Wednesday, January 27, 2010

"Rashomon" and the structure of time

Mike and I watched "Rashomon" a couple of weeks ago and the thought of Narrative Cinema makes me want to list the ways movies structure time in the telling of a story. I'd like to keep a running list, so I'm open to entries.
"Rashomon" tells the same story four times in four extended flashbacks. It's 60 years old and it hasn't been done better yet - although this time I found the Western-style music really annoying (Mike was OK with it.)
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey" has been made into a movie three times and they've all been bad. In high school they called it "circular construction": the bridge collapses at the beginning and then you follow the lives of all the people who died on the bridge.
Flashbacks are more often mis-handled than not, as they slow down forward motion for (frequently) needless exposition. They frustrate the basic story-telling question: "What happens next?" The "whole-movie flashback" has been done dozens of times. The classic is "Lawrence of Arabia" where the main character dies in the first scene and then we're told the story of his life in one extended flashback. The best flashbacks are those in "8-1/2": pure cinema-as-memory.
"Memento" has to be on the list. Telling the story backwards has been used before - but in the theatre. The movie was definitely worth the effort, but I have to admit to being disappointed with the boring ending.
Two movies try to tell the story in real time: "High Noon" is one. We studied it in NYU writing class because it's very well constructed, but Gary Cooper sure does look at the clock a lot.
"Run Lola Run" combines "Rashomon" with real time: three versions of the same story are told and each version, and the action of the story, lasts for 25 minutes. Definitely recommended.

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