Week 3 [Workshop Notes]

Life Does Not Tell Stories

"Life does not tell stories. Life is chaotic, fluid, random. It leaves myriads of ends untied, untidily. The writer can extract a story from life only by strict, close selection, and this must mean falsification. Telling stories really is telling lies."
Jonathan Coe (2004:35)

Narrative Structure

• Classic Narrative structure
• Todorov cycle (1977)
• Inductive model

Equilibrium 

Disruption

Recognition

Attempt

New Equilibrium

Deductive model

The resolution of the film is presented at the start. 

All scene relate to the main question and will include and conclusion eg. Lie of the Land

Documentary occupies "a complex zone of representation in which the art of observing, responding, and listening must be combines with the art of shaping interpreting or arguing."

Bill Nichols (1997)

Sans Soleil (1983, Marker) 

• Unconventional image-sound relationship - no definite correspondence between narration "instance of post-modernism" with the video and sound out of sink
• Narration of personal memory of events, subjective views. Puts into perspective the conventional narration of documentary with a female voice over.
• Narrating human culture - Images are neither the real history or the fiction, only recording as an observer to capture every moment but narration makes it thoughtful
• Using narration to show director's thinking and respect to culture and society.
• Female voice and authority - Sans Soleil is an expository doc with a conventional narration.
• "the authoring presence of the filmmaker is represented by the commentary and voice of authority is seen as the filmmaker." (Nichols 1991:37)
• Man always decided what can be talked about, and what cannot..." (Moi 1987:78)
• Male voice = authority, female voice = unreliable and week
• The female narration is there to intentionally mislead the spectator, it leads them to misinterpret the images.

Questions

- To what extent does the narration impact our understanding of what we see?

- What elements impact our level of trust towards the narrator?

- Does a narration destroy the "pure image" as Kozloff states in the reading?

- Has sounds ever been detrimental to the image in your experience?

Vimeo Short Documentary - 50 years and a few puss kittens wiser