Fabe's Narrative Techniques In The Battleship Potemkin

It is important to note that a film can be realistic in its content, its shooting style, or both. According to Fabe, “in a realist film the emotional content comes primarily from the profilmic event” (51). We also discussed in class how a realist film is told as a story relatable to our world and coherent in time in space. There are several components of realist shooting style. For example, “films shot in the realist style favor long takes that sometimes last up to and over sixty seconds,” “use a lot of camera movements (panning, tracking, reframing), not to create the dramatic and expressive effects,” but to preserve unity within the scene (Fabe 51). Realist films also “feature deep-focus photography” to allow viewers to let their eyes wander the screen and

But in terms of shooting style it is a realist film. Birth of a Nation of a realist film in its content, shooting style, and editing. According to Mast and Kawin, Griffith’s two great accomplishments in the film were “his realization of the power of atmosphere, décor, and texture within a shot and the power of editing to join shots” (174). In Fabe’s chapter on Birth of a Nation, she first describes the narrative techniques of the film, including mise-en-scene, cinematography, and editing. The actors in a film play a large part in mise-en-scene. Griffith carefully chose his actors and rehearsed with them before shooting (Fabe 3). He directed them to “act in a restrained, natural, less flamboyantly theatrical style” (Fabe 3). He also chose the “costumes, props, and settings with an eye to providing narraitive information that would enhance the film’s dramatic effect” (Fabe 3). The sets themselves were also a very important part of the mise-en-scene for Griffith. He insisted that they be authentic and three-dimensional rather than just fairly realistic like the sets in another one of his films, The Great Train Robbery (Fabe