Peter Verstraten (translated by Stefan van der Lecq),
Film Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009
ISBN-13: 978 080209 505 3
US$27.95 (pb)
259pp
(Review copy supplied by University of Toronto Press)

In Film Narratology Peter Verstraten attempts one of film theory’s more ambitious and potentially fatal balancing acts. As a hypothetical outline of the essential conditions of filmic narration, Film Narratology attempts to target and define those specific devices of the cinema that are foundational to cinematic narration and that differentiate the cinematic medium from literature. “There are,” Verstraten writes, “to paraphrase Seymour Chatman, many things that novels can do that film cannot and vice versa.” (p. 9) “The altered nature of narration in cinema [altered from literary narration] is an urgent reason to rethink filmic narrativity.” (p. 5)

The inherent problem in Verstraten’s aim – a problem that permeates the whole book – is that his concern to articulate the essential conditions of filmic narration is premised on a principle of difference. As an application and modification of the narratological principles proposed by Mieke Bal in Narratology (first published in Dutch in 1978 and since significantly revised in English), Verstraten seeks to define film narratology in relief, as it were. It is the deviation(s) of cinema as a medium from Bal’s narratology of literature that Verstraten is most concerned to explain. The paradoxical problem of this agenda is that, while defining filmic narration in reference to its deviations from literature (not in itself a problem), Verstraten maintains the dubious perspective of a narrative ontologist.

Perhaps this paradox is unavoidable within the terms of Verstarten’s essentialist goals. Perhaps any attempt to formulate universally applicable principles of filmic narration is bound to fail, completely and utterly, unless the narrative theorist keeps at least one foot on the solid foundation of an adjacent theory, or an adjacent field of study. “The need has risen for a post structuralist approach to the matter at hand,” Verstraten argues in his introduction:

“In my opinion, Mieke Bal’s Narratology (1997) offers a starting point for such a film narratology. This might appear odd, since Narratology… was [originally] focused on literature from a structuralist point of view.” (p. 6)

It would appear odd were it not such a typical strategy of film theorists. Importing theoretical frameworks and rubbing together adjacent theories has, for a long time now, been a sure-fire way to produce original concepts and exciting new directions in a still immature and easily impressed field. Going it alone – developing principles of filmic narrative from scratch – this would seem too much like building a castle in the thin air, and a sand castle at that. To define the normative, intrinsic principles of any narrative, medium, text or social order, it would seem necessary to refer to, or at least imagine, a counter-narrative text, medium or social order. The counter-text provides a point of friction necessary to bring the discrete constituents of an otherwise amorphous landscape into sharp focus.

The central tenet of Verstraten’s concept of film narratology is his assumption of the presence of a filmic narrator as (if I understand him correctly) an essential or implicit condition of the medium. He defines narration quite liberally (and problematically) as “the representation of a (perceptible) temporal development. For film this means that showing a moving image may already suffice to create narration.” (p. 8) Verstraten’s definition here markedly distinguishes his conception of narrative from the narrative theories of David Bordwell, on the one hand, who rejects the idea of a narrative agent independent of spectatorial activity and Seymour Chatman, on the other, who places authorial intention at the centre as a necessary condition for narration. Follwing Bal, Verstraten wants to get to the essence of the thing, of film narration in and of itself (a goal only made perceptible, if not achievable, when set against the background of Bal’s literary theory).

What this essentialist ambition means for Verstraten’s delineations of the specifically filmic narrational devices of the cinema is an astonishing reliance on generalisations made on the basis of a very small selection of films. Film Narratology is a 200 page book, and yet its ambition stretches beyond several volumes. In his overview of the narrative impact of mise-en-scene devices, for example, Verstraten presumes to sum up the essential narrational functions performed by staging, props, costumes, location, setting and lighting – all of this in less than ten pages. The lack of thoroughness here is a major concern. Verstraten’s summation of the narrational implications of staging, for instance, refers to only three sequences from three different films (Haneke’s The Piano Teacher (Austria/France/Germany 2001), Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (USA 1955) and Sternberg’s Morroco (USA 1930)), and in each case his focus is solely on the symbolic connotations established by each director’s handling of staging strategies (see pp. 59-60). As in many other sections of his book, Verstraten here seems not to acknowledge (or even be aware of) the idea that symbolic functions represent only one type of possible narrative function performed by cinematic devices. The more obvious function of staging, the denotation of narrative information through character action in the unfolding of plot, remains overlooked.

Such oversights are, I suggest, symptomatic of an ontological conception of narrative that conceives of the unfolding of plot as a condition of the medium. Verstraten’s definition of narrative as a representation of temporal development allows for a far broader inclusiveness than, say, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s insistence on a causal definition of narrative. Consequently, Verstaten finds that such films as Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (France 1961) and Riefenstahl’s Olympia (Germany 1938) (which Bordwell and Thompson class as non-narratives) can be regarded as narratives despite the fact that these films exhibit none of the explicit casual connections for the spectatorial construction of a fabula.

Now I’m all for venturing beyond causality (or, rather, explicit causality) as a primary pre-requisite for definitions of narrative construction. However, the problem with the ontologically liberal inclusiveness of Verstraten’s definition is that it prompts us to ponder pointless problems, less the question “what is film narrative?” than the question “what isn’t film narrative?” As Verstraten acknowledges, the problem “is film essentially narrative?” necessarily arises if the theorist presupposes the possibility of finding an essentialist definition of narrative. And as Verstraten also acknowledges, any amount of speculation over the question leads the theorist to the answer of “a complex yes and no.” (p. 24)

It’s the persistence of questions and answers like these that highlight the (essential?) problem with ontological theories of film narrative. Not only are they redundantly all-inclusive, essentialist theories of narrative like Verstraten’s presume the dormant, independent existence (as a “thing”) of a narrational process that exists only as an action involving a spectator. Despite the restrictive stipulations of Formalism or Constructivism, the usefulness of a formalist approach remains its insistence on the incompleteness of narrative as a thing in and of itself (and this applies to the specific narrative of a given film, let alone the universal “thing” Verstraten seeks to outline). Narration as actuality exists only as a spectatorial act. “There can,” as Barthes emphasised, “be no narrative without a narrator and a listener (or reader).”[1] Although Verstraten (very briefly) acknowledges the necessity of the viewer for narration, all of the specifically filmic devices he cites are described and defined unequivocally as performing functions (of a narrative order) independently of spectatorial comprehension.

Ultimately, what we have in Narratology is another example of a film theorist hoping to find a direct, magical route through the mountains, a route mapped out by literary theory. Unfortunately, the map was designed for a different field, and it gets us nowhere. I wonder how long things like this will go on, these abracadabra stabs in the dark, before film scholars actually start the slow, up-hill walk and discover things for themselves.

Thomas Redwood,
Australia.

Endnotes:

[1] Barthes, R., ‘Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives’ in Image-Music-Text (New York: Hill & Wang, 1977) p. 109.

Created on: Sunday, 7 November 2010