NARRATION AND NARRATIVITY
IN FILM
Robert Scholes
Let us assume that there is something called narrative that can exist apart
from any particular method of narration or any particular narrative utter
ance, as we assume that there is something called the English language
that exists apart from any particular form of discourse or any individual
speech act in English. Narration is, first of all, a kind of human behavior.
It is specifically a mimetic or representative behavior, through which human
beings communicate certain kinds of messages. The modes of narration
may vary extraordinarily. (In passing, I should say that I am aware of our
customary distinction between what is told and what is enacted, which
leads us to oppose narrative representation to dramatic enactment. In this
case, however, I am using the word narration in its broadest sense to include
both plays and stories, along with other forms of imitation.) A narrative,
then, may be recounted orally, committed to writing, acted out by a group
of actors or a single actor, presented in wordless pantomime, represented as
a sequence of visual images, with or without words, or as a cinematic flow
of moving pictures, with or without sounds, speech, music, and written
language.
All of these mimetic kinds of behavior have certain features in common
which enable us to consider them together as narrative. First of all, the
belong to a special class of symbolic activity which forces the interpreter
to make a distinction between his own immediate situation and some oth-
er situation which is being presented to him through the medium of narra-
tion. In narrative there is always a spectator or interpreter who is situated
in a space/time reference different from that of the events narrated. The
process of narration culminates in the interpreters immediate frame of
reference, but it refers to events outside of that immediate situation. This
is as true for my dinner-time recital of the little events of my day as it is
for a performance of King Lear or Swan Lake, or a reading of War and
Peace. Narration, then, rests upon the presence of a narrator or narrative
medium (actors, book, film, etc.) and the absence of the events narrated.
These events are present as fictions but absent as realities. Given this situa
tion, it is possible to distinguish different kinds and qualities of narration
by the varying extents to which they emphasize either that immediate pro
cess of narration (as an actor may draw attention to himself as performer
or a writer to himself as stylist) or, on the other hand, emphasize those
mediated events themselves. Using our common critical terminology, it is
possible to say that a narration is more fictional as it emphasizes the event
narrated, and more lyrical as it emphasizes its own language, and more
rhetorical as it uses either language or events for some persuasive end.
Before looking more closely at the processes of narration, it may be
useful to pause here and consider the relationship of narrative to theories
of literature and literary value. The Russian formalists and the Prague
school of structuralists, and in particular Roman Jakobson, have attempted
to isolate the quality of 'literariness' as a feature added to ordinary lan
guage. They have defined literariness as language calling attention to it
self, or as a kind of message in which emphasis is placed on the form of the
utterance rather than on its referential capacity. For the student of narra
tive, however, it is clear that this notion is applicable only to the lyrical
dimension of an utterance. If narratives may be considered to be literary,
they must be literary also in a way which is more purely narrative. Let me
try to put this problem in a more concrete fashion.
We can begin by considering a question: what distinguishes a literary
narrative from my recital of the events of my day? Is it a matter of the
style of my performance—my language, voice, gesture, as opposed to those
of a literary raconteur—or is it a matter of the events themselves—the trivi
