Storytelling in Film & Media

This week’s screenings highlight how the ludic impulse from games can influence more traditional forms of media like film and television. How do you see the influence of gaming on films and television, in Run Lola Run, The Simpsons, or other texts we’ve watched this semester? Do you think that future viewers of linear media will want to see interactive elements or other ludic forms influence the viewing experience? How?

This week’s readings focus on the role of narrative and story within videogames. What do you see as the function of story and narrative in gaming? Are there concepts raised in the readings that speak directly to your experiences with games from this class or otherwise?

This week’s readings focus on paratexts and transmedia, exploring how stories can span beyond a film or TV show through both official and fan-created works. How do such extensions shape narrative comprehension and experience? Are there examples from your own experiences that point to the power or importance of transmedia paratexts as part of storytelling & consumption?

How do the episodes of South Park, Arrested Development, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer demonstrate the television storytelling practices we’ve been reading about? What do they share with soap operas, narratively complex primetime serials, or other modes of storytelling? And how does the mode of viewing isolated episodes rather than part of a whole series impact our understanding?

Today’s readings focus on television serials, especially concerning the dual forms of daytime soap operas and contemporary primetime series. How do you see the similarities and differences between these two forms? Are they slight variations of each other, or might they be two distinct modes of serial narratives?

Mullholland Drive raises numerous problems for narrative theory – is it a case of an unmarked dream sequence? Is it unreliable narration (as Laass explores)? Is it parametric cinema, art cinema, or Hollywood cinema? How do the extratextual markers of Lynch and the failed ABC pilot shape our comprehension? Or are we even supposed to try to comprehend the film? In short, what’s up with this film? (And anyone who wants to investigate the film’s meanings & backgrounds, the Wikipedia page is excellent, as is this interpretation on Salon and this vast fansite.)

In the final chapters of Bordwell’s book, he offers two new modes of narration and analyzes the innovative style of Godard. What insights from these films and modes speak to examples that we’ve studied in class? (For instance, might Trapped in the Closet be viewed as parametric?) Or are these categories uniquely tied to their historical moments?