Narrated Films: Storytelling Situations in Cinema History

by Avrom Fleishman

In Narrated Films , Avrom Fleishman explores the distinctive literary techniques often used by filmmakers to tell their stories. Through close viewings of ingeniously paired films, Fleishman documents five narrational practices in the voice-over ( Orpheus and Sunset Boulevard ); dramatized narration, in which the film is a story that one character tells another ( The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Hiroshima Mon Amour ); multiple narration, in which a number of characters tell the story that is the film ( Rashomon and Zelig ); written narration, whether through diaries or letters ( Letter from an Unknown Woman and Diary of a Country Priest ); and the cinematic version of interior monologue, which Fleishman terms mindscreen narration ( Brief Encounter and Daybreak ).

264 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1991