



This article proposes a bridge between an early and a late work of Gérard Genette, namely his article Frontières du récit and his collection of essays Fiction et diction. In Frontières du récit, Genette points at two instances of “anti-narrative” intrusion into narrative. The first is what Emile Benveniste called “discourse,” meaning the self-reflexive comments of the nar- rator, and the second is description, a mode of utterance that when found in a narrative, tem- porarily withholds the flow of the story. In the context of the proliferation of these instances in current narrative films and in the light of Genette’s observations in Fiction et diction, I will suggest that these anti-narrative elements provide us with a chance to fundamentally recon- sider the notion of narrative and to configure a paradigm shift in narratology, which Genette had already foreseen in his early work.




application/pdf
2036-461X
16248
18
en
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Self-reflexivity, Description, and the Boundaries of Narrative Cinema
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
12
Thematic issue / Section thématique
2012-03-01
2021-09-06
2012-03-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Maria Poulaki
2012/03/01
University of Amsterdam
2036-461X
18
en
Self-reflexivity, Description, and the Boundaries of Narrative Cinema
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16248/17151
12
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 45




           SELF-REFLEXIVITY, DESCRIPTION, AND THE BOUNDARIES
           OF NARRATIVE CINEMA
           Maria Poulaki, University of Amsterdam




             Abstract
             This article proposes a bridge between an early and a late work of Gérard Genette, namely
             his article Frontières du récit and his collection of essays Fiction et diction. In Frontières du
             récit, Genette points at two instances of “anti-narrative” intrusion into narrative. The first is
             what Emile Benveniste called “discourse,” meaning the self-reflexive comments of the nar-
             rator, and the second is description, a mode of utterance that when found in a narrative, tem-
             porarily withholds the flow of the story. In the context of the proliferation of these instances
             in current narrative films and in the light of Genette’s observations in Fiction et diction, I will
             suggest that these anti-narrative elements provide us with a chance to fundamentally recon-
             sider the notion of narrative and to configure a paradigm shift in narratology, which Genette
             had already foreseen in his early work.



           The border of self-referential discourse

              The self-reference or “self-reflexivity” of a text has been associated with a (more or less explic-
           it) self-conscious/self-expository move on behalf of the maker that has a distancing effect upon
           the reader/recipient. In the case of storytelling, self-reflexivity suspends the reader’s or viewer’s
           immersion into the story, and ads multiple layers of signification.1 In general, self-referential
           methods in art, literature and film have been considered tools that trigger critical reflection on
           behalf of the recipient.2
              There is a certain tension between self-reflexivity and narrative related to self-reflexivity’s
           association with discourse. Highlighting this tension in his article Frontières du récit,3 Genette
           refers to discourse (discours), meaning the voice of the author and his or her self-referential
           accounts, which “intrudes” the text and suggests a threat to the “purity” of narrative. In the com-
           plex model of narrative that Genette later developed, self-reflexivity would correspond to the ana-
           lytical category of “narrating instance,” the manifestation of which, in the form of discourse, dis-
           rupts the récit (narrative).4 The distinction between narrative and discourse was initiated by
           Aristotle, who considered separately certain types of poetry, the lyric, satiric and didactic poetry,
           that were not representational, that is, they did not reflect external actions (real or fictional), but
           rather expressed the poet’s own thoughts. In the 1960s the French linguist and semiotician Emile

           CINÉMA & CIE, vol. XII, no. 18, Spring 2012                                                         45
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 46




         MARIA POULAKI

         Benveniste reintroduced the distinction between narrative as story (what he called histoire) and
         discourse. Benveniste defined the pure form of narrative as one that remains uncontaminated by
         the subjectivity of discourse; in pure narrative, the narrator’s presence goes unnoticeable, and
         nothing distracts the recipient from the immersive experience of reading: “The objectivity of nar-
         rative is defined by the absence of all reference to the narrator. Truly there is no longer a ‘narra-
         tor.’ The events are chronologically recorded as they appear on the horizon of the story. Here no
         one speaks. The events seem to tell themselves.”5
            Chronological sequentiality or “linearity” here also appears as a feature of “pure narrative.”
         Genette stresses that instances of pure narrative,6 such as the ones that Benveniste finds in some
         passages of Balzac, are isolated, and that almost every text comprises of both narrative and dis-
         cursive passages.7 This hybridization notwithstanding, a tension is still introduced by the discur-
         sive, and in this sense, self-referential passages of stories: “Any intrusion of discursive elements
         into the interior of a narrative is perceived as a disruption of the discipline of the narrative por-
         tion.”8 This is not the case when narrative is embedded in discursive modes of expression.
         “Narrative inserted into discourse transforms itself into an element of discourse, but discourse
         inserted into narrative remains discourse and forms a sort of cyst, easily recognized and localized.
         One might say that the purity of narrative is more obvious than that of discourse.”9
            Continues Genette:

