Diegetic
Breaks and the Avant-Garde
Curt
Hersey
What happened? Why was I suddenly involuntarily transported from
the diegetic world of the film back to the world in front of the screen?
Sheena Rogers (2001) sees the movie screen as a window, much like Alice’s
looking-glass in the novels of Lewis Carroll. Imaginatively, we can
see into the screen and become part of the world beyond; however, the
glass always remains between the viewer and the other side (p. 10).
As a film viewer, I am accustomed to imaginatively jumping through
the screen to the world beyond, and shall remain there until something
breaks me out of that diegetic world. If the person in front of me gets
up for another drink or the child behind me cries, I am usually temporarily
distracted from the movie. However, I increasingly find myself transported
back to the theater by what is happening within the frame. The film itself reminds
me that I am watching a film.
Normally, the filmmaker’s role is assumed
to be that of minimizing the barrier between viewer and film, and facilitating
the imaginative leap into the screen. However, the intrusion of film
structure into the diegesis is not a new occurrence. Avant-garde films,
such as those made by Yvonne Rainer, have long gone against the grain
of traditional Hollywood cinema: “Her use of discontinuous editing,
scene repetition, multiple perspectives, disjunctive juxtapositions,
and nonrealist narration is designed to question the sorts of perceptual
procedures which accompany mainstream narrative” (Ryan & Kellner,
1988, p. 283). In describing the film Un
Chien Andalou (1928), Stephen Prince (2001) says “the film’s disjointed,
dreamlike, and irrational narrative frustrates the audience’s desire
to draw a coherent interpretation of its dissociated events” (p. 330).
What is striking is how these statements could describe many films now
being aimed at and distributed to a mainstream audience.
Over the last several decades, American audiences have embraced
an increasing number of movies that borrow narrative and production
styles from the avant-garde. Many of these techniques have a tendency
to break the diegesis of a film. However, since the purpose of mainstream
cinema is frequently different from non-mainstream, we might suspect
that avant-garde directors and their more commercial counterparts are
using these techniques differently. Because the term diegesis
has been used in many different ways (see Branigan, 1986), I will use
the following definition of the word to clarify my thesis: “the story
understood as a pseudo-world” (Aumont, Bergala, Marie & Vernte,
1983/1992, p. 89). To set the stage for this discussion, we will examine
the general codes separating traditional Hollywood and avant-garde films
and how these dividers seem to be breaking down.
The Codes of Mainstream Hollywood and Avant-Garde Films
Since the early days of film, scholars have been fascinated by
cinema’s ability to absorb an audience, especially that of American
cinema. In the second decade of the twentieth century, a group of Russian
filmmakers interested in studying the powers of film used American movies
because they elicited the greatest reaction from viewers and seemed
superior in form to other cinemas (Kuleshov, 1974). It was obvious even
then that a general style of filmmaking was developing out of Hollywood,
a style that would eventually become recognized as embodying “mainstream
or dominant cinema.”
Although this classic
Hollywood style has many facets, its main tenets are three: the means of film production should be invisible
to the audience; it should be accessible; it should be universal in
its emotional appeals (Bordwell, 1985). As a result, trying to keep
the viewer within the diegetic world is an important concern of the
mainstream director. This view is embodied in Alfred Hitchcock’s (1937/1966)
description of his craft: “I try to tell a story in the simplest possible
way, so that I can feel sure it will hold the attention of any audience
and won’t puzzle them” (p. 59). While generalities can be made about
mainstream film, David Bordwell rightly points out that classic Hollywood
style is not a formula, but a set of ranges with built-in limitations.
Each film is an independent creation that operates under a relatively
unified code of aesthetics.
By contrast, avant-garde
and experimental films define themselves in opposition to the mainstream.
Not surprisingly, this frequently entails opposition to the diegetic
constructs favored by mainstream filmmakers. It should be noted there
are many other descriptions for similar works, such as “experimental”
and “underground,” and that “avant-garde” carries many different meanings
and is even opposed by some filmmakers labeled with the term (Rees,
1999). However, lacking a universally accepted alternative, I have chosen
to use this most widely recognized heading and to borrow a working definition
of “avant-garde” from author William Wees (1992): “experimenting with
the medium and opposing the dominant film industry” (p. ix).
The idea that the camera lens is an extension
of Renaissance perspective and therefore attempts to limit and impose
Western values (Baudry, 1974/1999) is central to an understanding of
avant-garde aesthetics. Artists such as Stan Brakhage attempt to “wreck”
the perspective of lenses by spitting on them or shooting through cloudy
glass (Wees, 1985). Avant-garde filmmakers create by shattering the
confines of mainstream cinema and rending their modes and conventions.
As a reflection of this, Noel Burch and Jorge Dana base their taxonomy
of films on the criterion of adherence to dominant film codes. According
to this scale, the more radical the disruption of these codes, the more
ideological ties the film breaks, and the greater the value of the film
to the avant-garde (Casetti, 1993/1999, p. 202).
