A film’s fabula is not materially present on the screen or soundtrack
Style:
The films systematic use of story devices: canonical, genre, linear, non-linear
Syuzhet:
Consists of a particular pattern of events (actions, scenes, turning points, plot twists)
Manipulation of causal intervention
Dramaturgy of film: the organized set of cues prompting us to infer and assemble story information
The Syuzhet and style interact in the course of cueing and channeling the spectator’s construction of the fabula
Denotation and connotation “become fellow travelers in the story”
Denotation: the literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.
Connotation: he associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.”.
Logical, temporal and spatial nature of syuzhet
Gaps are created by choosing to present certain pieces of fabula information and to hold back others
A detective story calls attention to its gaps , makes us fret over the lack of certain data
Omitted fabula information will become important later
Revelation of some (not all) information can arouse anticipation, curiosity, suspense, and surprise
In a crime story crucial murder evidence emerges piecemeal
The case can’t be solved too quickly
Resolution is suspended until conclusion
SIN MURDER AND NARRATION Transtextual motivation is a strong factor in determining a film’s narrational options. All films exploit disparities between fabula and syuzhet, but different genres do so in different ways The Detective film (Serial) vs. The Melodrama (The Wire maybe) Detective Film: Serial Crime
We learn what the detective learns when he or she learns it
We are not allowed access to the detective’s inferences until he or she voices them
Unless the detective is baffled or turns out wrong The activity of piecing together cause and effect in the crime fabula constitutes the central formal convention of the detective tale Privileged access to his character and motives Romance becomes another factor. The detective is attracted to the Femme Fatale even if he suspects them of deception, betrayal or even worse (Could be why listeners interpret Sarah as “in love” with Adnan.
Maximizes the viewer’s urge to know what will happen next—and, especially, how any given character will react to what has happened
The emotional expressiveness of the film issues partly from the narration’s tendency to be omni--communicative To wring every emotional drop out of the fabula situations the narration employs omniscience Various characters discover what viewers already know Unrestricted knowledge: Crosscutting different plotlines
Following several characters from one locale to another
Film can still manipulate knowledge in as complicated a fashion as detective stories
Syuzhet will inform us of initiation of a chain of action and then skip over some time or move to another line of action Detective Film:
Presupposes stable but concealed emotional nexus (A hates and kills B, but pretends he did not hate or kill The melodrama assumes violent and overt changes of emotional attitudes