           Discourse has no purity to preserve since it is the natural mode of language, the broadest and
           most universal mode, by definition open to all forms. On the contrary, narrative is a particu-
           lar mode, marked and defined by a certain number of exclusions and restrictive conditions (no
           present tense, no first person, etc.). Discourse can “narrate” without ceasing to be discourse.
           Narrative can’t “discourse” without betraying itself. 10

            According to Genette, the anti-narrative function of discourse lies in the insertion of subjectiv-
         ity to the otherwise seemingly “objective” sequence of events (récit). Self-reflexive discourse has
         an anti-mimetic and, in this sense, “anti-narrative” character, as long as it intervenes through
         everything that undermines objectivity. The self-reflexive attributes of discourse are closely relat-
         ed to the function of cinematic enunciation, also studied by Benveniste. Discourse always
         reminds the viewers about the discrepancy between them being, on the one hand, enunciators of
         the filmic text (and “makers” of the story) and, on the other hand, enunciated, subjects situated
         by the filmic discourse.11 It thus rejects the objectivity and naturalness of histoire, close to which
         Genette places “pure narrative.”
            When it comes to film, direct instances of self-referential discourse are not common. However,
         self-reflexivity makes its presence noticeable through various metanarrational or metafictional
         techniques and stylistic devices that break with narrative’s “purity.”12 Literary and semiotic mod-
         els of self-reference became particularly influential in the decades of 1960s and 1970s, and deter-
         mined the conceptualization of self-reflexivity in film theory.13 The (post-)Marxist and struc-
         turalist tradition of film theory stepped on self-reflexivity’s anti-mimetic character, to associate
         the term with an ideologically loaded, Brechtian “break with the illusionism of the spectacle.”
         Apparatus theory, especially, drawing on Barthes and also on Althusser and Lacan, considered
         cinema a medium intrinsically ideological, and pointed at the necessity to find ways to resist the

         46
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 47




                                   SELF-REFLEXIVITY, DESCRIPTION, AND THE BOUNDARIES OF NARRATIVE CINEMA

           imposition of the apparatus over the spectator’s consciousness; one of these ways was found in
           self-reflexivity. This theoretical background of self-reflexivity determined the way self-reflexivi-
           ty, was (until today) conceived in film theory and also in the cognitive strands of film narratol-
           ogy. As representative of the latter, Edward Branigan places (self-)reflexivity among other “anti-
           narrative devices,” as he calls them, such as “irony, paradox, contradiction, novelty, or alien-
           ation.” The reflexive device is for him “prescribed to provide a critical and intellectual distance
           (‘opacity’) that frees the viewer from delusion.”14
              Thus, even when detached from the actual narrating “voice” and Genette’s literary discourse,
           self-reflexivity in film is also found in tension with the supposed objectivity of pure narrative, as
           well as with that of the filmic mode of representation, which, for certain critical stands of film
           theory, is inherently mimetic.15