The relationship between audience and the avant-garde filmmaker
is equally dissimilar to dominant cinema.
The film theorist Noel Carroll (1993) notes that avant-garde
films are designed to be difficult to understand and often require special
knowledge to decipher the meanings. In many cases, a narrative structure
is never used; the intention is to force the viewer to be an active
participant in interpreting the film (Carroll, 1979/1996). In order
to subvert dominant film codes, feminist filmmaker Yvonne Rainer (1990)
resists using either a plot or a narrator to move her stories forward
(p.188). While a diegesis may exist in an avant-garde film, the director
encourages the viewers to be constantly aware of the fact that they
are watching a film, a technique commonly called reflexivity. According
to Richard Stam (1985), a reflexive work “points to its own mask and
invites the public to examine its design and texture” (p. 1). It strips
away the illusion central to mainstream cinema.
Reflexivity vs. Diegetic Breaks
It might be said: diegetic breaks are essentially the same as
reflexivity, and since we already have a term, why not use it? However,
reflexivity is based on a value judgment. Robert Stam (1985) divides
reflexive works into “authentic” (those that call for an active spectator)
and “debased” (those that play to passive consumers). Reflexivity’s
connection to ideology is unavoidable, and using the word cannot help
but bring up the underlying question: “Should filmmakers seek simply
to entertain, or to strive toward what some consider to be the loftier
goal of challenging the audience?” The question goes beyond the scope
of this study, and the word “reflexivity” implies a stance where none
is actually offered.
Writers who tap
into the concept of reflexivity tend to view film from a theoretical
framework based in psychoanalysis, Marxism, and feminism (what is sometimes
referred to as “contemporary film theory”).
Much of this contemporary theory focuses on how viewers are “sutured”
into the film text, and posits them as helpless subjects before a powerful
mirror they see as reality (see Metz, 1975; Silverman, 1983). If one
is to discuss interaction between audience and film, it is obviously
important to establish a framework that defines the audience’s role
in this interaction. However, since we are not addressing ideological
effects of film, this does not seem a productive model.
Although reflexivity
couches audience awareness in dogmatic terms, diegetic breaks serve
more to describe cognitive phenomena (see Branigan, 1992). In focusing
on how viewers alternate between the diegesis and the film as film,
one is really talking about a cognitive shift of attention. Tom Sutcliffe
(2000) notes that in order to watch a film, “the watcher must, by force
of will, become blind to all kinds of peripheral and distracting detail”
(p. xiv). This concept finds a home in cognitive film theory.
In contrast with
“contemporary” theorists, cognitive scholars have established a model
viewer who knows that he or she is watching a film. Murray Smith (1995)
argues: “what is involved in the apprehension of fiction is a form of
pretense or make-belief
rather than belief” (p. 117). Spectators know they are in the theater,
but pretend they are within the world of the
screen (see also Currie, 1995). Similarly, Joseph Anderson (1996) uses
the concept of framing to describe how the viewer categorizes the difference
between physical reality and the diegetic world. In a later work, Anderson
(submitted for publication) draws on J.J. Gibson’s distinctions between
scene and surface to describe the difference between the diegesis and
the movie screen: “it is critical to realize that no visual array can
be seen as both scene and surface simultaneously”
(p. 2). In other words, we cannot
coexist in the diegetic world and the real world; when we enter one,
we leave the other. This approach to defining the relationship between
film and viewer seems to be appropriate for the purposes of this study.
The “Borrowing” of the Avant-Garde
Dominant and avant-garde
cinema are often discussed as mutually exclusive categories. However,
several authors point out that mainstream films have a way of appropriating
the innovations of non-mainstream cinema, thereby blurring the distinction
(Bordwell & Thompson, 2001; Rees, 1985). During the 1970s, cinematographers
quickly adopted the use of steadicams and other devices that free the
point of view (Geuens, 2000). A.L. Rees points out that in the following
decade, music videos and advertising executives quickly adopted many
of the hallmarks of experimental video. According to Bordwell and Thompson,
this led to young mainstream filmmakers’ pushing of the envelope during
the 1990s “because their audience, brought up on soap operas, comic
books, and video games, were not put off by dense and tricky storytelling
devices” (p. 91).
Although many works
acknowledge that mainstream films utilize avant-garde techniques, no
studies have investigated whether they use them differently, or if so,
how. In addition, several scholars have conducted studies of individual
films and identified avant-garde styles in them; however, no one has
proposed categories of these techniques so they can be applied between
films. In this study, I will use previous scholarship to devise categories
of those techniques that tend to create diegetic breaks. I will then
use these categories to compare the use of the techniques in several
avant-garde and mainstream films.
