Narrative Comprehension and Film

PREFACE

In recent years the study of narrative has acquired a new and prominent role in theorizing about film. Since at least 1907 narrative has been the dominant mode of filmmaking as well as the principal source of examples for writers exploring the ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, and ideology of film. Even so, it has only been within the last decade that writers have fully recognized the formative power of narrative and begun the task of integrating sophisticated theories of narrative with theories of the general nature of film and film style. Indeed it was discovered that classical film theories were often premised on a tacit and fragmentary view of the nature of narrative.

The current situation is the result of two trends. In the mid-1960s ...