al, loosely ordered events of my day, as opposed to events of greater con
sequence shaped to a more aesthetically satisfying pattern? The question—
which need not be answered—reinforces the notion that there are two dis
tinct formal dimensions to narrative utterances: a presentational form
which is immediate (language, gesture, etc.), and a represented form which
is at one remove from the level of performance itself. In a novel, for in
stance, there is the language of the author at one level, and the representa
tion of character, situation, and event at another. In a play, there is the
language of the author, the performance of the actor, and the deeds of the
character to consider: three easily discerned levels at which form is per
ceptible. And film adds at least one level to these, just through the pro
cesses of photography itself: camera-angle, lighting, focus, etc.
In a sense, each of these formal levels adds a certain amount of literari
ness to the process simply by existing. Take, for instance, a text which can
be read as a book, enacted on a stage, or filmed and projected on a
screen—like Shakespeares Henry V. Each of the added levels of presenta
tional style intensifies the literariness of the experience by its own arti
fice: language plus enactment plus photography. And the achieved fiction
is there with a specificity which the printed text alone can never hope to
match. The price for this intensity is a reduction in the interpretive rich
nes
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电影中的叙事和叙事性
罗伯特·斯科尔斯
让我们假设有一种叫做叙事的东西可以独立存在任何一种特定的叙述方法或叙述话语中,我们假设有一种叫做英语的语言,可以存在于任何特定的话语形式或个人之外英语演讲和表演之中。叙事首先是一种人类行为。它是一种特定的模仿或代表性的行为,通过模仿或代表性的行为,使得人类可以传递某种信息。叙述方式可能非常不同。(顺便说一句,我知道我们的关系习惯上讲的和制定的之间的区别使我们反对叙事表现而反对戏剧表演。然而,我用的是叙述这个词在戏剧和故事,以及其他形式的模仿中最广泛的含义)讲述一个故事,可以口头叙述,或是致力于写作,或是由一组人表演构成一连串的视觉图像,视觉图像中包括或不包括文字,或作为有声或者无声,展现文字图像的电影进行流传。
所有这些模仿行为都有一些共同的特征,使我们能够将它们视为叙事。首先,它属于一类特殊的象征性活动,迫使解释者区分他自己的直接情况和通过叙述媒介呈现给他的其他一些情况。在叙事中,总会有一个旁观者或翻译者位于与叙述事件不同的空间/时间参考中。叙述过程在解释者的直接参考框架中达到高潮,但它指的是那种直接情况之外的事件。这对我今天的小事件的晚餐时间表演来说都是如此,因为它是为了表演《李尔王》或《天鹅湖》,或者阅读《战争和和平》。因此,叙事依赖于叙述者或叙事媒介(演员,书籍,电影等)的存在以及叙述事件的缺失。
这些事件以虚构形式出现,不存在于现实。鉴于这种情况,有可能通过不同的程度来区分不同类型和质量的叙事,他们强调的是,叙述的直接过程(作为一个演员可能会把注意力集中在自己作为表演者或作为自己作为造型师的作家),或者,另一方面,强调那些介导的事件本身。若是使用我们常用的批判术语,可以说叙述更加虚构,因为它强调事件叙述,更加抒情,因为它强调自己的语言,更多的修辞,因为它使用任何语言或事件为一些有说服力的结束。
在更仔细地观察叙事过程之前,可能会这样有用的是暂停在这里并考虑叙事与文学理论和文学价值的关系。俄罗斯的形式主义者和布拉格的结构主义学派,特别是罗曼雅各布森,试图将“文学性”的质量视为一种增加普通语言的特征。他们将文学性定义为注意自身的语言,或者作为一种信息,其中强调话语的形式而不是其参考能力。然而,对于叙事来说,很明显这个概念只适用于话语的抒情维度。如果叙事可能被认为是文学的,那么它们也必须是一种更纯粹叙事的文学方式。让我试着以更具体的方式解决这个问题。
我们可以从一个问题开始:文学与我们日常叙述的事件之间有何种不同?这是一个问题我的表现风格 - 我的语言,声音,手势,而不是文学艺术家的风格 - 或者是事件本身的问题 - 我一天中琐碎,松散有序的事件,而不是更重要的事件形成的事件。叙事让故事具有了更美观的模式?这个问题 - 无需回答 - 强化了这样一种观念,即叙事话语有两个截然不同的形式维度:一种表达形式,即直接(语言,手势等),以及一种表现形式,从一个层次上移除性能本身。例如,在一部小说中,作者的语言处于一个层面,而角色,情境和事件的表现则存在于另一个层面。在戏剧中,有作者的语言,演员的表现,以及角色的行为要考虑:三个容易辨别的等级,形式是可感知的。电影通过摄影本身的过程增加了至少一个层次:摄像机角度,照明,焦点等。
从某种意义上说,这些正式级别中的每一个都只是通过现有的方式为过程增加了一定的文学性。例如,写一本书,在舞台上表演,或拍摄并投影在屏幕上的文本,如莎士比亚的亨利五世。每一个增加的表现风格层次都强化了自己的文学性格。技巧:语言加上制定加摄影。并且所实现的虚构具有特定性,印刷文本本身永远无法匹配。这种强度的代价是书面文本的解释丰富度的降低 - 这种情况随着每个级别的增加而发生。当戏剧上演时,每个表演都为读者做出了诠释性的选择 - 但没有两个表演能够做出相同的选择。在拍摄故事时,所有选择都是最终的。这表明每个人都是与众不同的。
小心地将解释性丰富性与任何特定工作中的文学性质混淆。生命本身及其所有的日常偶然事件,为解释提供了最丰富的领域。艺术大大减少了这个领域。这就是为什么我们重视它 - 不是唯一的原因,但也许是主要原因。当然,我的例子是一部基于特别丰富的口头文本制作的电影,这过于简单,甚至在某些方面可能会产生误导。当然,我不希望暗示口头文本是丰富的,而且电影在可解释性方面是贫穷的。相反,我的最终目的是表明口头和电影文本所包含的不同类型的解释,并用最近的美国电影中的一些简短例子来说明这一点。但首先,有必要回顾一下叙事行为的一般方面。
任何对一系列事件的讲述或叙述都可称为叙述。但并不是每一个叙事都会产生叙事,并不是每一个叙事都会成为一个故事。通过成为一个故事,或假装成一个故事,叙述到达虚构的文学性。故事是一种完整性的叙述,即使是故事片段或未完成的故事,也会将完整性作为其信息原则的一个方面 - 管理其构建的意向性。鉴于其线性连续的特征,电影已成为一种主要的叙事媒介也就不足为奇了。然而,它应该由故事主导,更令人惊讶的是,它更多地受到故事的支配,比印刷书籍更多地受到小说的支配。
在这一点上,回顾一些术语可能是有用的。叙述是一个制定或叙述的过程,这是我们文化经验的共同特征。我们每天都做一些。当这个过程充分连贯并发展为脱离文化交流的流动时,我们将其视为一种叙事。由于感知叙事开始意味着一种特殊的尖锐或目的论,我们认识到这是一个故事,我们认为它具有一定的期望,表达其表达模式和语义内容。我们这里有一个连续体,就像色谱一样,我们的感知机制分解为不同的层次。我们认为是“故事”的水平以呈现中的某些结构特征来区分,这反过来要求感知者积极参与,我想称之为“叙事性”。
这个词目前被法国评论家主要用来指电影本身的属性 - 他们的叙事质量。但这个词在英语中似乎有点误导,因为它暗示了一个比我们通常允许的神器更有感觉的角色。出于这个原因和其他一些,我想建议我们用“叙事性”这个词来指代这个过程。感知者通过任何叙事媒介提供的虚构数据积极地构建故事。小说以叙事的形式呈现给我们,引导我们,因为我们自己的主动叙事试图完成将实现故事的过程。
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