Categories of Techniques
Several authors have already categorized tendencies within avant-garde
film. Peter Wollen, for instance, developed seven binary features of
mainstream cinema versus counter-cinema (as cited in Stam, Burgoyne
& Flitterman-Lewis, 1992, p. 198). In his appendix to Reflexivity
in Film and Literature, Robert Stam (1985) offers an excellent discussion
of techniques that can break the diegesis. He divides these into four
broad categories: lack of depth, use of color, use of movement, and
sound strategies. The divisions suggested by Wollen and Stam are fine
for their purposes, however they are too broad to be useful in comparing
films from the two traditions. Rather than attempt to group them, William
Wees (1992) offers an extended list of visual techniques used in the
avant-garde:
superimposition, prismatic and kaleidoscopic
images, soft focus, unusual camera angles, disorienting camera movements,
extreme close-ups, negative image, distorted and totally abstract images,
extreme variable in lighting and exposure, scratching and painting on
the film, slow motion, reverse motion, pixilation, time-lapse photography,
quick cutting, intricate patterns of montage, single-frame editing,
and flicker effects…these techniques pose questions about seeing and
are more complex and dynamic than normal film
viewing. (p. 55)
All of these perspectives were informative
in helping craft a list of practices on which to focus. I have divided
these into broad categories of visual and narrative techniques.
Visual Techniques
An audience will usually identify non-standard visual techniques
with little effort. We are so accustomed to the visual conventions of
narrative mainstream cinema that it rattles us as viewers to be confronted
with a drastic divergence. Trevor Ponech (1997) points out that filmic
devices become conventions based on their use. An audience may be aware
of the structure of a film the first time they see such as device, however
subsequent encounters decrease their awareness and make it easier to
stay in the diegetic world. Many of the techniques covered in this section
have gained increased currency in mainstream films, especially with
recent advances in computer graphics and non-linear editing (McQuire,
1999). However, they still lie sufficiently far outside the general
filmgoer’s understanding of mainstream practices to rupture a film’s
diegetic world. The categories I suggest follow:
·
Changes in film type: While once largely the fare of the avant-garde, several
mainstream directors have incorporated shifts between film formats,
such as Oliver Stone’s use of 8mm film in Nixon
(1995). This also includes effects meant to make film look older or
cheaper, such as using sepia tone and adding scratches.
·
Showing production elements: In an attempt at aesthetic subversion, many avant-garde
directors specifically show lighting, production crew, and other elements
of the production to remind the viewer they are watching a film. Several
Hollywood spoofs, such as Scary
Movie (2000), play on this approach by having characters in the
diegetic world acknowledge crew and production elements.
·
Lack of transitions: Laura Gaither (1996) notes that mainstream films use
“dissolves, subtitles, or fadeouts to indicate a change of time or place”
(p. 107). Several recent filmmakers have dispensed with such transitions,
taking their cue from avant-garde directors who often try to connect
disjuncted scenes (Carroll,1981/1996). This leads to confusion as to
when and where events shown are happening (see Anderson, 1996, p. 123).
In the case of dream sequences or similar devices, it can be confusing
whether they are happening at all, as in the films Jacob’s
Ladder (1990) and 12 Monkeys (1996).
·
Abrupt transitions: One of the cardinal rules of Hollywood editing has been to avoid the
jump cut. It is virtually impossible for an audience not to notice violations
of this convention. As early as the 1940s, avant-garde directors such
as Maya Deren regularly used jump cuts as a device in their films. However,
mainstream directors have begun to adopt this technique in their films,
especially for violence and shock (Bordwell & Staiger, 1985) but
also for stylistic reasons, such as William
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1996). This category also includes
the use of freeze-frame as a transition device. By freezing the action,
the audience is instantly removed from the diegetic world
·
Rapid montage: The fractured representation of 1970s and ’80s avant-garde films have
found their way to music video and eventually to the mainstream through
such films as Moulin Rouge
(2001).
·
Motion Speed:
Although slow and fast motion have been used in films almost since their
inception, manipulations of time are usually kept “invisible” to the
audience (Stam, 1985). However, several recent mainstream movies, such
as The Matrix (1999), flaunt their use of
motion speed and have fueled its use as a stylistic (rather than an
emotional) effect.
·
Color usage:
Unmotivated shifts between color and black-and-white border on becoming
commonplace in films. Other uses of color in films that seem to go against
sustaining the diegesis would be colorizing only portions of scenes,
such as in Schindler’s List
(1993), and extreme colors that accentuate “the artificial nature of
film color” (Stam, 1995, p. 256).
·
Nontraditional camera movement: Handheld cameras were once a hallmark of the avant-garde;
however, mainstream films quickly adopted countercinema’s styles and
tools, such as the steadicam (Geuens, 2000). Floating cameras and jerky
camera movements are in widespread use in Hollywood film. This freedom
of the camera has lead to even more extreme movements, such as shooting
with a tilted horizontal axis in Mulholland
Drive (2001). Since viewers constantly try to give spatial order
to a scene, many nontraditional camera movements can cause breaks in
the diegesis (Branigan, 1992).