           The border of description

              Another, albeit “ill-defined” border of narrative is, according to Genette’s 1966 article, descrip-
           tion. His discussion of description reflects a tension in both the literary and the film theoretical
           tradition between narrative and description. The traditional view of narrative considers it to be
           distinct from description, because description does not conform to the overall causal and tempo-
           ral succession of the story; it rather suspends time and action. This tension between description
           and narrative comes from the period of Enlightenment and its system of ideas and was systemat-
           ically treated by Lessing in his distinction between temporal and spatial arts, particularly poetry
           and painting. As Joseph Frank notes, Lessing used to advise poets to give emphasis on action and
           not on description, because action fits the linear temporality of language.16 In the same vein,
           descriptive passages in narratives have been considered extra-narrative prostheses rather than
           organic parts of narrative. They are, in a way, “cysts” as well.
              As Genette recognizes, description per se has different attributes from narrative. It lingers on
           objects, turning actions into “scenes.” The word scene is relevant to the juxtaposition of objects
           in space.17 There have been periods in literary and art history where the descriptive and spatial
           aspects of texts came to the fore. For instance, description has been a central characteristic of
           baroque art and poetry, as Genette notes.18 The development of the novel, however, gave preva-
           lence to another, “explicative and symbolic” function of description,19 one that serves the funda-
           mental processes of narrative, that is, the logical order (causality) and temporal order (succes-
           sion), as Tzvetan Todorov would have it,20 or, in other words, its dramatic and temporal aspects.21
           For example, in the novels of Balzac the description of things is expressive of the inner life of the
           characters, serving in a way the development of the narrative. In general, for Genette, description
           comes to serve the needs of the dramatic unfolding of the diegesis, and thus it is, in a sense, sub-
           ordinate to narrative.22
              As with self-referential discourse, in the case of cinema description becomes a problematic cat-
           egory. Based on the work of Genette but also on that of the French theorist Philippe Hamon,
           Seymour Chatman attempted, from the aspect of film narratology, to clarify the instances of
           description in cinema. Following Genette’s contrast between narrative and description, Chatman
           problematized the role of description in narrative films. In his book Story and Discourse he

                                                                                                              47
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 48




         MARIA POULAKI

         declares his conviction that “description per se is generally impossible in narrative films.”23
         Description in literature is associated with pause and lingering; in film, however, “the story-time
         keeps going as long as images are projected on the screen, as long as we feel that the camera con-
         tinues to run.”24 Thus, for Chatman “pure” description is impossible in the medium of cinema.
         Films do not permit the “lingering” found in literary texts. In film, even when no action takes
         place, “the focus remains on the event.”25 Descriptive details, Chatman repeats in Coming to
         Terms, “can only occur as a product of plot action; they do not have a separate existence.”26 The
         effect of description can be however created by cinematic means, as it happens in the case of
         freeze frame.27 A freeze frame, instead of serving plot needs, would allow more time to be given
         to objects or persons in the frame “to reveal their own properties;”28 it would thus cinematically
         produce the pause and the lingering so characteristic of literary description.
            These “boundaries of narrative,” self-reflexivity and description, are all the more challenged by
         the tendency of films made in the post-1990s to have complex narratives. Certainly such chal-
         lenging has been the case in many avant-garde and art films of the past, but it still formed part of
         an alternative and rather marginal way of storytelling, in relation to the dominant Hollywood
         practices. What is stressed here is that now it seems that new forces tend to turn complex modes
         of narration into a new norm, as film narratives in which discourse and description proliferate are
         massively being promoted.


         Self-reflexivity and description in contemporary complex films

           The way that Genette problematized the boundaries of narrative may provide insight into a
         recent tendency in narrative cinema, where, since the mid-1990s, films that have generally been
         characterized as “complex narratives” proliferate. Titles include films that belong to various gen-
         res and traditions and that have also been called by critics “puzzle films” or “network narratives;”
         from Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994), Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) and Requiem for
         a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000), to Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006), Inception
         (Christopher Nolan, 2010) and Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011). In these contemporary “com-
         plex” films, self-reflexive discourse and description – in their particular cinematic modes – gain
         ground, to the point that they tend to become their defining characteristics.
           Self-reflexivity, also found in postclassical modes of Hollywood narration after the 1970s,29 has
         a very intense presence in complex films. Referring to films such as Chunking Express (Chung
         Hing sam lam, Wong Kar-wai, 1994), Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt, Tom Tykwer, 1998), Fight Club
         and Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999), Eleftheria Thanouli finds that in them self-reflex-
         ivity disrupts the continuous and linear style of classical narration, through a proliferation and
         intensification of avant-garde techniques and “disruptive visual effects.” Thus, the techniques of
         “back projections, collages and optical tricks,” neglected in the past as “too artificial or self-
         reflexive,” make an impressive comeback in contemporary cinema.30 These are particular modes
         of cinematic self-reflexive discourse, but also indicators of the knowingness or self-consciousness
         of the narration. The self-reflexivity at the level of cinematography and montage is accompanied
         by self-reflexivity at the level of narration: thus, as Thanouli maintains, in films such as the ones
         mentioned above, “the narrating act comes forward,”31 acknowledging the audience, providing

