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Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity (pg. 6)
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| GoSpeedGo! |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
You should know that the fabula is the "story", and the syuzhet is merely the presentation of plot points. A film can have an extremely sophisticated syuzhet and still have practically no story whatsoever. |
You make it seem like syuzhet is not important to a "story" which is wrong. Syuzhet of a Hollywood movie usually follows a certain structure that's centered around a protagonist and his or hers goals. There are usually four parts divided by "turning points" which mark a change in the protagonist's goals. Gravity has this distinct four-part structure as well, and also deals with causality plus mixes personal stuff with work, which are other important aspects of Hollywood storytelling.
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I can only play devil's advocate and I don't want the story spoiling for the sake of this discussion, but I just felt the need to point out that nothing you've written has come close to addressing the issue. |
Yes, it has. Again, how camera movement is motivated is also very important in figuring out of what kind of film you are watching. In an art film, like Turin's Horse or Stalker, it often moves in long takes and pushing the story forward is not its main concern - there may be parts which are purely artistically motivated. Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQYrR4Stos4
Then there are Hollywood films - or films which follow conventions of Hollywood storytelling - where the camera is narratively motivated, and even long(er) takes - like the opening one in Robocop from the police station or the one in Gravity (that one is over 12 minutes long!) - follow characters who are talking at the moment (providing information) and focus on parts of the mise-en-scene that are narratively important.
Gravity may seem like an unconventional (art) film precisely because of its average shot-length (highly atypical for a Hollywood film) and complicated camera movement. Yet it's still used for storytelling purposes; something I said right in that post you quoted and then even made a comparison with the Tarr film in my reply to AlphaStarred.
"Story" in a film is much more than just fabula. How the other elements of filmic storytelling are tied to that is very important as well. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
You make it seem like syuzhet is not important to a "story" which is wrong. |
It's possible to get bogged down in semantics here regarding what a layman means when he says a film has "no story", but if we're going to dredge up these hoary old formalism terms from your very first Narrative 101 seminar, the difference between fabula and syuzhet is the difference between plot and narrative, and between story and storytelling. So it's not that syuzhet is not "important" to story but rather something else entirely. I know it's common usage to refer to a "story" as the complete package, but for me that is fuzzily metonymic and not academically watertight.
| quote: | Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
Again, how camera movement is motivated is also very important in figuring out of what kind of film you are watching. |
Which I'm sure would be extremely relevant if we were discussing genre. |
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| GoSpeedGo! |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Which I'm sure would be extremely relevant if we were discussing genre. |
Not really. Why? |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| Why what? What on earth are you talking about? My contention is with your attempts to defend the film from accusations it has "no story". I really would love to know why you feel the need to figure out what kind of film Gravity is in order to do that. I'm increasingly thinking you created some strawman Joe Popcorn to say "This film has no story!" so you could engineer some false dichotomy between art house and blockbuster films as a platform to essay the disinterested with your poorly researched sophism. |
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| AlphaStarred |
| The 'story' of Gravity is very simple, and may be inferred from the IMDB synopsis. Can we just leave it at that, and stop all this pointless arguing? |
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| GoSpeedGo! |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Why what? What on earth are you talking about? My contention is with your attempts to defend the film from accusations it has "no story". I really would love to know why you feel the need to figure out what kind of film Gravity is in order to do that. I'm increasingly thinking you created some strawman Joe Popcorn to say "This film has no story!" so you could engineer some false dichotomy between art house and blockbuster films as a platform to essay the disinterested with your poorly researched sophism. |
Why is motivation of camera movement relevant to a discussion of genre?
I haven't created anything, those "it has no story!" opinions are to be found all over the internet. Case in point: http://i.imgur.com/sC3VYcr.jpg
I didn't engineer any false dichotomy either, I was just giving examples that I thought showed the difference best. I guess it would had been better to mention 2001: The Space Odyssey since it's also sci-fi and a Hollywood film, but the narrative there is noticably less important than in Gravity.
When I read people saying that Gravity is "technically driven movie" or variations of it, I feel the need to point out that it's not the case. And that's where the "story" part comes in since most of what could be generally called "technical" - special effects, "hidden" digital editing... - actually serves the narrative and the film's themes. |
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| Chimney |
| Saw it tonight. Sucked. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
Why is motivation of camera movement relevant to a discussion of genre? |
I wasn't talking about camera movement. I was talking about, to quote you again, "figuring out of what kind of film you are watching".
When people talk about films having "no story", generally they mean there being a lack of events, of plot, of many things happening because other things happened. Perhaps Gravity does have plenty of this, but you've not demonstrated that at all. You've just talked about symbolism and themes and shot durations, none of which in any way indicates there being an abundance of story in the first place. |
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| Jon_Snow |
| The book was better. |
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| Tyler James |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jon_Snow
The book was better. |
lol |
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| Juan Paulino |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jon_Snow
The book was better. |
How is reading a book about astronauts getting torn by space debris fun? didn't you watch apollo 13? don't you know everything by now? |
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| Sushipunk |
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