·
CGI and nondiegetic images: The use of computer graphics in films range from altering
images, such compositing an Alpine villa in True Lies (1994), to creating the digital character of Jar Jar Binks
in Star Wars – Episode I, The
Phantom Menace (1999). As Scott McQuire (1999) points out, the only
limit to digital creation is how believable it is (p. 389). Stephen
Prince (1996) posits that a “perceptually realistic image” displays
all the cues an audience expects to see (shadow, texture, etc.) and
operates in the way viewers expect them to operate. Despite the lack
of a basis in reality, viewers found the dinosaurs in Jurassic
Park (1993) “realistic” because the creatures lived up to their
expectations. When computer graphics fail, such as some have argued
about the character of Jar Jar Binks, viewers will not accept the creations
as part of the diegetic world. While not necessarily using computers,
some avant-garde directors have used unrelated animation and other nondiegetic
video (such as stock and archival footage) to interrupt their narratives.
These devices have also shown up in some mainstream films.
Narrative Techniques
Noel Carroll (1988)
envisions movie narration as a question-and-answer proposition; he calls
this erotetic narration (p.
171). Questions raised by one scene will eventually be answered in later
scenes. As viewers, he claims we form these questions subconsciously
and begin looking for resolutions. However, many mainstream films now
being made do not necessarily follow this form. Just as some avant-garde
filmmakers challenge “the notion that time and narration must follow
each other in a logical fashion” (Gaither, 1996, p. 107), some Hollywood
directors have adopted narrative techniques that have a tendency to
break the diegesis. I have identified six of these categories:
·
Nonlinear narration: In the classic Hollywood film, “the only permissible
manipulation of story order is the flashback” (Bordwell, 1985); however,
we can clearly see this is no longer the case. Pulp
Fiction (1994) is divided into four parts; however, if we number
each segment as it appears in the film and then place them in chronological
order, the numbers would go 2,1, 4, and 3. Despite this break with tradition,
it was still one of the top-grossing films of 1994. Rather than the
questions and answers Carroll suggests, the film often gives answers
before the audience has the questions. Some of the actions only make
sense in recalling earlier segments of the movie. Because viewers try
to impose temporal order (Branigan, 1992), this kind of storytelling
can cause a diegetic break by forcing the audience to leave the world
of the film in order to mentally reorganize what they have seen.
·
Direct address: When characters look into the camera and directly address the audience,
such as in Tom Jones (1963)
or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), the audience
has no choice but to be aware of themselves and the film. Branigan (1986)
suggests this is because by directly addressing the camera, a reverse
shot or eyeline match becomes impossible (p. 53).
·
Narrator becomes character: Narrators have been a staple of Hollywood since the
first sound films. One way of subverting this norm is for the narrator
to suddenly become a character in the diegetic world. The Big Lebowski (1998) uses this technique by having Sam Elliot,
who has been a disembodied narrator for over half the film, walk up
next to the main character and briefly engage him in conversation.
·
Revealing the film in the narration: While some directors will remind the audience they
are watching a film by showing the tools of filmmaking, other will actually
reveal the film as a part of the plot. For instance, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) the police show up and shut
down film production just before an attack is mounted against the French
castle.
·
Intertextuality: According to Emanuel Levy (1999), “the meaning of a particular work derives
from its relations to a larger set of works. There can be a conscious
borrowing of a character or plot element, but a film can also comment
or revise or correct established conventions” (p. 10). Some directors
use these intertextual references with little explanation and thus audiences
must be familiar with other films and genres to properly understand
their meaning. This can cause confusion and a diegetic break when viewers
do not have this body of knowledge. For instance, some dialogue in Tim
Burton’s Planet of the Apes (2001) cannot be properly understood without knowledge
of the original 1968 film.
·
Conflicting style: Viewers are aware of many different film and television styles. Greg Smith
(1999) points out that filmmakers can set a mood to elicit emotions
from the audience by using such common cues. Some directors have played
off of this cultural knowledge by presenting subject matter in a contradictory
style, such as Oliver Stone in Natural
Born Killers (1994). In the film, we are shown a scene from the
character Mallory’s childhood, where she is being sexually abused by
her father. However the entire scene is presented in the production
style of a television sitcom, complete with an “I Love Mallory” title
sequence. By subverting audience expectation, Stone forces the viewers
to be aware of the structure of the film and how it conflicts with what
they know about film culture.
Although these categories are not exhaustive,
they account for a large number of avant-garde techniques utilized within
mainstream cinema.
Selection of Texts
In order to compare the use of these techniques between mainstream
and avant-garde films, I have chosen three films to represent each category.
The mainstream films were chosen based on their ability to yield rich
examples of the techniques discussed above, as well as on their acceptance
by a mainstream audience based on box office receipts and their directors.
The first film chosen was Moulin
Rouge (2001). This film was the 42nd highest-grossing
film of 2001, earning $57,000,000 (according to Variety
magazine) in the year it was released. It was nominated for an Oscar
for Best Picture. The director, Baz Luhrmann, also directed the monetarily
successful William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet
(1996).
The second film chosen was Mulholland
Drive (2001). Director David Lynch’s film earned $5,600,000 in 2001,
and was ranked 155th grossing film of the year (Variety).