         48
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 49




                                   SELF-REFLEXIVITY, DESCRIPTION, AND THE BOUNDARIES OF NARRATIVE CINEMA

           them with clues to comprehend the story and showing its knowledgeability and spatiotemporal
           omnipresence.
              David Bordwell has also pointed out the high degree of self-consciousness in the complex films
           that he calls “network narratives” because they create networks of different characters and their
           stories, as happens in Pulp Fiction, Chunking Express, Magnolia and Babel. Bordwell considers
           marks of the self-conscious stance of these film devices such as crosscutting, intertitles, montage
           according to a motif, time-juggling, and openly suppressive narration.32 The non-sequential order-
           ing of events in a film, especially, is a form of overt, self-conscious – and self-referential – nar-
           ration; a narration that also makes the viewer conscious of the presence of a narrative principle
           that manipulates the telling.
              Genette was perhaps the first who indicated the self-reflexive function of time-juggling (cases
           of “anachrony”) in (literary) texts. Referring specifically to “prolepses” – the premature reference
           to future events, the equivalent of which in cinema is for Chatman the device of “flashforwards”33
           – Genette states that the latter are “not only data of narrative temporality but also data of voice,”
           which “bring the narrating instance itself directly into play.”34 This type of self-reflexivity is
           strongly communicated by contemporary complex films that play with temporal linearity.
              Through their constant self-reflexivity and unwillingness to “suspend disbelief” – considered to
           be a precondition for narrative immersion – contemporary complex films orientate the viewers’
           attention towards mediation (as opposed to transparency), which characterizes not only the film’s
           world but also the “factual” world where the viewers live in, permeated by informational net-
           works.35 In this context of “hypermediated realism,”36 filmic self-reflexivity not only points at
           how reality is being transformed and “augmented” through various media, but also, and espe-
           cially, at how only through these we can access reality (just like the protagonists often attempt).
           The same holds for our enjoyment of the films as viewers. Pleasure and connection to the story
           world comes through an awareness of the medium and its manipulation.
              While the discursive cyst seems to be threatening the purity of narrative with its overwhelming
           presence in complex films, the other cyst traditionally subordinate to narrative, description, also
           seems to be growing, decisively shifting its hierarchical position in relation to narrative. All the
           more, as it becomes clear in contemporary complex films, narrative gets to serve description,
           instead of the other way around.
              Chatman foresaw the possibility of such shift of hierarchy like the one that can be observed in
           complex films, especially those that have an episodic or “thread” structure.37 As he pointed out in
           Coming to Terms, apart from the particular case of freeze frame, in cinema it is by means of con-
           tiguity and parallelism that description might be at work, evoking spatial patterns that connect dis-
           parate images, objects or even narrative episodes. Drawing on Christian Metz and his account of
           description as a mode of editing, Chatman argued that even action, one of the main foundations
           of narrative, is possible to be described instead of narrated in cinema, provided that this action is
           composed by elements, the relation between which is one of “spatial parallelism at any given
           moment in time.”38 Description renders contiguity (spatial proximity) more important than
           causality. As Chatman stresses, “description has a logic of its own, and it is unreasonable to belit-
           tle it because it does not resemble the chrono-logic of Narration.”39
              The aspect of description is highlighted through the iterative editing rhythm of films such as
           Night on Earth, Run Lola Run, and Gomorrah (Gomorra, Matteo Garrone, 2008), a rhythm that

                                                                                                             49
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 50




         MARIA POULAKI

         often suspends the narrative causal-logical connections between the film’s separate elements. The
         order in which the elements appear can thus be conceived as contingent and the relation between
         them as paradigmatic rather than syntagmatic. The narrative elements, i.e. characters, events and
         story-threads, become objects that the viewers traverse as the film lingers on them in its parcours
         from one to the other, a parcours less and less motivated by narrative action and causality. The
         excerpts from the stories of different characters become pieces that are juxtaposed in the space of
         the film, often considered to be contemporaneous and with no temporal successiveness among
         them. On the one hand, in films composed by multiple stories, the latter become “mini-narratives”
         that do not serve the composition of an overarching narrative, since there is not a beginning, mid-
         dle and end in which we can place these autonomous stories, as it is the case in Gomorrah. On
         the other hand, in films where a certain chronological sequence between the multiple stories is
         ultimately suggested, and something reminiscent of a narrative whole may be created – as it hap-
         pens for instance in Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) or Babel – this whole is yet explicitly
         given as tentative, and open to multiple possibilities and new contingent connections, latent not
         only inside the diegesis but also between the diegetic universe and the “real” world of the view-
         ers. Hence, the multiple mini-narratives or threads of the films may be themselves seen as objects
         of description, opening out to a larger – but equally contingent and poorly ordered in a causal-
         logical way – real world.


