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    A text of David Bordwell for the narration of the cinematic procedures.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    1K visualizzazioni10 pagine

    Classical Hollywood Cinema, Narrational Principles and Procedures

    Caricato da

    AthenaMor
    A text of David Bordwell for the narration of the cinematic procedures.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Scarica in formato PDF o leggi online su Scribd
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    di 10
    Y David Bordwell Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures ‘Thee aspects of narrative can, atleast provisionally, be kept distinct. A narrative can be studied as representation, how it refers to or signifies a world or body of ideas. This we might call the “semantics” of narrative, and it is exemphiied in most studics of characterization or ralism. A narrative can also be studied as a sinature, the way its components combine to create a distinctive whole. An example of this “syntactic” approack would be Vladimir Propp? morphology of the magical fairy tale Finally, we can study a narrative as an act, a dynamic process of presenting a story to a perceiver. This would embrace considerations cof source, function, and effect; the temporal progress of information ot action; and concepts like the “narrator” Thisis the study of naration, the “pragmatics” - ofnarative phenomena. What follows concerns itself with narration in classical Hollywood cinema between 1917 and 1960, but it does not singlemindedly stick {this aspect. Its common for any one narrative analysis to focus on one aspect = but to bring in others as needed. Lévi-Strauss, for instance, uses a concept of | narrative structure to disclose deeper levels of meaning, what the myth repre- seats syntax isa tool for revealing semantics. In this essay, I introduce issues of [representation (especially denotative representation) and structure (especially damatargical structure) in order to highlight how classical Holly wood narration configuration of normalized opiiciisToriepresenting the Since this is a précs of an Adapted from David Bordvell, Nemation in he Fiction File (Madison: University of Wisconsin 1985), reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. 18 David Bordwell ad hoe body of research, it will have an unfortunately programmatic, ad Sir about i, but the readers can refer to the end ofthe arte forthe evidence ‘upon which these claims are based.* Unusual nomenclanure i glossed below.* ‘The Straight Corridor “The classical Hollywood film presents psychologically defined individuals who Tragletslve deat problem ort stain spectc gels Inthe couse of this struggle, the characters enter into conflict with others or with exter: ireumstances. The story ends with a decisive victory or defeat, a resolution of the problem and a clear achievement or nonachievernent of the goals. The principal causa is thus the character, distincive individual endowed ‘with an evident, consistent batch“of WANS, GUAGE and behaviors. Although the nema inherits many conventions of portrayal from theater and literature, the character types of melodrama and popular fiction get fleshed out by the addition of unique motifs, habits, or behavioral tics. In parallel fashion, the star system has as one of its functions the creation ofa rough character prototype ‘which is then adjusted to the particular needs of the role. The most “specified” character is usually the protagonist, who becomes the principal causal agent, the target of any narrational restriction, and the chief object of audience identi- fication, These features ofthe syuzhet come as no surprise, though already there sre importa deren from oer mations eves (eg, the compare, a ‘consistent and goal-oriented characters in art-cinema narration) Sf sa mas dat daa one conforms most closely to the “emo story” which story-comprehension researchers posit as normal for our culture ‘abule: Russian formalist term for the narrative events in causal chronological sequence. Sst on ri tm fr eran of fb evens inthe tn we ere eae etna ae ec eae pa Fee het where naraon phi os mngeid dp oftnowag Se eet kh te emda nove hve the pene Se re eu ae macs whee we commits Gb i exacting tix procs of ome io fncon nee Te nn: jtyingthe pens ofan deny vat of coniy wih Se, jing te proms fan elaen by i eling ttn to eas Sree Se kaon: jhng he psec of chet by fen to the ego of ae er epee to ge cameron) Classical Hollywood Cinema 19 In fabula terms, the reliance upon character cause and effect and the definition of the action as the attempt to achieve a goal ae salient features of the eanonic format.* At thelevel ofthe syushet, the classical film respects the canonic pattern of establishing an inital state of affairs which gots violated and which must then besot right. Indeed, Hollywood screenplzy-writing manuals have long insisted ‘ona formnla which bas been revived in recent structural analysis: the plot consists of an undisturbed stage, the cisturbance, the struggle, and che elminatoit ot ‘edisturbance.