Lynch was nominated for Best Director by the Motion Picture Academy
for his work on the film. In addition, Lynch has directed several films
that have won some level of mainstream acceptance, such as Blue Velvet (1986). He also directed the television show Twin Peaks, which was rated one of the
top fifty television shows ever by TV
Guide.
The third mainstream film used in this study was Natural Born Killers (1994). The film grossed $50,000,000 in its year
of release, ranking it the 29th top-grossing film of the
year (Variety). Director Oliver Stone is a well-known
force in Hollywood who has found mainstream success with several movies,
such as Platoon (1986) and
JFK (1991).
These three films cannot be said to broadly represent mainstream
Hollywood film. As mentioned previously, they were chosen because they
are well known for containing many of the techniques identified as breaking
the diegesis. All three of the films can be called mainstream based
on their acceptance by American audiences; however, these films represent
a body of mainstream work that actively question and disregard some
of the conventions of traditional Hollywood film production.
Just as the selected mainstream films have avant-garde tendencies,
so are the selected avant-garde films closer to traditional Hollywood
films than many. The selections reflect an attempt at a level playing
field, as well as the difficulty of comparing narrative devices in films
that actively seek to prevent any narrative from developing. Regardless,
the following films can be identified as avant-garde under the definition
set out previously: “experimenting with the medium and opposing the
dominant film industry” (Wees, 1992, p. ix). The films are selected
from three different decades, the better to test whether some of the
techniques from earlier films have found later acceptance.
The first film chosen was Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless
(1961). As one of the founding
members of the French New Wave movement, Godard had a tremendous impact
on art films. In a retrospective on the film, David Sterritt (2000)
notes that Godard “revel[s] in cinematic expression for its own sake
and plac[es] stylistic pyrotechnics at the center of the moviegoing
experience” (p. B7).
Stevie (1978), directed by Robert Enders,
is the second avant-garde movie used in this study. Edward Hirsch (2000)
describes Stevie as a “low-budget,
low-tech art movie” (p. 32). The film was shot in seventeen days on
a budget of $500,000.
The third avant-garde film used in this study is Daughters of the Dust (1991), an independent film by black feminist
director Julie Dash. In describing this film, Laura Gaither (1996) notes
“[it] is a challenging film to view: the roving camera, the new images,
the thick dialect, the many characters. Audiences are continually reminded
that they must work hard to understand the film” (p. 105). Daughters
of the Dust represents an avant-garde work from a particular point
of view. As a black female director, Dash is particularly interested
in how Hollywood conventions work against minorities, and how these
conventions can be subverted.
Results
Each film was viewed in light of the established categories,
to see which techniques were used and how (see Appendix). All nine of
the visual techniques are found in at least two of the six films in
this study. Of the six narrative techniques listed, five are used by
at least one of the films; none of them utilize the technique of revealing
the film in the narration. Each category will be examined separately
to ascertain if techniques are used differently.
Changes in Film Type
Changes in film type show up in two movies, both mainstream.
Natural Born Killers makes liberal use of different film stock, such
as 8mm, as well as adding touches to film to make it look old. This
is done on a fairly regular basis, with no discernable motivation other
than stylistic concerns. Moulin
Rouge also uses effects to make the film look aged; however, this
technique is utilized during transitions and dance sequences, not during
the main narrative.
Showing Production Elements
None of the films included in the study uses the traditional
avant-garde style of showing production elements. However, Natural
Born Killers includes several effects that make the means of production
apparent. Throughout the film, flat objects are used as “projectors”
to display a variety of images, most of them nondiegetic (such as video
of livestock and old movie clips from westerns). On ceilings, walls,
windows, churches, etc., seemingly random clips appear that have the
effect of reminding the audience that mass media pervades our everyday
life. The audience cannot help but be aware of the production of the
film as the images flash.
The lighting techniques in Natural
Born Killers also make the viewer aware of the production. After
the beginning sequence, which takes place in a diner, Mickey and Mallory
stop their mayhem for a dance. The natural lighting of the diner gives
way to obvious track-style theater lighting as colorful gels pulse in
rhythm with the dancers. The unnatural use of lights immediately becomes
obvious, and alerts the viewer to the presence of the lighting instruments.
Lack of Transitions
A lack of transitions is a similar theme across all the selected
films. In Daughters of the Dust, a character known
as the Unborn Child walks from present-day events into a flashback,
and begins fetching indigo for the slave workers with no visual indication
of the temporal change. Stevie
makes wide use of flashbacks, using only standard cuts between scenes.
Most of the flashbacks only last for a second or two and act almost
as B-roll in a news program. As Stevie mentions her school teacher,
we suddenly cut to a shot of the teacher and then back. Similarly, Breathless
occasionally shifts in time with no warning to the viewer. As Michel
talks with Liliane, an earlier scene of him stealing a car is suddenly
repeated for several seconds.
