| Name: | Description: | Size: | Format: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 184.07 KB | Adobe PDF |
Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
ABSTRACT - Some films are multi-plot narratives operating as a network of related events played out by a large number of core characters. Since these characters are all protagonists in their own right, this results in a complex form of storytelling that can be used for dramatic purposes as well as for comedy. In both cases, however, there is a sort of play at stake here because the screenwriter is forced to mingle them all in a single film, thus stressing the storytelling over the story told. Enter the director, centre stage. The story on paper, i.e. the script, has to gain another life as characters are portrayed by actors and the game of shooting begins. Here the director, by using certain filmic techniques that reinforce his/her own role as puppet master, adds another layer of narration to the film, thus further stressing the storytelling and its playful, although not necessarily joyful, nature. In the film Happy Endings - written and directed by Don Roos, 2005, USA - the scrambling and re-scrambling of character’s lives in one single multiple and complex plot, via the art of the filmmakers and the craft of the actors invested in their roles, reveals itself to be not only playful but joyful as well. The film is a comedy where the events are doubly enunciated: as actions portrayed by people, and as text written large over the image as the actions evolve. Thus, the director writes himself onscreen as an artist just as is he is literally writing his characters bios and convolutions. What a playful and thoroughly self-conscious storytelling this is, reminiscent of some of Woody Allen’s masterpieces.
Description
Session 7: Playing with Roles, images and improvising New States of Awareness, 3rd Global Conference, 1st November – 3rd November, 2014, Prague, Czech Republic.
Keywords
Multi-plot Multi-strand narrative structures Complex multiple narrative Storytelling Network Happy endings