The History of Film

A major change that has occurred in the development of film is the linearity of narrative. The history of film spans over one hundred years ago, with classical narrative emerging in Hollywood around the nineteen thirties. The classical narrative period had a strong emphasis on linearity and coherence, where characters where goal centred and consistent in personality and action. In the nineteen sixties a change began to emerge in Hollywood, with Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960) breaking the editing rules, and narrative coherence, with the introduction of jump cuts. This film among others greatly contributed to the outburst of non-linear narratives, a narrative technique wherein events are portrayed out of chronological order. In the twenty-first century a range of independent films with a variety of non-linear narratives have been getting mainstream release. Within this essay I will briefly explain the different types of narratives and the reasons for their popularity.

The directorial intent for many non-linear narratives can be to evoke mood, maintain suspense, indicate the malleability of memory, signify dream, and above all to provide visual pleasure. The involvement that a spectator can feel from a non-linear narrative can offer both a sense of pleasure and relation. The fact that it is up to the viewer to keep up, put things together, and make sense of the narrative provides a sense of satisfaction, and can become the reason they are watching the film. Removing the chronological order of a story and rearranging its components can make a it more compelling than if the scenes progressed in chronological order. An advantage of non-linear narrative is its ability to involuntarily feed the viewer information. This means that th...

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...d anthology. Abstract series acts independently or semi-independently of the conventional relationship of narrative time, space, and causality whilst anthology, or multi-strand narrative, consist of a series of short stories which originally appear to be detached, yet turn out to share the same world in which the events occur. Dissimilar to other narrative structures, anthology shifts from a central character to a multi-character narrative where characters shift in and out of prominence. This type of narrative assists in maintaining suspense throughout the entire film. An ostentatious example of an anthological narrative is Love Actually (Richard Curtis 2003). The romantic comedy delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are discovered to be interlinked as the film progresses.