         Complex reality and complex diction

            Taking into consideration the proliferation of self-reflexivity and description in recent complex
         films, it seems that in them it is the narrative, as defined by its temporal and dramatic attributes,
         that tends to become the cyst, and a micro-element of a larger composition. However, can we dis-
         miss the word narrative altogether when talking about films that ultimately still create story
         worlds? The problem seems to lie in the definition of the word narrative itself, and its connota-
         tions of a certain objective and verisimilar representation, which would imitate the causal-logical
         and spatio-temporal sequence of events in an idealized version of the real world. By adding many
         layers and dimensions of analysis, Genette and other prominent narratologists demonstrated that
         the study of narrative needs to take into account a complex textual and cognitive weaving, a mix-
         ture of discours and récit that spreads across multiple narrational levels. However, it is the laws
         of causality and spatiotemporal sequentiality, presupposed or expected in narrative, that introduce
         an internal tension with all the “anti-narrative” characteristics of texts, such as those of self-
         reflexivity and description. The recent proliferation of these characteristics in complex films
         points at the transcendence of narrative in the strict, “pure” definition of the term, against which
         narratology has always been struggling, however still without having achieved a radical emanci-
         pation from it. Self-reflexivity and description are anti-narrative according to the old norms of a
         certain verisimilitude of the histoire, against the backdrop of which the récit and the narration
         were always conceived. Narrative (the récit) can no longer be conceived to stand closer to the his-
         toire (as it does in Frontières du récit), as contemporary mainstream narratives become more and
         more complex. On the other hand, the histoire, mimicking the order of an idealized representa-
         tion of facts, can no longer be conceived as such, because, as I will argue, our own conception of

         50
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 51




                                   SELF-REFLEXIVITY, DESCRIPTION, AND THE BOUNDARIES OF NARRATIVE CINEMA

           what reality is has significantly changed – to the point that verisimilar representations do not
           appear convincing anymore.
              A solution to the inner contradiction created between self-reflexive discourse and description
           on the one hand, and narrative on the other, is suggested by Genette through his own self-refer-
           ential reflections at a later phase of his work. Specifically in Fiction et Diction40, Genette looks
           back at his earlier work including Narrative Discourse (based on Figures III)41 and Nouveau dis-
           cours du récit,42 and points at the problem of verisimilitude (or representational realism) and its
           association with narrative, which is, as I believe, also key for the understanding of contemporary
           complex films.
              Fiction and Diction is a collection of essays dealing with special narratological problems such
           as how do we define literariness, for instance whether we do so according to the theme and inten-
           tion of a work (fiction) or according to aesthetic criteria (diction). In the essay Fictional
           Narrative, Factual Narrative Genette observes that in a large part of his earlier work he tended
           to associate narrative with fiction, and to neglect factual narrative. Thus, he attempts to test
           whether his analytical categories of order, pace, frequency, mode, and voice, which he developed
           based on fictional narrative, can also be applied to cases of factual narrative, such as historical
           narratives and autobiographies. The conclusion that he draws is that the differences between the
           two types of narrative, albeit existent, are not as rigid as one would imagine, as both fictional and
           factual narratives make use of the same stylistic elements. Fiction imitates, as Searle would have
           it, “nonfictional assertions,” but also factual narratives borrow fictional modes, and narratology
           should trespass the border between fictional and factual genres. As for contemporary complex fic-
           tion films, they heavily rely on factual diction with the proliferation of self-reflexive and descrip-
           tive modes. At the same time, however, this does not make them appear more factual. On the con-
           trary, by using these modes they seem to become even more “fictional,” creating an unreal effect
           (e.g. The Jacket [John Maybury, 2005], Source Code, Take Shelter [Jeff Nichols, 2011]), perhaps
           because of the fact that our perception of reality feels more unreal than ever.43 In Source Code,
           the protagonist is called to make mnemonic patterns out of objects described to him, and to self-
           reflexively evaluate the borders of his own reality in relation to the one presented to him. The
           viewer of this and other complex films is required to do exactly the same. In our hypermediated
           environment, the ways we use to connect to the real are through reflexivity, and openness to con-
           tingent connectivity among seemingly unconnected objects (what description effectuates as a
           mode of textual diction). This results into fiction being less verisimilar to its own norms as a genre
           (a tendency Genette observes in Fiction and Diction),44 but closer to our conception of a hyper-
           mediated real. Thus, in the same way that Genette calls narratology to cross the borders between
           fiction and non-fiction, as literature itself does, we could nowadays suggest a similar move on
           behalf of contemporary (film) narratology, to reconsider these borders once again, the way that
           contemporary cinema does.
              Narrative norms can well prevail for a long period, but as Genette notes, they can be subject to
           transformation. Such transformation is I think taking place with the contemporary wave of com-
           plex narratives, a shift in the prevailing norms, which perhaps also suggests a – long awaited –
           paradigm shift for narratology. At first, the two elements that Genette indicated as boundaries of
           narrative in 1966, namely discourse and description, seem to be pointing beyond the borders of
           the fictional world of narrative, and thus to be introducing an internal tension with it. On the one

