Reading; Narrative, Film Analysis & Dead Links

As anyone who has read this blog over the last few months, or know me at all really, know that I have been lamenting over my inability (or mental block) to do film analysis. In so many ways, it is not very different than the analysis of a text, image or game even. One book I would recommend strongly (if you can read in French) is Laurent Jullier’s L’ Analyse de Sequence. Written as a student method handbook, it is well written – the key ideas are not buried deep in obscure french grammar; and he is very linear in unfolding what is and is not a good filmic analysis. So far, I am quite enjoying the book – both as someone who has to do (formal)film analysis for the first time and someone who is interested in the conveying of research methods.

While working on a small narrative deconstruction of a film for an undergraduate class, I came across this great project on narrative. Here is the original reference:

Jahn, Manfred. 2003. A Guide to Narratological Film Analysis. Poems, Plays, and Prose: A Guide to the Theory of Literary Genres. English Department, University of Cologne. (Available at: http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppf.htm)

It was a straightforward, clear discussion about narrative in all of its genres – fully equipped with diagrams and all! Via Google, below the above-mentioned link, is a ling to an introduction to the Encyclopedia of Narrative, which looks quite interesting (of which Manfred contributed).

On a side note, I was quite happy when I Googled cognitive film theory & narrative (in two seperate searches) and on the first page came across a colleague’s translated Master’s thesis. Thank you Dominic, I really should simply print this out! After a round of presentations last week, I have come to realize that as colleagues, we do not read nearly as much of each other’s work as we should!