moving image and non-linear narrative

breaking the narrative: my new book arrived in the post, suggested by MW during my last tutorial – ‘Broken Screen, Expanding the Image, Breaking the Narrative, 26 Conversations with Doug Aitken. there is an interesting diagram at the back which lists non-linear films, categorised according to how they can be considered non-linear, i.e. manipulation of structure and story-line, structural manipulation – subverting linear story-lines, immersion – overtaking the environment with image and sound, in particular, the category – broken image: challenging the content through image fragmentation resonates with some of my print work and also some of my split screen video work.

gender and non-linear narratives: i have been doing a bit of research into linear and non-linear narratives in film work as am interested in experimenting with sound and voice in some of my landscape video work. there are connections between linear and non-linear narratives and gender where as usual the rational linear structure is attributed to male objectivity and the non-linear structure acts as a female alternative. that said, there are many examples of non-linear narratives by male film makers. i started by looking into mike figgis’s Timecode (1999) and some of eija-liisa ahtila’s films.

mike figgis: Timecode (1999): four way split screen, he says ‘i’ve been trying to find ways to observe phenomena rather than be a prisoner of linear narrative.’ it’s still difficult to abandon linear narrative. to abandon it is a perverse statement of its power’ (p: 138). he believes the non-linear narrative is linked to memory and also how we progress through our lives, even with a split screen it still progresses from start to finish. non-linear narrative seems like a natural evolution from the barrage of information that is thrown at us everyday. fragmented narrative used to seem unnatural when first used but now it offers a lot of power and choice for the audience, perhaps its time to re-examine cinema’s relationship with its audience.

frame within frame: one of the things that figgis says is that he is interested in the frame within the frame – how the film is made is also apparent in the film somehow – this seems to resonate with all i have been reading about gendered binaries in relation to maker versus taker and in relation to the objective fact versus body and emotion – a way of showing the fact is actually fiction or maybe the fiction is for that moment fact – a suspension of disbelief. he also talks about the steady cam versus the use of hand-held cameras which is something i use in my own work as a way to get close to and be part of the camera and the image making process.

reference:

Aitken, D. (2006) Broken Screen, Expanding the Image, Breaking the Narrative, 26 Conversations with Doug Aitken. New York: Distributed Art Publishers.