* Such a syuzher pattern is the inheritance not of some monolithic” ‘onstruct called the “novelistic” but of specific bistorical forms: the well-made ‘play the popular romance, and, crucially the late nineteenth-century short story.’ ‘The characters’ causal interactions are thus to a great extent functions of such overarching syuzhet/fabula patterns, Jn classical fabula construction, causality is the prime unifying principle Analogies between characters, settings, and situations are certainly present, but tthe denotativeleuel any parallelism is subordinated to the movement of cause and sffect° Spatial configurations are motivated by realism (a newspaper office Imust contain desks, typewriters, phones) and, chiefly, by compositional necessity (che desk and typewriter will be used to write causally significant news stories, the phones form crucial links among characters). Causality also motivates tem poral principles of organization: the syuzhe represents the order, frequency, and duration of fbula events in ways which bring out the salient causal relations. 1 This process is especially evident in 2 device highly characteristic of classical ‘narrition—the deadline. A deadline can be measured by calendars (Areund the Wild in Eighty Days), by clocks (High Noon), by stipulation (*Youlve got a week. but not 2 minute longes”), or simply by cues that time is running out (the last- ‘minute rescue). That the climax ofa classical film is often a deadline shows the structural power ing dramatic duration as the time i takes to achieve or Sal to achieve a goal. Peet ‘Usually the classical syuzhet presents 4 double causal stmacuure, 179 plot li one in hing bose Goy/gil, husband/wife), the other ‘nvelving another sphe cK, War, a mission or quest, other personal rela~ ips. Each line will possess a goal, obstacles, and a climax. In Wild and Wooly (1917), the hero Jeff has two goals—to live a wild western life and to court Nell, the woman of his dreams. The plot can be complicated by several lines, such as countervailing goals (the people of Bitter Creek want Jeff to get them a railroad spur, a crooked Indian agent wants to pla robbery) or multiple romances (as in Footlight Parade and Meet Me in St. Loui), In most cases, the romance sphere and the other sphere of action are distinct but interdependent. ‘The plot may close off one lin before the other, but often the two ines coincide at the dimax; resolving one triggers the resolution of the other. In His Gi the reprieve of Earl Williams precedes the reconciliation of Walter and ‘lly, but iti also the condition of the couple’ reunion. ‘The syuzhet is always broken up into segments. In the silent era, the typical 20 David Bordwell Hollywood flim would contain between 9 and 8 sequences in che Sou Ss between 14 and 35 (with postwar Speaking roughly, there are only. £0. €YPeS ‘of Hollywood segments. sum uae (compromising Mets third, fourth, and ght, syntagmatic type) am SSeenes” (Metz filth, sith, seventh, and eighth fYPss y Hollywood natration ently, demazoates in scenes by neodasicl critena ‘of time (continuous, Fo nt ofa complex braiirg of casa ines (s in Rivet) or 29 sb braking ofthem (asin Antonioni, Godard, oF Bresson) the classical Hollywood distinct cause-effect phase). The bounds ‘in spins them out in smooth, careful linearity. S “standardized puncruations Gssolve, fi A arrest chat the casi segment tends alo to define sS5° MESS, sically (through internal repetitions of style oF #0Fy material) and mie rocosmicaly (by parallels with odber segments of the Sr magnitude)" rane remember that each film establishes is own sie of segrncato, J cyurhet which concentrates on singe lode over limited a duration (Co, the one-night-in--haunted-house film) may reste eB nS by character tentrances or exits, 2 theatrical liaison des snes. Ti a film which spans decade 4 and many locales, + ries of dissolves from one stnall action to another will net need for a logical wrap-up. ‘Sl, there are enough instances of unmotivated or jnadequate plot resolutions to suggest * ‘second hypothesis: chat the classical ve ot all that structurally. decisive, being, a mre, les aba read ‘The clesical segment is not 2 sealed entity, Spaally and cemporally itis ee jstmentof that world knocked avy ip the previous eighty minutes. Parker closed, but easily ic open, It works to advance the causal Progress £5 ME Tiler suggests that Hollywood regards all endings 25 © sirely conventional, Fauld offen, lke the charade, of an infantile logic?" Hlere again SE 8 theimportane ofthe plotline involving heterosexual romances. Is significant ‘hat of yoo random ollyqyooa films, over 69 ended with a display oe Fomine couple —the cliché happy ending, often wih “Cinch ‘many more could be said to end happily "Thus an extrinsic norm, the need and ry He plot ina way that provides “pore juton” beoomes 2 struct} ede wv mire or se motivation into its proper sot, the plows, feany marae, as Mee Sternberg pots out, when the syuzhef ends strongly preast by convention, the-composiionalatention fs of the retardation of eee nocomplished by the middle portions; the tt will then “acco for aay tadason in quari-mimetic terms by Placing the causes for dehy the peer Fave word ielf and turning the middie into the bulk of the Fars ow Ac times, however, the motivation is constructed to be Efrat, and a discordance between preceding causality and 130 rmant becomes noticed ap ideological dfficolty; such isthe ate wath films BE You Only Live Once, Suspicion, The Woman in ‘the Window, and The Wrong ae ne We onght, then, tobe prepared for either askllfal tying up of a Joos eat gra more or Jess miracalous appearance of what Brecht calle bowrgsos Feenouck mounted messenger. “The mounted messenger guarsniess YOU & truly undisturbed appreciation of cren the most intolerable conditions 8° isa he qua non for a literature whose sine qua non i that it leads nowhere" ea aera ending may bea soe spot in another respect. Even ifthe ending recoles the two principal causal lines some comparatively minor issues mY open up new developments ® The pattem of this forward momentum is quite oper OF Ene montage Sequence tends to function 28a tansiona) SUNT g CSinpresing 2 single causal development but the sane of character action— he building block of clasical Hollywood dramaturgy “is mee intricately aa a ei soon displays dict phases. First comes the exposition crepes dhe me, Pace, and evant character theisS=vis! BORA aance pecrment states of mind (asually as 2 result of previous sen) WP the amydle of the scene, characters act toward their goals: chey struggle, make vheicce, make appointments, set deadlines, and plan future evens Inthe course Seis the dascieal soene continues or closes off cause-effect developments let “hile also opening up new causal lines for fature At least one | ¢ of action must be let suspended, in order 9 motivate the > the next scene, “hich picks up the suspended line [fen mae logue hook”) Hence the famous “Lnearity_of dase ‘construction eee racterstic of Soviet montage films (which often refuse 1 domay 2 tat any) or of artecinema narration (wih ts ambiguows iterpley of | subjectivity and objectivity) aeece a simple example. In The Killers (1946), the insurance invest ‘Rind as boos hearing Lieutenant Labinsky’s2ccount of Ole Andersons early life. At the end of the scene, Lubinsky tells Riordan that they'e burying Ole ae PS Thi dangling cause fads to the next scene, st in the emery. 8 Mablishing shor provides spatial exposition. While the clergyman intone: the cn ve ordan aks Lubinsky the Wentiry of various mourners. The 22 David Bordwvell still be left dangling. For example, the fates of secondary characters may go unsettled. In His Gil Friday, Earl Williams is teprieved, the corrupt adminis- tration wall be thrown out of office, and Walter and Hildy are reunited, but we never leam what happens to Molly Malloy, who jumped out a window to distract the reporters. (We know only that she was alive after the fll.) One could argue that in the resolution of the main problem we forget minor matters, but this is only a partial explanation. Our forgetting is promoted by the device of closing the film with an epilegue a brief celebration of the stable state achieved by the main characters. Not only does the epilogue reinforce the tendency toward a happy ending; it lso repeats connotative mori that have rom through- cout the film. His Gil Friday closes on a brief epilogue of Walter and Hildy calling the newspaper office to announce thei remarriage. They learn that 2 strike has started in Albany, and Walter proposes stopping off to cover it on their honeymoon. This plot twist announces a repetition of what happened on their frst honeymoon and recalls that Hildy was going to marry Bruce and live in Albany. As the couple leave, Hildy carrying her suitcase, Walter suggests that Brice might put them up. The neat recurrence of these motifs gives the narration a strong tity, when such details are so tightly bound together, Molly Malloy’ fate is more likely to be overlooked. Perhaps instead of “dosure” it would be better to speak of a “closure effec,” or even, if the strain of resolved and unresolved issues seems strong, of “pseudo-closure” At the level of extrinsic norms, though, the most coherent possible epilogue remains the standard to be aimed at. Commonplaces like “transparency” and “invisibility” are on the whole un- helpful in specifying the narrational properties of the classical film. Very gen- erally, we can say that classical narration tends to_be omniscient, highly communicative. and _ouly..moderately. self-conscio