                                                                                                              51
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 52




         MARIA POULAKI

         hand, self-reflexivity inserts the “reality” of the narrating instance, and of the medium itself. On
         the other hand, description inserts a “factual” and contingent way of engaging with the elements
         of the diegetic world but also with what remains out of it. However, taking into account Genette’s
         subsequent reconsideration – and integration – of factual narrative into his general narrative
         model, the tension that these two elements, self-reflexivity and description, introduce is now more
         clearly drawn not with one specific instance of narrative, namely the fictional one, but with nar-
         rative altogether, and more precisely, with certain verisimilar presumptions “built” in the con-
         ception and definition of narrative, which tie it to representation. These are issues coming to the
         fore by the current wave of research on “unnatural narratology.”45 The emancipation of narrative
         as a notion from the dominant norms of verisimilitude and “legitimacy”46 and from representa-
         tional schemata would verify a prediction Genette had made already in Frontières du récit, com-
         menting on the way the literary “experiments” of the 20th century, from Hemingway to Robbe-
         Grillet, tested narrative against others incompatible to it modes of utterance, such as discourse:

             Perhaps the novel, after poetry, will definitively leave the age of representation. Perhaps nar-
             rative, in the negative singularity that we have attributed to it, is, like art for Hegel, already
             for us a thing of the past which we must hasten to consider as it passes away, before it has
             completely deserted our horizon.47

            My “circular” reading of early and late Genette suggests that both self-reflexivity and descrip-
         tion blur the borders between the fictional and the factual, and create modes of diction that, on
         the one hand do not contradict storytelling, and on the other hand, may organize story worlds in
         different and more complex ways from the ones that have classically been associated with “nar-
         rative,” in literary but also in cinema theory.
            Genette’s own self-reflexive discourse about his theory of narrative gives us the chance to
         rethink current film narratives from this perspective. The “anti-narrative” characteristics of self-
         reflexivity and description point at the merging of the factual with the fictional: on the one hand,
         in the case of the self-reflexive complex films, at a reality that is so much mediated that it is dif-
         ficult to pose the borders between it and fiction; on the other hand, in the case of network-like
         complex films, at increasingly contingent and life-like narrative forms, to the extent that life is
         more and more recognized as coupling with randomness and uncertainty, rather than following
         idealized cause and effect sequences and the spatiotemporal continuity that has been linked with
         narrative. A two-way merger of fiction and reality expressed by contemporary films makes
         Genette’s insights into the nature of narrative pertinent. As they constantly challenge the bound-
         aries between fiction and reality, contemporary complex narratives in cinema seem to make a sig-
         nificant case for a long-awaited emancipation of narrative from representation.




         1    See Maria Poulaki, “Impanted Time: The Final Cut and the Reflexive Loops of Complex Narratives,” in
              New Review of Film and Television Studies, vol. 9, no. 4, 2011, pp. 415-434.
         2    Roland Barthes had a significant contribution in making reflexivity, as narratologist David Herman
              notes, a “structuralist desideratum;” see David Herman, “Lateral Reflexivity: Levels, Versions, and the

