The “Significant Shot” and Its Functions in the Popular Variant of Puzzle Films
Natasza Korczarowska
natasza.korczarowska@uni.lodz.plUniversity of Lodz (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3130-128X
Abstract
The article focuses on the “significant shot” in the popular (as opposed to heavy weight) variant of puzzle films. The shot is identified as significant if it performs a prominent role in the structure of a film text. To capture its significance (in the aspect of meaning-making), the author focuses on its two fundamental functions: recognition (leading to “re-telling” and re-contextualisation of the story) and suspension (opening the text to ambivalent and contradicting interpretations). The text has been inspired by Kristin Thompson’s writings on the dominant defined as an element that unifies all aspects of a work. According to Thompson, surprise governs form – from the overall shape of the plot to the level of the individual sentence. The article argues that “surprise” is the dominant in puzzle films and “the individual sentence” – on the metaphorical level – may be perceived as the equivalent of the film shot. Selected films are positioned in the theoretical frameworks of cognitivism (Thompson, Bordwell) and narratology (McHale).
Keywords:
significant shot, puzzle films, narratology, cognitivismReferences
Arystoteles. (2004). Retoryka. Retoryka dla Aleksandra. Poetyka (tłum. H. Podbielski). Warszawa: PWN.
Google Scholar
Bal, M. (2012). Narratologia. Wprowadzenie do teorii narracji (tłum. E. Krzempek). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Google Scholar
Barczyk, Ł. (2017). Drzwi percepcji. Analiza filmu „Lśnienie” jako punkt wyjścia do rozważań o metodzie twórczej Stanleya Kubricka. Łódź: Wydawnictwo PWSFTviT.
Google Scholar
Barratt, D. (2009). „Twist Blindness”: Of Primacy, Priming, Schemas, and Reconstructive Memory in a First-Time Viewing of „The Sixth Sense”. W: W. Buckland (red.), Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema (ss. 62-86). Chichester: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305708.ch3
Google Scholar
Bennett, J. (2005). Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503625006
Google Scholar
Bordwell, D. (1991). Making Meaning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Google Scholar
Bordwell, D. (2006). The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Berkeley: University of California Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520932326
Google Scholar
Bordwell, D. (2008). Narration in the Fiction Film. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Buckland, W. Making Sense of „Lost Highway”. W: W. Buckland (red.), Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema (ss. 42-61). Chichester: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305708.ch2
Google Scholar
Cameron, A., Misek, R. (2014). Modular Spacetime in the „Intelligent” Blockbuster. W: W. Buckland (red.), Hollywood Puzzle Films (ss. 109-124). New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Caroll, N. (2011). Filozofia sztuki masowej (tłum. M. Przylipiak). Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria.
Google Scholar
Cocks, G. (2004). The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History & Holocaust. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Google Scholar
Connelly, T. (2019). Cinema of Confinement. Evaston: Northwestern University Press.
Google Scholar
Deleuze, G. (2008). Kino (tłum. J. Margański). Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria.
Google Scholar
Elsaesser, T. (2009). The Mind-Game Film. W: W. Buckland (red.), Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema (ss. 13-41). Chichester: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305708.ch1
Google Scholar
Elsaesser, T. (2018). Kino gier umysłowych (tłum. M. Przylipiak). W: T. Elsaesser (wstęp i red. naukowa M. Przylipiak), Kino – maszyna myślenia. Refleksje nad kinem epoki cyfrowej (ss. 29-56). Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego.
Google Scholar
Elsaesser, T., Hagener, M. (2015). Teoria filmu. Wprowadzenie przez zmysły (tłum. K. Wojnowski). Kraków: Universitas.
Google Scholar
Fairfax, D. (2020). The Anxiety of Interpretation: „The Shinning, Room 237” and Film Criticism. W: J. Szaniawski (red.), After Kubrick: A Filmmaker’s Legacy (ss. 195-211). New York: Bloomsbury.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501347672.0014
Google Scholar
Kaczmarczyk, K. (2017). O podstawowych założeniach narratologii transmedialnej i o jej miejscu wśród narratologii klasycznych i postklasycznych. W: K. Kaczmarczyk (red.), Narratologia transmedialna. Teorie, praktyki, wyzwania (ss. 21-62). Kraków: Universitas.
Google Scholar
King, G. (2014). Unraveling the Puzzle of „Inception”. W: W. Buckland (red.), Hollywood Puzzle Films (ss. 57-71). New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
King, G. (2019). Positioning Art Cinema: Film and Cultural Value. London: I. B. Tauris.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781788318945
Google Scholar
Kiss, M., Willemsen, S. (2017). Impossible Puzzle Films: A Cognitive Approach to Contemporary Complex Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474406727.003.0003
Google Scholar
Kovács, A. (2007). Screening Modernism: European Art Cinema, 1950-1980. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226451664.001.0001
Google Scholar
Kristeva, J. (2007). Czarne słońce. Depresja i melancholia (tłum. M. Markowski, R. Ryziński). Kraków: Universitas.
Google Scholar
Królikiewicz, G. (2012). Różyczka. Próba analizy filmu Orsona Wellesa „Obywatel Kane”. Łódź: Wydawnictwo PWSFTviT.
Google Scholar
Laass, E. (2008). Broken Taboos, Subjective Truths: Forms and Functions of Unreliable Narration in Contemporary American Cinema. Trier: WVT.
