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Time in Film Narrative

"Temporal order, temporal frequency, and temporal duration [in

movies] are all variable." (Bordwell)

See this diagram

Movies can present or alter time any way they want to: events do not have to go in
linear order, and can be speeded up, slowed down, or repeated. There are at least
three different kinds of time in movies--story time, plot time, and screen time (see
below). But, the events shown in a movie have already happened: there is nothing
the viewer of a movie can do to change any aspect of film time. Obvious, but
important.

1. Temporal Order:
Narratives (stories) can be told in a number of ways. The simplest way to tell a story
in a movie is called "direct or sequential narrative," which simply means that the
passage of time and the order of events in the movies is exactly the same as "real"
time. Events start at the beginning and go on the the end without interruption
(ellipsis), extension (hyperbole), repetition, or any change in their normal order.
Theoretically, a direct narrative could be filmed without any "editing" at all, the
camera being turned on at the beginning and turned off at the end. [Do you know any
movies like this?] More common is "interrupted sequence" in which time moves
forward from beginning to end, but pieces of time are LEFT OUT (ellipsis)--because
they are boring or don't "advance the plot". There are obviously other ways to
represent temporal order in movies, by using flashbacks or flash-forwards, that is, by
showing events out of order, or in extreme cases by the wholesale mixing up of
normal temporal order (for, hopefully, legitimate creative purposes), or by telling the
story backwards.

So, temporal order can be--

Direct or continuous sequential narrative, or "real time" --just like life.

Direct continuous sequential narrative is rare in movies, although some
famous examples exist:
High Noon, where clocks on the wall frequently remind us exactly what time
it is.
Interrupted sequence--temporal order is preserved with ellipses but no
flashbacks or flash-forwards

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Interrupted sequence is by far the most common form of plot presentation.

Alternating past and present: flashback or flash-forward
Many movies are structured with "framing elements" and begin and end in
the "present" with one long flashback
(Amadeus, Lawrence of Arabia [only flashes back, not forward at the end]
Other movies are more complex, with several flashbacks and flash forwards
(Red Violin, Citizen Kane?)
Could you do a "plot segmentation" of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?
Movies that employ a parallel structure (two or more stories told
simultaneously) usually structure time sequentially.
Arbitrary or out of order (Citizen Kane?, Pulp Fiction, Last Year at
Marienbad)
Ass-backwards (Betrayal, Memento, High Fidelity) [an "archaeological
excavation" like Oedipus Rex] Class? Other examples?

Directors must help the audience know when time has passed between two scenes
(temporal ellipsis), and there are a number of ways to do this. Using a "fade out"
followed by a "fade in" is a common method--it gives the audience time to catch its
breath. A long passage of time can be indicated simply by telling the audience: "six
years later" (A Beautiful Mind), or "sixteen years later" (The Natural). In fact, as
sophisticated film goers, we are usually very good at inferring when an ellipsis has
taken place. If an actor starts walking up a flight of stairs (The Godfather), we almost
expect that the director will use an ellipsis (properly called a "jump cut" in this case)
and cut to the actor reaching the top of the stairs; he doesn't want to bore us or waste
film. Nowadays, all pieces of film used in movies are much shorter that they used to
be, and cuts are much more frequent. So much have our expectations changed in this
respect that we often find that "old movies" move so slowly that they are frustrating to
watch. We are also much more open to complex temporal manipulation and
alternating past and present than previous audiences, because, living in the
"postmodern" era, we expect actions and events to be out of context and to connect
with other actions and events that are seemingly unrelated in time or space.

2. Temporal duration:
Screen time (Running Time), Plot time, and Story time are the three kinds of time
duration in movies.

Screen time (also "running time" or "cheek time"), is the time you actually
spend in your seat. Two other common terms are "filmic time" and "real
time."

Plot is "everything visibly and audibly present in the film before us" (the
diegesis--Greek for "recounted story") So, plot time is the period of time
covered by the events you actually see on the screen (several hours to several
years, but almost always longer than screen time).

Story is "the set of ALL events in the narrative, both explicit and implicit." So,
story time is the period covered by all the events that you see or know about.

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We often make inferences about events not shown, In Citizen Kane, for
example, we infer that Kane grew up as a spoiled brat, but this is not portrayed,
and we only hear about the boarder who gave "worthless" deed to Kane's
mother. And what happened to Kane's first wife and son? In Amadeus we are
told many things by Salieri that we are not shown--such as? (Also
Hoosiers, North by Northwest.)

Note, therefore, that plot and story are different: they overlap in one respect
and diverge in others. All we the viewer have before us is the plot--which is the
arrangement of material in the film. We create the story in our minds from cues
in the plot. Thus, if you want to give a "synopsis" of a movie you can proceed
in two ways: 1) you can begin with the earliest incidents which the plot cues
you to infer (the boarder who gives the worthless deed to Kane's mother) and
summarize the story, or 2) summarize the the plot starting with the earliest
incident you see on the screen (e.g. Kane dies). The very brief synopses in your
TV guide: e.g. "Down-on-his luck drifter finds diamond. . ." are almost always
story synopses. (See "High Concept") Could we diagram some examples in a
"story/plot axis"? (XY axis: story up, plot across)

Montage sequences are used in movies to compress time and advance the plot
quickly.

Examples of story time, plot time, and screen time:

Paranoid (short horror film)
Amadeus--many years, a few hours (with flashbacks), 138 minutes
High Noon--several years, 1 hour and 25 minutes, 1 hour and 25 minutes
North by Northwest--several years, four days, 136 minutes
Twelve Angry Men--a few days, 95 minutes, 95 minutes
Citizen Kane ? The Bicycle Thief--?
Lola Rennt? (Is it possible for screen time to be longer than story time?
Examples? Rashomon?)
The Red Violin (I dare you to try! This is a difficult film time-wise.)

3. Temporal frequency:
Scenes may appear more than once, or from multiple points of view--for example,
Lola Rennt, the great Japanese film Rashomon, and its remake with Paul Newman,
Hour of the gun. The Red Violin and Citizen Kane offer a veritable feast of
interesting manipulation of time and repetition, which "recontextualizes" old
information. How long are story duration, plot duration, and screen duration in
Citizen Kane?

[Space is like time in that it can be inferred or imagined (the concentration camp in
Exodus), and screen space can select portions of plot space.]

What IS time, anyway? Objectively, time seems to always move at the same pace,
but the emotional speed of time can vary tremendously (see Shakespeare!), and the

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way we experience time in our heads is a function of memory, in which we can repeat
events, or place them in a new order. One of the ways that movies are different from
"real" life is the way that they manipulate time.

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