While the lack of transitions in the avant-garde films generally
fall into the category of flashbacks in time, the mainstream films studied
make widespread use of this technique. Natural
Born Killers shifts temporally and spatially, and often launches
into dream sequences without alerting the viewer, resulting in a temporary
state of disorientation. Similarly, Mulholland
Drive unexpectedly drifts into what might be termed “surreal sequences.”
At one point, Betty’s neighbor comes to her apartment and picks up an
ashtray she had left. After the neighbor leaves, Betty goes back to
the couch and the ashtray is still on the table. In another scene, Betty
gets up to answer the door and is wearing a different dress when the
door opens. These seemingly impossible occurrences take place as a part
of the natural narrative, with no attempt to reconcile the discrepancies.
In Moulin Rouge, spatial and
time shifts occur with little warning to the audience.
Abrupt Transitions
Several abrupt transitions appear in the films studied. Both
Daughters of the Dust and Moulin
Rouge incorporate freeze frames as a transition device. In Daughters of the Dust, the picture freezes
on the pregnant Eula in pain. The frozen picture then dissolves to an
action shot featuring the Unborn Child. The freeze frame can be interpreted
as the sudden arrest of reality as the spirit of the Unborn Child arrives.
By contrast, Moulin Rouge
uses freeze frames as a stylistic device and to draw attention to characters.
For instance, when Christian meets the troupe of bohemians, the nonstop
movement and zooms of the camera is temporarily frozen as each character
is introduced.
Natural Born Killers and Breathless both make use of jump cuts as
regular production devices. Godard seems to utilize jump cuts to denote
shifts in time. As Michel drives on the highway, we see cars disappear
and others suddenly take their place. One infers that time is passing,
but the effect is still jarring to the audience. Oliver Stone uses jump
cuts with no discernable intent. They generate additional motion within
a visual array that is in constant flux, but they neither advance the
film nor make a narrative (or extra-narrative) point.
Rapid Montage
Only two of the films studied include rapid montage sequences: Natural Born Killers and Moulin
Rouge. Both films use this technique to increase the pace and level
of excitement. However, the quick string of images seems to risk alienating
viewers, because they are not given time to take in the substance of
each image.
Motion Speed
Only one of the avant-garde films tamper with motion speed, while
all of the mainstream films include such techniques. Daughters
of the Dust frequently uses slow motion for two reasons: whenever
the Unborn Child appears or other supernatural forces come into play,
and when the spirits of the ancestors are evoked (such as when the bottles
hanging from the tree are broken). Dash also makes use of other motion
changes by strobing the actions of the Unborn Child, and by contrasting
slow and fast motion as Eula and the Unborn Child race toward each other.
All three mainstream films use slow and fast motion together
as a stylistic tool. In Natural
Born Killers, Mickey throws a knife and the audience sees the knife
moving toward the victim in slow motion. Once the knife has almost reached
its target it instantly speeds up and kills the person in a blur of
action. The dancers and patrons of the Moulin Rouge frequently speed up, slow
down, and stop to little purpose. In Mulholland
Drive, Betty and Rita prepare to enter a theater. A tracking shot
begins from far away and quickly picks up the pace until it abruptly
stops at the door as they enter.
Color Usage
Shifting from black-and-white to color has become an extremely
popular effect for both avant-garde and mainstream films. Stevie
makes extensive use of black-and-white scenes to denote flashbacks.
Several times, these flashbacks will gradually become color scenes,
as the narrator takes over the reins of the story. Natural
Born Killers features rapid changes in color. In just the first
seven minutes of the film, there are 22 shifts from color to black-and-white.
There seems to be no hidden meaning behind the use of this technique.
Moulin Rouge also shifts to black-and-white
several times as part of the visual style.
In Daughters of the Dust, color is used to
draw interest. When the women of the island prepare food, viewers cannot
help but notice the unnaturally vibrant colors of the fruits. This effect
makes the audience aware of the hands preparing the food, and thus of
their work.
Nontraditional Camera Movement
Several of the films call attention to their use of handheld
cameras. In Breathless, the camera is constantly moving
and free to roam. Godard often uses shots that are slightly tilted on
the horizontal axis. This is similar to Oliver Stone’s use of the camera
in Natural Born Killers. Since the camera
is rarely at a 90 degree angle to the floor, the viewer’s ability to
identify with the camera is frustrated. In Mulholland
Drive, handheld cameras are used during conversations at the diner.
The cameras use over-the-shoulder shots, but smoothly move up and down
and left and right as the conversations take place. The random smooth
movements almost go behind the heads of the subjects and way above their
eyeline.
Some of the films use other techniques as well. Godard holds
shots for an extreme length of time. When we first see Patricia and
Michel together, the shot lasts for almost three full minutes. In Moulin
Rouge, Luhrmann uses short lenses and fisheye lenses to distort
characters, such as Harold Zidler.
CGI and Nondiegetic Images
All of the avant-garde films were made prior to the wide use
of computer effects; however, Daughters
of the Dust uses a special effect that does not rise to the level
of believability. Towards the end of the film, Eli walks out onto water
to push a statue into the ocean. The scene is highly symbolic: the statue
represents a freeing of spirit; Eli taps into that spirit to enable
his walk.