Google Scholar
Littschwager, S., (2019). Making Sense of Mind-Game Films: Narrative Complexity, Embodiment, and the Senses. New York – London: Bloomsbury.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781501337079
Google Scholar
Lowenstein, A. (2015). Moment alegoryczny (tłum. J. Burzyński). W: T. Łysak (red.), Antologia studiów nad traumą (ss. 285-311). Kraków: Universitas.
Google Scholar
Łysak, T. (2015). Trauma – od genealogii pojęcia do studiów nad traumą. W: T. Łysak (red.), Antologia studiów nad traumą (ss. 5-30). Kraków: Universitas.
Google Scholar
McHale, B. (2012). Powieść postmodernistyczna (tłum. M. Płaza). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
Google Scholar
Mulvey, L. (2010) Z drewnianej chaty do Xanadu. Psychoanaliza i historia w „Obywatelu Kanie” (tłum. I. Noszczyk). W: L. Mulvey, Do utraty wzroku. Wybór tekstów (red. K. Kuc, L. Thompson) (ss. 190-208). Kraków: Korporacja ha!art.
Google Scholar
Naremore, J. (1989). The Magic World of Orson Welles. University Park: Southern Methodist University Press.
Google Scholar
Ohler, P. (1998). Kognitywna teoria percepcji filmu (tłum. J. Ostaszewski). W: J. Ostaszewski (red.), Kognitywna teoria filmu (ss. 330-345). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszyński.
Google Scholar
Ostaszewski, J. (1998). Wprowadzenie. W: J. Ostaszewski (red.), Kognitywna teoria filmu (ss. 7-30). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszyński.
Google Scholar
Ostaszewski, J. (2021). O narracji epistemicznie niejednoznacznej. Niewiarygodność w kinie gier umysłowych. Ethos, (34), ss. 269-297.
Google Scholar
Palmer, R. Barton (2009). The Shining and Anti-Nostalgia: Postmodern Notions of History. W: J. Abrams (red.), The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick (ss. 201-218). Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.
Google Scholar
Poulaki, M. (2014). Puzzled Hollywood and the Return of Complex Films. W: W. Buckland (red.), Hollywood Puzzle Films (ss. 35-53). New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Rimmon-Kenan, S. (1983). Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Methuen.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203130650
Google Scholar
Soulages, F. (2007). Estetyka fotografii. Strata i zysk. Kraków: Universitas.
Google Scholar
Steward, G. (2014). Fourth Dimensions, Seventh Senses: The Work of Mind-Gaming in the Age of Electronic Reproduction. W: W. Buckland (red.), Hollywood Puzzle Films (ss. 168-184). New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Thompson, K. (1988). Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691213156
Google Scholar
Thompson, K. (1998). Nuda na plaży. Banalność i humor w „Wakacjach pana Hulot” (tłum. J. Ostaszewski). W: J. Ostaszewski (red.), Kognitywna teoria filmu (ss. 89-111). Kraków: Wydawnictwo Baran i Suszyński.
Google Scholar
Thompson, K. (1999). Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Google Scholar
Authors
Natasza Korczarowskanatasza.korczarowska@uni.lodz.pl
University of Lodz Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3130-128X
Professor at the Department of Film and Audiovisual Media, Institute of Contemporary Culture, University of Lodz. She specializes in the history of Polish film, contemporary European cinema and the problems of historiophoty. She published the books: Ojczyzny prywatne [Private Homelands] (2007) and Inne spojrzenie [Another Way] (2013) – the latter devoted to the images of history in Polish feature film after 1965. Since 2008 she has cooperated with the Polish Film Institute and the National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute on the educational project Academy of Polish Film.
Statistics
Abstract views: 388PDF downloads: 448
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Natasza Korczarowska
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author grants the publisher a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY 4.0) to use the article in Kwartalnik Filmowy, retains full copyright, and agrees to identify the work as first having been published in Kwartalnik Filmowy should it be published or used again (download licence agreement). The journal is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence. By submitting an article, the author agrees to make it available under this licence.
In issues from 105-106 (2019) to 119 (2022) all articles were published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. During this period the authors granted a royalty-free non-exclusive licence (CC BY-ND 4.0) to use their article in „Kwartalnik Filmowy”, retained full copyright, and agreed to identify the work as first having been published in our journal should it be published or used again.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
- Natasza Korczarowska, The Abject and Historical Trauma in Andrea Arnold’s “Wuthering Heights” , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 114 (2021): Contamination, Dirt, Flaw
- Natasza Korczarowska, Kidults, Consumed Nostalgia, and American Teen Movies of the 1980s (and Their Contemporary Simulacra) , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 121 (2023): Cinema and Young Audience
- Natasza Korczarowska, “Heritage is dead! Long live heritage!” British Cinema in the Face of a Political Crisis , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 105-106 (2019): Cinema and Political Transformation
- Natasza Korczarowska, American True Crime Streaming Shows about Serial Killers , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 124 (2023): Streaming
- Natasza Korczarowska, Museum is Mourning. Alexandr Sokurov’s Architectural Elegies , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 109 (2020): Architectural Space in Film
- Natasza Korczarowska, Defending Kolski , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 117 (2022): Unknown/Hidden Cinema
- Natasza Korczarowska, Body Doubles and Trauma: The Figure of the Doppelgänger in the Science Fiction Genre , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 126 (2024): Fantasy and Phantasm
- Natasza Korczarowska, Heroic Men and Absent Women , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 124 (2023): Streaming
- Natasza Korczarowska, Memory in Cinema/Memory after Cinema , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 125 (2024): Cinema as a Memory Machine
- Natasza Korczarowska, On Melancholy of a Celebration , Kwartalnik Filmowy: No. 100 (2017): On Celebrating