is, the narration knows more than any or all characters, it conceals relatively litle (chiefly “what will happen next”), and it seldom acknowledges its own address to the audience But we must qualify this characterization in two respects. First, generic fictors ‘often create variations upon these precepts. A detective film will be quite restricted in ts range of kmowledge and highly suppressive in concealing causal | information. A’ melodrama like In This Our Lif can be slightly more sel conscious than The Big Slep, especially in its use of acing and music. A rascal __Will contain codified moments of self-consciousness (e.g., when characters sing “directly out at the viewer). Second, the temporal progression of the syuzhet ‘makes narrational properties uctuste across the film, and these too are codified. ‘Typically, the opening and closing of the film are the most self-conscious, omniscient, and communicative passages. The credit sequence and the first few shots usually bear traces of an overt narration. Once the action has started, however,the narration becomes more covert, letting the characters and theit interaction take over the transmission of information. Overt narrational activity retums at certain conventional moments: the beginnings and endings of scenes Classical Hollywood Cinema 23 (eg, establishing shots, shots of signs, camera movements out from or in to Significant objects, symbolic dissolves), and that summary passage known as the “montage sequence.” At the very close of the syuzhet, the narration may again acknowledge its awareness of the audience (musical motifs reappear, characters Jook to the camera or close a door in our face}, its omniscience (c.g, ‘the camera retreats to a long-shot), and its commumicativeness (now we know all). Classical narration is thus not equally, “invisible” in every type of film nox _ _trosghout anyon lth “malsoCemncaton ae ometines Sand, ‘comumunicativeness of classical narration is evident in the way that the syuchet handles gaps. If tims is skipped over, a montage sequence or a bit of character dialogue informs us, ifa cause is missing, we will typically be informed that something isnt there. And gaps will seldom be permanent. “In the begin ning of the motion picture,” writes one scenarist, “we dontt know anything. ‘Duting the course of the story, information is accumulated, until at the end we know everything” Again, thesc principles can be mitigated by generic moti- vation. A mystery might suppress a gap (e.g, the opening of Mildred Pierce), a fantasy might Ieave a cause still questionable at the end (e.g, The Enchanted Catage). In this respect. Citizen Kane remains somewhat “uncassical"> the natration Supplies the annswer to the “Rosebud” mystery, but the central traits of Kane’ character remain partly undetermined, and no generic motivation justifies this. ‘The syuzhet’s construction of time powerfully shapes the fuctuating overtness of narration. When the syuzhet adheres to chrnnalngical order and omite the causally unimportant periods of time, the narration becomes highly commn- nicative and unselfconscious. On the other hand, a montage sequence compresses political campaign, a murder trial, or the effects of Prohibition into moments, and the narration becomes evertly omniscient. A flashback can quickly and covertly fill a causal gap. Redundancy can be achieved without violating the fabula world if the narration represents each story event several times in the syusher, through one enactment and several recotuntings in character dialogue. Deadlines neatly let the syuzhet unselfConsciously respect the durational limits that the fabula world sets for its action. When itis necessary to suggest repeated. or habitual actions, the montage sequence will again do nicely, as Sartre noted ‘when he praised Citizen Kanet montages for achieving the equivalent of the “frequentative” tense: “He made his wife sing in every theater in America." ‘When the syuzhet uses a newspaper headline to cover gaps of time, we recognize both the narrations ommiscience and its relatively low profile. (The public record is less self-conscious than an intertitle “coming straight from” the narration.) ‘More generally, classical narration reveals its discretion by posing as an edivorial ‘intelligence that selects certain stretches of time for full-scale treatment (the ‘scenes), pares down others alittle, presents others in highly compressed fashion (the montage sequences), and simply scissors out events that are inconsequential. =, When fabula duration is expanded, itis done through crosscutting, | 24 David Bordwell ‘Overall narrational qualities are also manifested in the film's manipulation of space. Eigutcs readjusted for moderatecelf-consciousness by angling the bodies more of less frontally but avoidi (except, of course, in optical point-of-view passages). That no causally significant cucs in a scene are left