In A Guide to Post-classical Narration, Eleftheria Thanouli expands and substantially develops the innovative theoretical work of her previous publication, Post-classical Cinema: an International Poetics of Film Narration (2009). A Guide to Post-classical Narration: The Future of Film Storytelling presents a concise and comprehensive overview of the creative norms of the post-classical mode of narration. With dozens of cases studies and hundreds of color stills from films across the globe, this book provides the definitive account of post-classical storytelling and its techniques. After surfacing in auteur films in varied production milieus in the 1990s, the post-classical options continued to gain ground throughout the 2000s and 2010s, gradually fertilizing several mainstream productions in Hollywood. From Lars von Trier's Europa (1991) to Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead (2021) and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022), the post-classical narration has shown not only impressive resilience but also tremendous creativity in transforming its key formal principles, such as fragmented and multi-thread plotlines, hypermediated realism, parody, graphic frame construction, complex chronology, and intense self-consciousness. Through the meticulous textual analysis of the post-classical works, Eleftheria Thanouli addresses head-on a series of methodological questions in narrative research and brings the tradition of historical poetics back into the limelight. By reinforcing her previous work with numerous new films as well as more nuanced narrative terms and concepts, she not only strengthens her position on post-classical cinema but also establishes the relevance of formalist analysis in the study of film today.
Show moreIn A Guide to Post-classical Narration, Eleftheria Thanouli expands and substantially develops the innovative theoretical work of her previous publication, Post-classical Cinema: an International Poetics of Film Narration (2009). A Guide to Post-classical Narration: The Future of Film Storytelling presents a concise and comprehensive overview of the creative norms of the post-classical mode of narration. With dozens of cases studies and hundreds of color stills from films across the globe, this book provides the definitive account of post-classical storytelling and its techniques. After surfacing in auteur films in varied production milieus in the 1990s, the post-classical options continued to gain ground throughout the 2000s and 2010s, gradually fertilizing several mainstream productions in Hollywood. From Lars von Trier's Europa (1991) to Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead (2021) and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022), the post-classical narration has shown not only impressive resilience but also tremendous creativity in transforming its key formal principles, such as fragmented and multi-thread plotlines, hypermediated realism, parody, graphic frame construction, complex chronology, and intense self-consciousness. Through the meticulous textual analysis of the post-classical works, Eleftheria Thanouli addresses head-on a series of methodological questions in narrative research and brings the tradition of historical poetics back into the limelight. By reinforcing her previous work with numerous new films as well as more nuanced narrative terms and concepts, she not only strengthens her position on post-classical cinema but also establishes the relevance of formalist analysis in the study of film today.
Show moreAcknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
1. Post-classical narrative logic
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Post-classical compositional motivation
1.3. Post-classical realistic motivation
1.4. Post-classical generic motivation
1.5. Post-classical artistic motivation
1.6. Conclusion
2. Post-classical space
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Intensified continuity
2.3. Graphic frame
2.4. Spatial montage
2.5. Conclusion
3. Post-classical time
3.1. Introduction
3.2. Mediated time
3.3. Complex chronology
3.4. Elastic duration
3.5. Conclusion
4. Post-classical narration
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Self-consciousness, knowledgeability, communicativeness
4.3. Levels of narration
4.4. Conclusion
5. The post-classical auteur: Quentin Tarantino
5.1. Introduction
5.2. Pulp Fiction (1994)
5.3. Kill Bill Vol. I (2003)
5.4. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
5.5. Once upon a time in Hollywood (2019)
5.6. Conclusion
Conclusion
References
Filmography
Appendix A: List of suggested post-classical films
A new and rigorous exploration of post-classical cinematic narration, prioritizing current examples and re-evaluating its development away from linear storytelling and its growing innovations in film form and narrative conventions.
Eleftheria Thanouli is Professor in Film Theory at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and author of Post-classical Cinema: an International Poetics of Film Narration (2009), Wag the Dog: a Study on Film and Reality in the Digital Age (Bloomsbury, 2013) and History and Film: A Tale of Two Disciplines (Bloomsbury, 2018).
This guide offers the first comprehensive study of post-classical
cinema as a prominent and consistent form of storytelling in the
current media landscape. Merging ongoing debates in film
narratology with key topics from contemporary cinema studies, the
narratological analyses and case studies in this book show how the
post-classical has developed into a rich and diverse narrative
style, with a surprisingly consistent set of underlying
compositional principles and norms.
*Steven Willemsen, Assistant Professor in Arts, Culture, and Media,
University of Groningen, Netherlands*
The complex fictional worlds of Nolan and Tarantino, among other
contemporary filmmakers, are elucidated in Thanouli’s compelling
approach to narrative analysis. A bracing and authoritative model
for reading the most challenging film texts of the 21st
century.
*Robert Burgoyne, author of The New American War Film (2023)*
This "guide" helps solve the Rubik’s Cube of Post-Classical
Narration by exposing the innards of films that have baffled
students since 1990. Sketching how 35 titles, drawn from her list
of 220, expanded the rules and limits of storytelling on screen,
Eleftheria Thanouli reinvigorates, with intensified continuity, the
historical poetics championed by David Bordwell, her own
distinguished guide. The fundaments of film theory uphold her
bracingly clear survey of this spate of formerly (and formally)
perplexing films, dissipating the critical fog surrounding them and
shining back on film history in toto.
*Dudley Andrew, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and
Film Studies, Yale University, USA*
Thanouli makes a compelling case for post-classical narration as a
persistent thread in global cinema since the 1990s, showing how new
modes of self-consciousness and textual play have been integrated
into contemporary screen storytelling. A key strength of the book
is in its vivid, concise film analyses, which illustrate the overt
and hypermediated convolutions of space, time, and narration that
have reshaped cinema across a range of national and industrial
contexts.
*Allan Cameron, Professor of Media and Screen Studies, University
of Auckland, Australia*
Eleftheria Thanouli’s book is notable for employing formalist
theory to delineate the distinctive traits of the post-classical
mode of narration. Yet, this is not an abstract treatise on film
narratology, for each chapter is infused with numerous concise and
insightful case studies of films ranging from Requiem for a Dream
to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, ending with a comparative study
of the author’s and David Bordwell’s different formal analyses of
Dunkirk. This book’s balance of theory and examples, as well as the
clarity of Thanouli’s writing, makes it an ideal guide to the
narrational strategies and tactics of post-classical cinema.
*Warren Buckland, Reader in Film Studies, Oxford Brookes
University, UK, and author of Narrative and Narration: Analyzing
Cinematic Storytelling (2020) and editor of Puzzle Films (2008)*
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