All three mainstream films feature computer-enhanced images.
In Natural Born Killers, computers are used to morph Mickey’s face so that his
features distort briefly. Lower-tech effects are also used to project
the word “too much tv” on Mickey and Mallory’s bodies. Nondiegetic images
are used heavily throughout the film, whether it is stock footage of
a 1950s-style family watching the killers, or characters turning into
exaggerated cartoon representations.
When Betty and Rita discover a corpse in Mulholland
Drive they run out of the apartment. As they go through the door
the scene is superimposed several times, with each superimposition slightly
out of synch with the others, creating a “trailing” effect. Lynch also
uses computers to create a scene where an elderly couple crawl out of
a paper bag, walk underneath a door and then grow back to normal size.
In Moulin Rouge, Satin
and Christian jump along stars to get from the elephant to a plateau
of clouds with a miniature Eiffel Tower. In a later scene, a picnic
with the Duke and the lovers is composited in front of a faked representation
of Paris. The Meliès-style effects are meant to enhance the fantasy
feel of the film.
Nonlinear Narration
Daughters of the Dust uses nonlinear narration
to drift between events in different places and times. The technique
mirrors the storytelling practices of Nana, the elder figure. Characters
are used in mini-narratives, but the identity and meaning of the characters
are not revealed until later in the film.
Mulholland Drive also could be said to
use nonlinear narration. The last quarter of the film blends several
different parts of the story. However, instead of placing the narrative
out of sequence, the final sections of the film place the earlier narratives
themselves in doubt. The timeframe of events is never clear, so there
is no way of deducing when the sequence occurs (if it is really happening
at all). In fact, various scenes do not seem to be occurring
at different times, but on different levels of reality.
Direct Address
None of the mainstream films employed direct address; however,
it does appear in Stevie and Breathless. Godard makes limited use of the technique by having Michel
turn and talk to the camera during one scene. By contrast, Stevie utilizes direct address constantly
through the film. The main character, Stevie, turns to the audience
between and within scenes to elaborate or add to the discussions she
is having with her Aunt and other characters. Through this device, the
viewer is almost always aware of the movie outside of the diegetic world.
Narrator Becomes Character
Stevie also utilizes another diegetic-breaking
narrative technique by presenting a narrator who steps into the story.
This narrator is spatially separated from Stevie’s apartment during
the first three-quarters of the film, and offers an introduction for
each narrative scene. However, during the last quarter of the film he
suddenly enters the diegetic world and visits Stevie’s apartment to
give her a ride.
Intertextuality
While the avant-garde films used in the study offered only minor
cases of intertextuality (such as Godard drawing on the conventions
of mainstream crime movies), the three mainstream films were rich with
pop-culture references. Natural Born Killers is sprinkled with
allusions to past media: everything from America’s fascination with
violence to the world of 1950s television receives a knowing nod. Part
of the story plays out within the framework of a tabloid news-magazine
show called “American Maniacs,” using shows like “Geraldo” as a reference
point for the audience. During the story, a commercial for Coke suddenly
pops up; and although the product is never named, the polar bears with
the familiar bottle leave no doubt.
Mulholland Drive taps into popular culture
through the use of extreme stereotypes. An elderly couple and Betty,
a small-town girl who comes to Hollywood to be a star, both overact
their parts, drawing on common characters with which the audience is
already familiar. Lynch also plays on the audience’s familiarity with
his own work. When the main characters enter a theater, a woman on stage
begins lip-synching Roy Orbison’s “Crying” in Spanish. This is an implied
reference to Lynch’s Blue Velvet, where a character croons Orbison’s
“In Dreams”; however the audience must be aware of the earlier work
to “get it.”
Moulin Rouge is another film submerged
in pop culture. Satin makes her first entrance dressed like Marlene
Dietrich. She sings a“Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” a song made
famous by Marilyn Monroe, and then segues into Madonna’s “Material Girl.”
In this one scene, Luhrmann draws on three icons of popular culture
to illustrate the character of Satin. Moulin
Rouge also makes widespread use of popular music. In one scene,
Satin and Christian have a dialogue using the lyrics of nine different
pop songs to debate love.
Conflicting Style
Two mainstream films included in the study use conflicting style
as a narrative technique. As mentioned earlier, Natural
Born Killers includes a sitcomesque sequence called “I Love Mallory.”
Mickey enters the obviously fake set to a hail of applause from the
“audience,” and even smiles and waits for the ovation to die down before
delivering his lines. In Mulholland
Drive, Lynch plays off of the familiar conventions of film noir
to present a surrealist vision running against the genre.
Analysis
Analysis of the data collected shows three major trends between
the films and the techniques used in this study:
1)
The mainstream films in this study
adopt more of the visual techniques of avant-garde than narrative ones.
2)
The mainstream films primarily use
these techniques for stylistic purposes.