unknown testifies to the communicativensss of narration. Most important is the mrratio Spatial omnipresence.” Ifthe narration plays down its knowledge of effects and upcoming temporal developments, it does not hesitate to reveal its ability to change views at will. Cutting within a scene and crosscutting between vasious locales testify to the narration’s omnipresence. Writing in 1935, 2 critic daims that the camera is omniscient in that it “stimulates, through correct choice of subject matter and set-up, the sense within the percipient of being atthe most, vital part of the experience—at the most advantageous point of perception’ throughout the picrare”* Whereas Miklos Jancsos long takes create spatial patterns that refuse omnipresence and thus drastically restrict the spectator’ knowledge of story information, classical omnipresence makes the cognitive schema_we call “the camera’ into an idea invisible observer, feed from the tingencis of space and time. but then discreedly confining itself to codified teins for the sake of story intelligibility. iy virtue of its handling of space and time, classical narration my sistent construct into Which narration seems to step from the outside of mise-en-scéne (Bgure = Tighing, Setting, costume) ang ic event, which becomes the tangible story world framed and recorded from . This framing and recording tends to be taken as the narration itself, which can in ‘uum be more or less overt, more or kss “intrusive” on the posited homogencity of the story world. Classical narration thus depends upon. the notion of the invisible observer” Bazin, for instance, portrays the dassical scene as existing, 4 independently of narration, as if on a stage.™ The same quality is named by the notion of “concealment of production’: the fabula seems not to have been constructed but appears to have preexisted lis narrational representation, (in Production, in some sense, it often did: for major films of the 1930s and thereafter, Hollywood set designers created three-dimensional tabletop mock- ups of sets within which models of cameras, actors, and lighting units could be Phoed to predetermine filming procedures. )* This invisible-observer narration is itself often fairly effaced. The stylistie causes of this I shall cxamine shortly, but we can already see that dassical narration quickly cues us to construct story logic (causality, parallelisms), time, and space in ways that make the events “before the camera” our principal source ‘of information. For example, its obvious that Holly wood narratives are highly redundant, but this effect is achieved principally by patterns attributable to the ‘story world. Following Susan Suleimanis taxonomy, we can see that the nar- ration assigns the same traits and functions to each character on her or his Classical Hollywood Cinema 25 appearance; different characters present the same interpretive commentary on the same character or situaticn; similar events befall different characters, and so fon. Information is for the raost part repeated by characters’ dialogue or de~ ‘meanor. There is, admiztedly some redundancy between narrational commen- tary and depicted fabula action, as when silent film expository intettles convey Crucial information or when nondiegetic music is pleonastic with the action (6g, “Here Comes the Bride’ in In This Our Lif). Nevertheless, in general, the narration is so constructed that characters and their behavior produce and tehterate the necessary story data. The Soviet montage cinema makes much stronger use of redundancies between nartational commentary and fabula action. Retardation operates in analogous fashion: the construction of the total fabula ‘is delayed principally by inserted lines of action (eg, causally relevant subplots, interpolated comedy bits, musical numbers) rather than by narrational digres sions ofthe sort found in the “God and Country” sequence of Ocober. Similarly, causal gaps in the fabula are usually signaled by character actions (e.g, the discovery of clues in detective films). The viewer concentrates on constructing the fabula, not on asking why the narration is representing the fabula in this particular way—a question more typical of art-cinema narration. ‘The priority of fabula causality and an integral fabula world commits classical nairation to unaml presentation. Whereas art-cinema narration can blar separating objective diegetic reality, characters’ mental states, and in serted narrational commentary, the classical film asks us to assume clear dis- tincriqns among these states. When the classical film restricts kuuwledge 10 a character, as in most of The Big Sleep and Murder My Siveet, there is nonetheless a firm borderline between subjective and objective depiction. Of course, the ‘aration can set traps for us, a in Possesed (1947), when a murder that appears tobe objective i revealed to have been subjective (a generically