June 03, 2006
EN: Nonlinear vs. Linear
In a discussion about the film Domino Michael Blowhard on the same named blog argues pro and cons of nonlinearity - while I have not seen the film on the first look I do agree with his view. Not really what I wanted to find but it seems most people do not like/understand/wanttounderstand highly nonlinear movies and I still agree with them even after all the research I have done on non-linearity. Its easier to tell a story without abstructing the facts under the structure and especially important when you do fiction inside a different kind of media - there are already lots of things that distract you in the case of Live Cinema - namely there is no talk and there are person on stage drawing attention away from the piece and there reactive short loops - the whole structure in general is already totally different and putting nonlinearity on top just seems too much. The last word has not been spoken for this projects nonlinearity but it seems more and more apparent that I might favor a linear approach. Here is what Mr. Blowhard´s thoughts are on the topic:
I'm not sure how I feel about nonlinear storytelling. Are you? Critics, academics, and the media often celebrate nonlinearity. There are three reasons usually given for the greatness of nonlinearity.
One is the usual avant-garde argument: Traditional storytelling is felt to be oppressive, and in need of subverting -- linearity is evil, therefore nonlinearity is good.
The second argument is related. It's claimed that our minds don't work in linear ways. They're said to work associatively, not plodding relentlessly forward but instead zigzagging their way around a firmament in which time and cause-and-effect play little part. We're said to need an approach to narrative that reflects the way we actually experience thought and imagination.
The third case that gets made for nonlinearity is that today's young people have left conventional storytelling behind. Plugged into multiple devices and drenched in innumerable media streams, kids today are beyond been-there-done-that. They're said to have seen it all a thousand times, and it's claimed that they need entertainment that reflects the multi-tracking natures of their brains and nervous system. This is clearly the Tony Scott approach: "OK, you know the big explosion is about to come. I know it too, and you know I know. So I'm not even going to try to involve you with it, or justify it dramatically. What I'm going to do instead is deliver what you know has to come in a cool way." Egoyan? Well, he might well think he's doing something subversive and revolutionary. On the other hand, maybe he just likes making circuitous art films.
But a few important matters get overlooked in these discussions, it seems to me.
One is the glory of straightforward narrative. Has there ever been a period in history when a well-told, first-class story didn't fascinate? The modernist-academic belief sometimes seems to be that telling a story is a trivially easy thing to do. Having written a little nonlinear fiction and a little linear fiction, I dispute that belief. In my experience, dreaming up and telling a straightforward story is to fiction what figure drawing is to the visual arts: always basic, yet always a challenge.
Creating recognizable and believable characters … Defining what the situation they're caught up in is … Being clear about what's at stake … Making firm choices about what your characters do as they pursue their goals … Trying to involve your audience in these affairs … These are tasks that take a lot of imagination, a lot of skill, and a lot of hard work.
Another question that gets overlooked is a very practical one: the utility of traditional narrative. Traditional storytelling gives you the means to order your material -- not strict rules, but principles of organization that are akin to tonality in music. If you want to put your ideas up on their feet, casting them in terms of a traditional story will usually prove to be a much more direct activity than casting them in modernist-poetic terms. And if you like the relating-to-an-audience side of art and entertainment, traditional storytelling is a boon; it equips you with a whole language of sympathy, point of view, climaxes, suspense, surprises, revelations, pacing, setups and payoffs. Take the time to learn the language, and you'll be (more or less) able to say what you have to say, in a way that an audience might very well enjoy. That's nice.
Yet another thing that's seldom discussed is the pitfalls of nonlinearity. For every "Pulp Fiction" and "Run Lola Run" -- films that found witty and surprising ways to order and deliver their fictional material -- there seem to be dozens of nonlinear films and novels that lie there like souffles determined not to rise. Nonlinear works seldom strike me as revolutionary and exciting, while they often strike me as disorganized and childish. "Domino" is an example. Watching the film is less like watching a movie than like listening a child tell you about a movie, or like overhearing a bunch of overcaffeinated geeks mutter and vent while a movie plays in the background. And "Where the Truth Lies"? Well, it might have been re-cut in dozens of different ways without much affecting the experience. And its big final revelation might have come at any time. It arrived at the end of the film only because, otherwise, why else would an audience wait around?
