It implies that the both layers of narrativity along with articulations making the process of primary narration complete. Because both layers, as said above, are superimposed so that its could be a futile task to see both as unrelated aspects in storytelling. This also implies there is a chance of cross-over if both layers are not articulated well as the filmic expression,which is one of the layer and enunciator, owing to diverse operations of signification may impact the another. But to remember ,without monstration there is no narrativity in the film because the medium-audiovisual presentation-always has its own unique prescribed limitations which may allow or access to realize the manipulative attributes as an agency while engaging in operations of signification beyond second layer of narrativity.
The monstration being the basis of cinematic articulation,with unipunctuality, which cannot be achieved without a filmic medium;such as camera, sound and music; which as a sub-enunciator, owing responsibility to pluri-punctual filmic narrative; which is the combination of both layers articulation, need a monstrator, or show-er, who would be this responsible instance, during the shooting of the film and the putting him into the can of this multitude of micro-narratives called shots(Miller and Stam,ed;2004:58) presumes the role of a medium as a very crucial instrument in both filmic expression and authorial expression which also stresses the importance of medium related practical collaborative actions -- cinematography and cinematographer--in organizing and managing the operations of signification--such as Mise-en-Scene, Framing and Sequencing.
Photo:5
In this Pictire, James Franco as he is facing problems to reach the Grand Canyan,which is shown in this picture as he slips into near by slope. This illustrated authorial expression of how hard it is to embark upon an adventure-climbing on bi-cycle which denotes that victories are always preceded with failures. But, The implicit narrator tells us that challenging the nature always been and will be a stupendous task irrespective of how well you have been equipped with or supprted by man-made gadgets/accessories, will never be equated with the might of the nature/creation. Shaky-Low-Angle Shot, camera shakes as the character falling on camera,(Subjectively on audience-spectators) which impacts the strength of both : the fall and its depth. Signifying the will power of the character and ability to live and face amidst challenges happily.
Source: Film, 127 hours(2011),directed by: Danny Boyle;
Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle. Photo Courtesy: Twentieth Century Fox
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As everybody knows that film being a non-verbal communicative medium, it speaks through visuals and audio, the medium itself should be seen as if how a pen can be related with literature. In literature, the language plays predominant role in communicating and expressing the message being the 'a verbal narrator tells verbally what another verbal narrator has (under) told verbally(Miller and Stam;ed,2004:53) rather than visual medium. Because in language 'there is a homogeneity of materials. It is notable that in such cases of narrative delegation the primary narrator is almost invisible; when Scheherazade speaks, the reader completely forgets the very existence of the primary narrator. It is almost as if the primary narrator were literally drowned in the flow of words of the secondary narrator.(Miller and Stam;2004:53) which can be seen evidently and been expressing the same attributes while narrating even in the secondary narration in that language. This tendency in language always provides scope for the, above said, homogeneity that is relatively deviant to filmic narration and predominant while inevitabley owing to the nature of its medium. Language as medium has its “limitedness” for its expression and also in providing space for practicality for the author seems very less.
Here we can remind the well noted communicative idiom by Marshall McLuhan: Medium itself is a message; may perfectly suitable for the filmic medium compared to language where ' due to the homogeneous nature of written narrative, which engages only one mode of expression, language, compared to the essentially polyphonic character of filmic narrative(Miller and Stam;ed,2004:54).
Film as medium, which is tangible and practical in nature,through which the planned concerted practice could produce the message ,which is, polyphonic, in a contextual and discursive condition. Filmic narrative has to deal with multiple narrative elements whose acts are coordinated and driven towards a common purpose of its primary objective, narration. Any medium has concomitant relations with its organic elements, particularly, in film; such as technical aspects: instruments used, the method adopted for the purpose of shooting and the crew who worked for production both audio and video, and the way both(audio/video) has been captured ,edited,filtered and also various other creative and technical contributions which had its impact on in the process of the practices oriented with filmic medium.
Alike in language, the filmic medium has distinct qualities in narrating the authorial expression such as what characters speaks on screen that reflects the notion of him in the world of fiction. Filmic narration, owing to its nature of technicality and practicalities, expresses through multiple-narrative elements in tandem with authorial expression both together manifest as a narration which cannot be achieved without the base of its monstration that can only be acquired through filmic medium and proper way of recording/shooting through operations of signification : camera for cinematography(photography) for visuals (Mise-en-Scene,Shots), editing for Sequencing; and Microphone for audio recording (ambience/dubbing) of dialogues, together working for a common cause- narration or authorial expression. In this sense, the cinema seems to have an exemplary value for narratology as a whole because, unlike verbal stories, in the cinema it is relatively difficult to make invisible the presence of the primary instance, which is the grand image-maker, the mega-narrator, by interposing a secondary one(Miller and Stam;ed,2004:54). This shows the medium of the film in its nature has the ability of possessing the practice without which has no meaning and purpose.
Which also presuming certain demand from the skills who are ought to operate, of the signification. The operation of signification which becomes part of this certain practice that is at the first stage of filmic narration-monstration where ,the implicit fictional narrator, is playing vital role in story-telling before the actual story(primary narration) is being told. This allows various combinations between narrative levels, much more complex than in literature, and enables the double narrative to be completely manifest.Thus film narratology is very sensitive to the hierarchization of these different instances(Miller and Stam;ed,2004:54) which are finally the essential products of filmic medium which has been captured or acquired or extracted with pre-filtered articulations in a peculiar method to create certain discursive conditions within the authorial fictional world that may or may not correspond to the authorial expression, simultaneously, constructing a para-narrative where the implicit fictional narrator speaks that to from at the stage of manstration-while shooting Frames and Shots -usually by cinematographer or director of photography.
And also the sound devices which were, being part of narratology, used for both Background Music and Dialogues-the intensity and tone of the sound and in a particular context that could change the perception about the on-screen character-by imposing a meaning. Second stage, in narration, the way of sequencing the shots (editing) makes coordination for re-grouping the filmic narratives along with sound and music for common pursuit of primary narration which is authorial expression...
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Acknowledgement for using ohotos:
Twentieth Century Fox Studios
Producer and Director: 127 hours
Website:
Courtesy for Photos:
-www.google.com/images/
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