         52
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 53




                                        SELF-REFLEXIVITY, DESCRIPTION, AND THE BOUNDARIES OF NARRATIVE CINEMA

                Logic of Paraphrase,” in Style, vol. 34, no. 2, 2000, pp. 293-306. According to Barthes, narration implies
                a degree of self-reflexivity because its role is not to transmit narrative but “to make it conspicuous:”
                Roland Barthes, “An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative,” in New Literary History, vol.
                6, no. 2, 1975, pp. 237-272. Barthes pointed at the dangers inherent in the tendency of bourgeois socie-
                ty to “naturalize narratives” by de-emphasizing the codes of the narrative situation, in other words, its
                self-reflexive markers.
           3    Gérard Genette, Frontières du récit, in Id., Figures, Seuil, Paris 1966 (eng. ed. “Boundaries of Narrative,”
                in New Literary History, vol. 8, no. 1, 1976, pp. 1-13).
           4    A debate over the role of the narrating instance in narrative dates back to proto-narratological concerns
                such as the one expressed by the critics Friedrich Spielhagen and Käte Friedemann. The former declared,
                in 1883 (Beiträge zur Theorie und Technik des Romans), that “the ideal narrative never alerts the read-
                er to the ongoing process of narration,” while the latter (Die Rolle des Erzählers in der Epik, 1910) con-
                sidered the narrating instance an indispensible feature of narrative; see Jan Christoph Meister,
                Narratology, in Peter Hühn et al. (eds.), The Living Handbook of Narratology, Hamburg University
                Press, Hamburg 2010, http://hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/index.php/Narratology, last visit 11 April
                2012.
           5    Gérard Genette, “Boundaries of Narrative,” cit., p. 9, quoting Emile Benveniste, Problèmes de linguis-
                tique générale, Gallimard, Paris 1966, pp. 237-250.
           6    Here “purity” is not meant as qualitative category; it rather refers to the linguistic “autonomy” of narra-
                tive in relation to other modes of linguistic expression.
           7    Gérard Genette, “Boundaries of Narrative,” cit., p. 10.
           8    Ibidem.
           9    Idem, pp. 10-11.
           10   Idem, p. 11.
           11   Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Routledge, London 2006 (3rd edition), p. 102.
           12   As Monika Fludernik notes, until recently the metafictional and metanarrational aspects of self-reflex-
                ivity have been used interchangeably. Metanarration takes place at the level of discourse (both diegetic
                and extra-diegetic) and involves “comments […] concerned with the act and/or process of narration”; cf.
                Monika Fludernik, “Metanarrative and Metafictional Commentary: From Metadiscursivity to
                Metanarration and Metafiction,” in Poetica, no. 35, 2003, pp. 1–39. While metafiction concerns
                instances of self-reflexivity particularly in narrative fictions, and has an anti-mimetic character, meta-
                narration just “thematizes” the act of narration, and, when used in non-fictional narratives, can also serve
                the credibility of the narrated events: see Birgit Neumann, Ansgar Nünning, Metanarration and
                Metafiction, in Peter Hühn et al. (eds.), The Living Handbook of Narratology, cit. Forms of metafiction
                can be self-reflexive without involving self-reflexive discourse. For example, according to Werner Wolf,
                mise-en-abyme is a type of “implicit metafiction,” because it is a non-narrational instance of self-reflex-
                ivity (Ästhetische Illusion und Illusionsdurchbrechung in der Erzählkunst. Theorie und Geschichte mit
                Schwerpunkt auf englischem illusionsstörenden Erzählen, Niemeyer, Tübingen 1993, p. 307, as cited in
                Monika Fludernik, “Metanarrative and Metafictional Commentary,” cit.). Although here metafiction
                does not occur with the intervention of the narrator’s or author’s comments upon the act of narration (by
                discourse), it still is self-reflexive, because, through the unreal effect that it creates, fiction demonstrates
                itself as such.
           13   Two articles that appeared in the film journal Jump Cut in 1974 are indicative of the film theoretical dis-
                cussions on self-reflexivity in that period: Chuck Kleinhans, “Types of Audience Response: From Tear-
                jerkers to Thought-provokers,” in Jump Cut, no. 4, 1974, pp. 21-23, and Dana Polan, “Brecht and the
                Politics of Self-reflexive Cinema,” in Jump Cut, no. 1, 1974, pp. 29-32.
           14   Edward Branigan, Narrative Comprehension and Film, Routledge, New York 1992, p. 84.
           15   Christian Metz, drawing on Benveniste, related the absence of self-referential discourse in (classical)
                film, where the purity of histoire gives the impression of objectivity, with ideology: see Christian Metz,
                Story/Discourse: Notes on Two Kinds of Voyeurism, in Bill Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods Vol. II,
                University of California Press, Berkeley 1985, pp. 543-548.