3)
The avant-garde films primarily use
these techniques to convey a message and to critique mainstream film
practices.
It is not surprising
that the mainstream films in this study utilize so many techniques that
break the diegesis of a film. All three were chosen with a belief that
they do contain examples of these practices. However, all of them overwhelmingly
favor visual techniques. With nine visual categories and three films,
there are a possible 27 occurrences of these techniques (see Appendix)
amongst the mainstream. They actually occur 22 times, or 81% of the
possible total. In contrast, out of the 18 possible occurrences of the
six narrative techniques, they only happen six times, or 33%. While
all three films displayed intertextuality, none of them used direct
address, the narrator becoming character, or revealing the film through
narration.
As noted in the description of the use of each technique, the
mainstream films primarily use these devices for stylistic reasons.
Although they have appropriated some of the conventions of avant-garde,
their use supports the entertainment value of the movie. This is not
to deny the fact that several of these techniques are used to engage
the audience: playing on their prior knowledge with the use of intertextual
references, or the use of projection surfaces in Natural
Born Killers. However, even these examples seem to work more towards
supporting the look and feel of the film, than delivering a message
to the audience. What is surprising is how well this embodies the descriptions
many use for modern avant-garde films: “there is emphasis on style over
substance, a consumption of images for their own sake, rather than for
their usefulness or the values they symbolize, a preoccupation with
playfulness and in-jokes at the expense of meaning” (Levy, 1999, p.
57).
The avant-garde films used in this study do utilize these techniques
in some of the traditional ways of the movement. Clearly, nontraditional
camera movement and abrupt transitions are meant to be a repudiation
of classical conventions, however their purpose does not end there.
Jump cuts become a device for showing the passage of time, and changes
in motion tell us the spiritual world is encroaching on the diegesis.
These avant-garde directors are using these techniques to challenge
the audience on the one hand and to enhance the narrative on the other.
Conclusion
This study suggests there is a breakdown between the traditional
worlds of the avant-garde and the mainstream. Hollywood directors are
appropriating nontraditional techniques, usually meant to actively engage
an audience, and using them as just another tool in their stylistic
arsenal. However, whether the director intends to our not, many of these
stylistic endeavors end up divorcing the viewer from the film’s diegesis.
It is worth repeating
that the trends emerging from this study reflect the content of a small,
purposeful sample, and so they should not necessarily be generalized
to an entire body of work. However, these films do illustrate the breakdown
that is occurring. Bordwell and Staiger (1985) point out that the polarities
of dominant style and films that destroy pleasure, invisibility, etc.
“lack nuance and precision” (p. 380). Similarly, Robert Stam (1985)
acknowledges that no film is entirely illusionist or reflexive. I have
shown how these categories of diegetic breaking techniques can be used
to compare films that have traditionally been separated into opposing
traditions. Further research should be conducted with a larger sample
of films that represent a greater diversity of style and age. It would
be interesting, for instance, to see if these categories work just as
well with more radical avant-garde films that seek to destroy narrative.
By defining the techniques appearing in mainstream films that
have a tendency to break the diegesis, it is also possible to study
the effects of these techniques on the audience. It may be argued that
these techniques are merely conventions waiting to happen. For instance,
Eisenstein (1949) tells the story of how studio executives were shocked
when D. W. Griffith wanted to show a close-up of a character. Or it
could be argued, as Stephen Heath (1980) has, that stylistic inventions
are the result of technical advances; and that many of these techniques
are just a result of improved technology.
However, David Bordwell (1996) points out that artistic conventions
are not arbitrary. Some conventions are more appropriate to conveying
a message than others. A close-up of a woman’s knee will not convey
her happiness to a viewer. However, a close-up of her face has a better
probability of carrying that message. In a recent study, researchers
found that the structure of film has a cognitive effect (Schwan, Hesse
& Garsoffky, 1998). The subjects in the study grouped film segments
into meaningful units based on the location of cuts. As established
codes are ignored, it would be beneficial to study whether these new
diegetic-breaking techniques affect the viewer’s ability to follow and
connect with the film.
Researchers Richard Gerrig and Deborah Prentice (1996) have developed
categories that could prove especially useful in researching diegetic
breaks. They envision viewer responses to films as fitting into a small
number of categories. In their taxonomy of audience responses, they
use the categories inferencing and participatory (p. 395). Inferencing
occurs when the audience fills in gaps. For instance, in the film a
car leaves and pulls up outside a house. The audience can infer the
car was driven to the house. Participatory responses, on the other hand,
elicit a mental response from the viewer, such as “Don’t open the door!”
This would be an example of an “as-if” participatory response; where
the audience reacts as if they are in the diegetic world. There are
also participatory responses which are not “as if”. These are usually
comments on the viewing experience itself: “this music is really mismatched,”
or “this person is a horrible actor”. By tracking participatory responses
that cannot be categorized under “as if,” a researcher could discover
where the breaks occur and what is happening on-screen at these moments.
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Appendix