motivated switch, incidentally); but the hoax is revealed immediately and unequivocally. The classical flashback is revealing in this connection. Its presence is almost invariably motivated subjectively since a character’ recollection triggers the enacted rep resentation ofa prior event. But the range of knowledge in the flashback portion is often mot identical with that of the character doing the remembering, Ie is common for the fashback to chow us more than the character can know (e.g, scenes in which s/he is not present). Am amusing example occurs in Ten North Frederik, The bulk of the film s presented asthe daughter's flashback, but atthe ‘ad of the syuzhet, back in the present, she learns for the first time information ‘wchad enconnteredin “her” fasaback! Classical lashbacksare typically “objectve"- Seep memory msi for 2 nonchovologial svuahet atrangemen Simalaly, optically subjective shots “anchored in an objective context. ‘One writer notes that a point-of-view shot “must be motivated by, and definitely linked to, the objective scenes [shots} that precede and follow it”® This is one source of the power ofthe invsible-observer effec: the camera seems always £0 fe indude character subjectivity within a broader and definite objectivity. | : ale eyhihe eee 26 David Bordwell Clase Holyded Cinema 27 Classical Style conventional cues, a line of dialegue). Lighting must pick out figure from round; color must define planes; in each shot, the center of story interest will fend to be centered in relation. t0 the: sides of the frame Sound recording is Even ifthe naive spectator takes the style of the classical Hollywood film to be ertaible or seamles, this is not much critical help. Whatnakes.he-sple ~inespectator through repeated setups, Momentary disorientation is ‘permissible ‘uly if modvated realistically, Discontinuous editing, as in Slavko Vorkapich’s sequence of the earthquake in San Francisca is motivated by the chaos of the acon depicted. Stylistic disorientation, in short, is permissible when it conveys disorienting story situations. {3) Classical syle consists ofa strictly ited number of particular technical + devices organized into a stable paradigm and ranked probabjlistically according ieapasher demands. A Tir Gpilste convandows of Hollywood narration, sanging from shot com- position to sound mixing, are intuitively recognizable to most viewers, This is because the style deploys a limited number of devices, and these devices are regulated as alternative depictive options. Lighting offers a simple example. A seene may be lit “high-key” or “low-key” ‘There is three-point lighting (key, fll, tnd backlighting on figure, plus background lighting) versus single-source Iighting. The cinematographer also has several degress of diffusion available, Now in the abstract all choices are equiprobable, but in a given context, one decoratively supplementing denotative syuahet demands, the use of technique alternative is more likely than its mates. In a comedy, high-key lighting is more muse be minimally motivated by the characters interactions. “Excess” such 28 probable; a dark street will redistically motivate single-source lighting: the ine find in Minnelli or Sirk, is often initially justified by generic convention, “ge oseup of a woman will be more heavily diffused than that of man.The “The same holds true for even the most eccentric stylist in Hollywood, Busby invisibility” ofthe classical stylein Hollywood relies not only on highly codified, Berkeley and Josef von Stemberg, each of whom required a core of generic [HjISTE devices but aso upon eicodifed functions in context. motivation (musical fantasy and exotic romance, respectively) for his » Or recall the ways of framing the human figure. Most often, @ character will | be flamed between plan-ameriat (the knees-up framing) and medium closeup (@) Jn classical narration, style typically encourages the spectator fo construc “(he chest-up framing); the angk will be straight-on, at shoulder or chin level. ‘aco! 1: ace ofthe fabula action. “The framing is less ikely to be an extreme long-shot oc an extreme closeup, a thigh or low angle. And a bird’ eye view ora view from straight below are very improbable and would require compositional or generic motivation (eg, as an ‘optical point of view or 25 2 view of a dance ensemble in a musical) Most explicitly codified into nies is the system of continuity diferent purposes). Only classical narration favors 2 style which strives foc Cimost denotative clarity from moment to moment. Each scones temporal relation to its predecessor will be signaled early and unequivocally (by inert, 28 David Bordwell i i space, and the “The reliance upon an axis of ection orients the spectator to the space, subsequent cutting, presents clear paradigmatic choices among different kinds ‘of “matches” That these are weighted probablistically is shown by the fact