Most modern studies of narrative tend to focus predominantly on literature with only some reference to film. In Film Narratology, Peter W.J. Verstraten makes film narratives his primary focus, while noting the unexplored and essentially different narrative effects that film can produce with mise-en-sc ne, cinematography, and editing. Reworking the definitive theory of narration offeredby literary scholar Mieke Bal, Film Narratology examines cinematic techniques such as external and internal narration, visual and auditive focalization, the narrative force of sound, and the ambiguities caused by voice-overs and flashbacks. Verstraten illustrates these narrative principles with a broad range of examples drawn from avant-garde cinema, golden age Hollywood, blockbusters, and European art cinema. Insightful and comprehensive, Film Narratology will surely become the standard reference of cinematic narration for film students and scholars.
About the AuthorPeter Verstraten is a lecturer in Literary Studies at the University of Leiden Stefan van der Lecq is an editor at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis.
Reviews'Verstraten's book provides an indispensable guide to the narratological analysis of films. Film Narratology is interdisciplinary in the best sense of the word, taking both narrative theory and film analysis seriously and in great detail. Concept-based, Verstraten's lucid dialogues between concepts and an enormous corpus of films, from Hollywood to avant-garde, are inspirational.' -- Mieke Bal, Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science and author of Narratology
Book InformationISBN 9780802095053
Author Peter VerstratenFormat Paperback
Page Count 248
Imprint University of Toronto PressPublisher University of Toronto Press
Weight(grams) 360g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 182mm * 14mm