                                                                                                                             53
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 54




         MARIA POULAKI

         16 Joseph Frank, “Spatial Form: Some Further Reflections,” in Critical Inquiry, vol. 5, no. 2, 1978, pp. 275-
            290.
         17 Gérard Genette, “Boundaries of Narrative,” cit., p. 7.
         18 Idem, p. 6.
         19 Ibidem.
         20 Tzvetan Todorov, Poétique de la prose, Seuil, Paris 1971 (eng ed. The Poetics of Prose, Cornell
            University Press, Ithaca, NY 1977, p. 136).
         21 Gérard Genette, “Boundaries of Narrative,” cit., p. 7.
         22 Idem, p. 6.
         23 Seymour B. Chatman, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, Cornell University
            Press, Ithaca, NY 1978, p. 74.
         24 Ibidem.
         25 Ibidem.
         26 Seymour B. Chatman, Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film, Cornell
            University Press, Ithaca, NY 1990, p. 42.
         27 Seymour B. Chatman, Story and Discourse, cit., p. 75.
         28 Seymour B. Chatman, Coming to Terms, cit., p. 50.
         29 Thomas Elsaesser, Warren Buckland, Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie
            Analysis, Arnold – Oxford University Press, London-New York 2002, p. 78.
         30 Eleftheria Thanouli, “Post-classical Narration: A New Paradigm in Contemporary Cinema,” in New
            Review of Film and Television Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, 2006, pp. 183-196 and p. 189.
         31 Idem, p. 192.
         32 David Bordwell, Poetics of Cinema, Routledge, New York 2007, pp. 210-211.
         33 Seymour B. Chatman, Story and Discourse, cit., p. 64.
         34 Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1986, p. 70.
         35 Sylvie Bissonnette, “Cyborg Brain in Robert Lepage’s Possible Worlds,” in Screen, vol. 50, no. 4, 2009,
            pp. 392-410.
         36 Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media, MIT Press, Cambridge,
            MA 1999.
         37 See Evan Smith, “Thread Structure: Rewriting the Hollywood Formula,” in Journal of Film and Video,
            vol. 51, no. 3-4, 2000, pp. 88-96.
         38 Christian Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
            1991, p. 128.
         39 Seymour B.Chatman, Coming to Terms, cit., p. 24. Apart from Chatman, in the more recent years other
            theorists have also proposed a reconsideration of the role of description, which cannot anymore be con-
            sidered just ancilla narrationis – as Genette refers to it in Frontières du récit. See, among others, Don
            Paul Fowler, “Narrate and Describe: The Problem of Ekphrasis,” in The Journal of Roman Studies, no.
            81, 1991, pp. 25-35; Peter Klaus, “Description and Event in Narrative,” in Orbis Litterarium, vol. 37,
            no. 3, 1982, pp. 201-216; and Ruth Ronen, “Description, Narrative and Representation,” in Narrative,
            vol. 5, no. 3, 1997, pp. 274-286.
         40 Gérard Genette, Fiction et diction, Seuil, Paris 1991 (eng. ed. Fiction and Diction, Cornell University
            Press, Ithaca, NY 1993).
         41 Gérard Genette, Figures III, Seuil, Paris 1972.
         42 Gérard Genette, Nouveau discours du récit, Seuil, Paris 1983.
         43 This is what Thomas Elsaesser seems to suggest in his theorization of “mind-game films;” see The Mind-
            Game Film, in Warren Buckland (ed.), Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema,
            Blackwell, Chichester 2009.
         44 Gérard Genette, Fiction and Diction, cit., p. 83.
         45 See Jan Alber et al., “Unnatural Narratives, Unnatural Narratology: Beyond Mimetic Models,” in
            Narrative, vol. 18, no. 2, 2010, pp. 113-136. With this of course I do not imply that there are no stories
            that are not verisimilar. Doing this would be to neglect all fantastic literature, to start with. The argument

         54
C&Cn18 p7-112 180912_- 19/09/12 10:22 Pagina 55




                                     SELF-REFLEXIVITY, DESCRIPTION, AND THE BOUNDARIES OF NARRATIVE CINEMA

              that I make here is more theoretical, and criticizes certain conceptions and presumptions of narrative the-
              ory, ultimately boiling down to how narrative is defined.
           46 Gérard Genette, Fiction and Diction, cit., p. 83.
           47 Gérard Genette, “Boundaries of Narrative,” cit., p.12.




                                                                                                                      55
