Ed Sikov

“FABULA and SYUZHET. As defined by the film historian and theorist David Bordwell, the syuzhet is essentially the film’s plot—it’s the specific ordering of narrative elements within the film. The fabula, however, is more than simply the story being told; it’s the story that each of us constructs as we watch and hear the syuzhet unfold. It’s all the story material presented by the filmmaker, but it’s also the story material and associations we bring to the film as individuals—the stories we tell ourselves based on the stories we are being told.”
― Ed Sikov, Film Studies: An Introduction