that most Hlllywoed-ccenes_bepin-with-esabliching shots_brcak the space into closer views linked by eyeline-matches and/or shot/rewnrsc shor and seni to ote Sr acquis doe see to he ccocenied. ‘Playing an entire scene without fan establishing shot is unlikely but permissible (specially if stock or location forage or special effects are employed); mismatched screen direction and in- consistently angled oyelines are les likely; percepiible jump cuts and unoioti- vated cutaways are flatly forbidden. This paradigmatic aspect makes the classical sc focal “ls nna formula os edipe but a historically constramed set of more or less likely options *” These three factors go some way toward explaining why the classical Hol- Iywood style passes ‘eladvely unnoticed. Each film will eoombice familia devices within fairly predicable paterns and according to the demands of the syurhet. The spectator will almost never be at a loss to grasp a stylistic feature because s/he is oriented in time and space and because stylistic figures will be ble in the light of a paradigm. RS oe com te ron of oye ad sj we can say that de individual film is characterized by its obedience to a set of extrinsic normas which gover both syuzhet construction and stylistic patterning, The classical cinema does not entourage the film to es ee and syazhet seldom enjoy prominence. A. film’s principal innov: ; ral ofthe bula-te. “new stories” OF course, syuchet devices and stliste features have changed over Gime, But the findamental principles of syuzhet construction (preeminence of causality, goal-oriented protagonist, deadlines etc) have remained in force since 1917. The stability and uniformity of Holly- wood narration is indeed one reason to call it classical at east insofar as classicism in any artis traditionally characterized by obedience to extrinsic norms “The Logic of Classical Spectatorship “The stability of syazhet processes and stylistic configurations should not make Sag recat daniel spectator as passive material for a totalizing machine. Th Ge ‘eg baal and brlar The Hollywood fabula isthe produc of erie of icular schemata, hypotheses, and inferences. Pee pe spectator comes to classical film very well prepared. The rough shape 3 of syuzhet and fabula s ikely to conform to the canonic story of an individuals goaboriented, causally determined activity. The spectator knows the most likey stylistic figures and functions. The spectator has internalized the scenic noms Classical Hollywood Cinema 29 of exposition, development of old causal line, and so forth. The viewer also Jnows the pertinent ways to motivate what is presented. “Realistic” motivation, in this mode, consists of making connections recognized as plausible by common, opinion. (‘A man like this would naturally. . ") Compositional motivation consists of picking out the important links of cause to effect. The most important forms of transtextual motivation are recognizing the recurrence of a star’ persona from film to film and recognizing. generic conventions. Generic moti- vation, as we have seen, hasa particularly trong effect on narrational procedures, Finally, artstic motivation—taking an element as being present for its own sako—is not unknown in the classical film. A moment of spectacle or technical virtuosity, a thrown-in mnsical number or comic interlude: the Hollywood cinema intermittently welcomes the possibility of sheer self-absorption. Such ‘omen ay be highly reflexive, “baring the device” of the narration’ own ‘Work, a5 when in Angels Over Broadway a destitute playwright reflects, “Our present plot problem is money” On the basis'of such schemata the viewer projects hypotheses. Hypotheses tend to be probable (validated at several points), sharply excsive (rendered as cither/or alternatives), and aimed at suspense (positing a fature outcome). In Phil Rosen Roaring Timber (1937), a landowner enters a saloon in which our hero is siting. The owner is looking for a tough foreman. Hypothesis: he will ask the hero to take the joh. This hypothesis is probable, future-oriented, and exclusive (either the man will ask our hero or he wort). The viewer is helped in ffaming such hypotheses by several processes. Repetition reaffirms the data ‘on which hypotheses should be grounded. “State every important fact three times” suggests scenarist Frances Marion, “for the play is lost ifthe audience fais to understand the premises on which itis based.”