From Plato to Lumiere

by Gaudreault, Andre; Barnard, Timothy; Ricoeur, Paul; Gunning, Tom

• ISBN13: 9780802095862
• ISBN10: 0802095860
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-11
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

With this lucid translation of Du litteraire au filmique , André Gaudreault's highly influential and original study of film narratology is now accessible to English-language audiences for the first time. Building a theory of narrative on sources as diverse as Plato, The Arabian Nights ,and Proust, From Plato to Lumière challenges narratological orthodoxy by positing that all forms of narrative are mediated by an ‘underlying narrator' who exists between the author and narrative text.Offering illuminating insights, definitions, and formal distinctions, Gaudreault examines the practices of novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers and applies his theory to the early cinema of the Lumière brothers and more recent films. He also enhances our understanding of how narrative develops visually without language -- monstration -- by detailing how the evolution of the medium influenced narratives in cinema. From Plato to Lumière includes a translation of Paul Ricœur's preface to the French-language edition as well as a new preface by Tom Gunning. It is a must-read for cinema and media students and scholars and an essential text on the study of narrative.

Table of Contents

Lists of Illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Preface to the English-language edition by Tom Gunning	p. xvii
Acknowledgments	p. xxvii
Introduction	p. 3
Early Cinema and Narrativity	p. 11
Narrative Problems	p. 19
In Search of the First Film Narrative	p. 26
Early Narratology: Mimesis and Diegesis	p. 38
Textual Narrative and Staged Narrative	p. 52
Narration and Monstration	p. 62
The Narrator and the Monstrator	p. 72
Narration and Monstration in the Cinema	p. 81
The Film Narrative System	p. 90
The Origins of the Film Narrator	p. 101
Narrator(s)	p. 113
A Monstrative Entertainment, Assisted by Narration	p. 125
Delegated Film Narrators	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 147
Afterword (1998): Cinema, Between Literariness and Intermediality	p. 151
Notes	p. 165
Bibliography	p. 207
Index	p. 219
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