Blog Post #2 The Narrative

Stories are told to us in movies through the narrative .Basically the telling of the story is a movie's narrative.The entire wold of the story -all the characters ,settings ,sounds,objects ,and events that mesh together and form the story that we are being presented is called the diegesis . All of the singular elements together form the diegetic elements of a movie.On the other side of the coin the elements that come from the outside of the world of the story are nondiegetic elements.Examples of nondiegetic elements are things we see and hear like background music , titles and credits,and voice-over dialogue from a third person narrator or someone who is not a character in the story being told to us.

The opening credits in the movie Out of the Past  where you have music from the score of the movie playing and the text RKO  RADIO PICTURES,INC. presents ROBERT MITCHUM and JANE GREER is one example of nondiegetic elements of a movie.In contrast an example of  a diagetic element might be at the 00:17:10 mark of the film as Robert Mitchum aka Jeff Bailey is headed into the cafe but is speaking to us as a narrator.Because he is a character speaking in the first person and not a third person narrator this is an example of diegetic elements as opposed to nondiegetic.A second example of a nondiegetic moment in the movie would be at the01:25:00 mark of the film wher Jeff and Ann are looking for each other in the woods and the only sound you hear is that of the score and background music.A second example of a diegetic element would be at the 00:16:36 mark of the movie where Jeff having talked to the housekeeper in the bar
realizes you do not get vaccinated for a trip to Florida but you do for Mexico.This is presented to us again in first person narrative voice-over with an aerial view of the town square in Acapulcoand the background music playing.It ties the story together for us and places Jeff in the village where he eventually meets the beautiful Kathy Moffit.

Film theorist Stefan Sharff defines familiar image as an attempt by the director of a movie to stabilize its narrative by repeating a particular image.Sometimes this repetition is done with a slight variation other times it is not.An example of familiar image occurs in Out of the Past at the 00:11:17 mark and 00:33:57 mark .Both these scenes take place in the car on the road to Lake Tahoe and involve Jeff telling Ann about his past and involve Jeff having to deal with his past in order for he and Ann to have a future.I think this is what the director was possibly going for here.

 

The genre of film noir  developed in the early 1940s,many of these movies were low budget and did not feature name actors.I believe the movie Out of the Past shot in 1947 contains many of the characteristics that typify the noir film.The narrative style with the voice- over from the main character is very  typical in this genre and is present in this movie as well. The frequent flashbacks are also another example of the genre of film noir.The dark lighting and photography and somewhat fatalistic viewpoint are also typical in film noir and i see these in the movie as well.The character played by a young Robert Mitchum was a cynical private detective who was the protagonist and sort of an antihero.This type of main character was very common in film noir.

I believe that Out of the Past is a terrific example of the genre of film noir.