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Friday Fundas

Nonlinear narrative – Art of script writing from a different dimension

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Nonlinear narrative – Art of script writing from a different dimension

It is good to be back with the Friday Fundas section after a while. This week I would talk about a specific style of script writing known as Non-linear narrative.

Nonlinear narrative is the art of telling a story as a list of events that are not in chronological order. The earliest form of nonlinear narrative in India has been experimented in Mahabharata. While this type of narrative has been popular in novels and stories, it has not been so easy to master this in the films. Only in the year 1924 nonlinear film emerged from French the avant-grade in the film “Entracte”, Dadaïst film by René Claire.

Sometimes people confuse non-linear narrative with films that employ flashback sequences. While you could argue them as nonlinear narratives but they may not be equivalent to narrating events in a non-chronological order. Films like Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa used non-linear narration using flashback that was non-chronological in nature.

In a typical three-act play structure a film has a beginning, middle and the end. A nonlinear narrative also has the same but not necessarily in that order (quoted by Jean-Luc Godrad, French-Swiss filmmaker). In the 1990s Quentin Tarantino employed nonlinear narrative structure in his films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. This made a huge difference to the viewing experience.

In Indian movies director Maniratnam in his movie Alaipayuthe very well exploited this. The movie used flashbacks and flash forwards and converged at a point, which made a difference to the narration and won many accolades.

In the late 90s entered Christopher Nolan whom I consider as a perfectionist of nonlinear narration. Recently I had seen the movie Following by Nolan. This was his first movie and made in a very small budget. But the nonlinear narration has been used very well. He never uses adages like “3 months ago” or “2 days ago” but cleverly used the hairstyle of the pivotal character and facial scar to differentiate between the timeline of the narratives. The story picks up from three points of a linear narrative and travels in parallel. It is just brilliant. He then went on to make Memento and the Batman series, which also heavily utilized the nonlinear narrative style.

A story becomes very interesting in the way it is told even if it is a same old story, which is been retold. Nonlinear narrative if executed well adds that difference and generates interest levels in the audience. Watch some of the nonlinear narratives mentioned in this article and let me know what you think.

English Movies, Genre, Guest Post, Guest Reviews, Must Watch, Rating, Reviews, SciFi

Guest Review: Interstellar

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Guest Review: Interstellar

This review of Interstellar is a guest review by one of my friends Amar Singh. 

About the Guest Author:  Amar Singh is a 
Research Scholar from Department of English, BHU
Working with Prof. Anita Singh on the topic titled, “Hyperrealism and Christopher Nolan’s Cinematic Texts.”

“A real magician tries to invent something new, that other magicians are gonna scratch their heads over.”

This line said by Alfred Borden (played by Christian Bale) in The Prestige (2006) pretty much sums up what the brand Christopher Nolan is all about. His new instalment, Interstellar, is now in the theatres and man o man, what a ride it is! If one has to capsule the story of Interstellar, it would read something like this; this is basically the story of Cooper and his bond with his daughter Murph that surpasses the limits of the universe. The plot of the movie has been based in the future where the climate of earth is deteriorating at a rapid pace. The only chance for human beings to survive is to find a new abode in some other galaxy where they can start life afresh. This daunting task is laid upon Cooper, to pilot the spaceship Endurance, which will go through a warmhole discovered near Saturn and hunt for a new earth. But the story is not as simple as it reads. There are so many elements, so many concepts that Nolan has introduced (and that is what we expect from a director who has made Memento and Inception): theory of relativity, warmhole, blackhole, time and gravity as other dimensions, and so on; that it becomes an uneasy and adventurous ride for us as it is for Cooper and his crew. But behind all these heavy concepts, there is the strong emotion of love that becomes the main thrust of this movie.

If one goes through Nolan’s movies from the beginning, there is a gradual development of an enlightening process of his protagonists that one can trace in his films, which is directly proportional to his advancement as a director. He is one of the brightest students of cinema who is trying to learn new lessons with every movie he is making. And one thing that has become his signature style is the way he is obsessed with the concept of time and how it affects us on different levels and how we fit ourselves in its not-so-linear movement. In Interstellar, he has gone way ahead of his previous movies in dealing with such high concepts which one has to brainstorm with repeated viewings to understand them. And I have not even talked about the visuals yet. Oh, what an experience it was! If there are flaws in the movie (there are a few), all of them will be subsided with the grandiose of the visuals. Just invest yourself in his world; you will come out with a never felt before riveting experience.

In the movie, when Cooper is dropped into a fifth dimension from where he gains access to time and gravity as physical entity, which he uses further to convey messages to his daughter, the very scene becomes so intense and emotional that one can go through the psyche of Nolan himself. The concept of filmmakers as someone who have an access to parallel times (which they gain through their camera) have been repeated quite a few times in different movies (Hugo and Inception are among such examples), but this movie becomes so personal for Nolan that in that very scene, we can see the struggle of a maker to look for and give directions to his greatest creation, his daughter, so that she may be safe and secure.

If you love cinema, go watch Interstellar. Whether you’ll like it or hate it, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that you will remember the experience for days and will indulge in the dialogues related with this movie. This is where cinema comes at its best, and this is what we call a true cinematic experience.