The role and purpose of film narration

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Carlos Ruiz Carmona
Universidade Católica Portuguesa, School of the Arts, Research Centre for Science and Technology of the Arts
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7523-634X

Abstract

Throughout history we can identify a great number of authors discussing the nature of narrative. From Plato's and Aristotle's original mimetic and diegetic influential theories to Gérard Genette's or Roland Barthes' essential contribution to structuralism, narrative has been studied and discussed as a fundamental process for the human mind in terms of producing and communicating meaning and expressing experience. Over the past few decades major scholars such as Bordwell, Metz, Genette, Carroll, Chatman, Eisenstein, Bal, Abbot, Tan, Smith or Branigan have produced some of the most significant contributions to the study of film narratology. Some scholars envisage narration as a means to process information. Others argue that narration can be better understood as a strategy to cue narrative comprehension. Others envisage narration as a means for emotion. This paper intends to establish that film narrative can be better understood as an act of communication through and from experience from filmmaker to an audience and vice-versa.

Keywords: Film narration, Narrative comprehension, Communication, Human experience

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