® The exposition of past fabula action will characteristcally be placed within the carly scenes of the syuahet, thus supplying a firm basis for our hypothesis-forming. Except in a mystery film, the exposition neither sounds waming signals nor actively mis Jeads us, the primacy effec is given fll sway. Characters will be introduced in typical behavior, while the star system reaffirms first impressions. (“The moment you see Walter Pidgeon in 2 film you know he could not do a mean or petty thing”)® The device of the deadline asks the viewer to construct forward-aiming, all-orsnothing causal hypotheses: either the protagonist will achieve the goal in time or s/he will not. And if information is unobtrusively “planted” early on, |hter hypotheses will become more probable by taking “insignificant” foreshad- ‘owing material for granted. ‘This process holds atthe stylistic evel as well. The spectator constructs fabula time and space according to schemata, cues, and hypothesis-framing. Holly- ‘wood! extrinsic norms, wit their fixed devices and paradigmatic organization, supply the viewer with firm expectations that can be measured against the ‘concrete cues emitted by the film. In making sense of a scene's space, the spectator need not mentally replicate every detail of the space but need only \ Glaszal Hollywood Cinema 34 Implications and Avenues \ 30 David Bordwell constrict a rough relational map of the principal dramatic factors. Thus 2 “cheat Cae is easly ignored because the spectators cognitive processes rank cues by their pertinence to constructing the ongoing causal chain ofthe fbula, and on this scale, the changes in speaker, camera position, and facil expression are more notewortby than say, a slight shift in hand positions The same goes for temporal mismatches. "What is rare in the classical film, then, is Henry James’ “crooked corridor? the use of narration to make us jump to invalid conclusions. The avoidance of Gisorientation we saw at work in classical style holds good more broadly a Swell, Future-oriented “suspense” hypotheses are more important than past Gented “cutiosity” ones, and surprise is less important than either. In Roaring “Timbo; imagine ifthe landowner bad entered the bar seeking a tough foreman, offered the job to our hero, and he had replied in a fashion that showed he wes ot tough, Indeed, one palrpose of foreshadowing and repetition is exactly to “roid surprises later on. Of course if all hypotheses were steadily and imme- ‘Gately confirmed, the viewer would quickly lose interest. Several factors inter ‘ene to complicate the process. Most generally, schemata are by definition bstract prototypes structures, and procedures, and these never specify all the properties of the text. Many long-range hypotheses must avait confirmation Retardation devices, being unpredictable to a great degree, can introduce objects of immediate attention a5 well as delay satisfaction of overall expectation. The primacy effect can be countered by what psychologists call a “reamcy effec” Pinch qualifies and peiliys even appoare to negate on first impression of 2 tharacter or situation. Furthermore, the structure of the Hollywood scene, which Simost invariably ends with an unresolved issue, insures that an event-centered hnypothess carries interest over to the next sequence. Finally we should ne tnvlerestimate the role of rapid dhythm in the classical film; more than_ooe By virtue of its centrality within intemational film commerce, Hollywood stylistic or syuzhet processes. Broadly speaking, we could periodize classical Hollywood narration on thice levels. With respect to devices, we could trace changes within classical narrational paradigms, accoeding to what options come % ino favor at cena prods Here we should look not only for innovations but normalization, patterns of majosty or custo ce. E_ seenes by dissolves is possible but rare in the Stent cinema, yet ‘se Bel .Jransition between 1929 and the late 1950s. On the dimension of narrational sessed the pend tp more the construcuon of ory acon aba Ula ews we could sudy the zines dat consutesaszative causal Bae a essence sno Geto selector es bord. is eek of ad space, Spt coniny within a ene cn be ached byl ting from Sika narration to solicit strongly probable and exclusive hypotheses and then several functionally equivalere techniques, but such continu Confirm them while still maintaining variety inthe concrete working out of the He et pee at en : this postulate can be traced across the history of cinema. We could also study Buctuations ofthe mote abstract narrational propertis over time. For instance, ration in the 1920-1923 American silent cinema tends to be somewhat more conscious than inthe later 19205, chiefly because ofa greater use of expository es in the earlier period. Similarly, an insistently overt suppressiveness : oe many El aoa wih he groping Enon fn Ln at the manifold possibilities; we await a thorough hist. scl storytelling and styl Ser ‘we might finally ask, does all this leave two important critical issues: hip and ideology? In cis space, only sketchy answers can be suggested. lent that. an auteur’s work can be identified by i iciples and_patterns. cock and Fuller’ films are more than, say, those of Hawks and Preminger. Moreover, we can associate Moreover, we can associate _

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