Chatman & Niederhoff lay out the concept of focalization and related terms like slant, filter, center, and interest-focus. How do these terms and concepts help us understand Lone Star, West Wing, and Portal? Are there revisions that need to be made to account for moving image media more fully?
4 thoughts on “Response for 10/21”
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When looking at Chatman’s terms, specifically slant and filter, I think we should recognize that their origin is literary. In translating them to film, Chatman says (and I’m paraphrasing) that cinematic slant and cinematic filter become muddied (155). The distinction between the two terms becomes unclear because the camera serves as our narrator and does not see, but instead provides us with a point of perception. In looking at West Wing and Lone Star, the question then is whether we can delineate moments where the camera is solely fulfilling the roles of slant or, conversely, filter. If slant represents the narrator’s “attitudes and other mental nuances” (143), I think we can look at certain stylistic choices in both The West Wing and Lone Star and evaluate whether they are contributing to characters’ mental representation i.e., acting as a filter and therefore less so performing the role of slant. I would argue that the roaming hallway shots in The West Wing are stylistic choices that are consistent throughout the show, and is more representative of creating a narrative ambiance than developing characters’ thoughts and attitudes. Likewise, the camera in Lone Star tends to pan or zoom when moving into and out of temporal shifts. These camera movements tell me a character is reflecting and the later content of the flashback clues me in on what the character was thinking, but the actual stylistic device reads more narratively. It recreates a narrative tone, verging on narrative attitude, that tells me that we are going to be continually moving comfortably in and out of different temporal moments.
But perhaps I’m confusing narrative slant with pure narrative description. Any thoughts?
I was confused about where exactly the flashbacks were stemming from narratively. Half of them seemed, as you said, to be a character’s reflection and then a viewing of what they were thinking about, like the final reveal of Buddy Deed’s killing Sherriff Wade. However, others, like the murder of Pillar’s father, seem to stem from the character’s just being where the event occurred regardless of if their reflecting on the event or not. It seems that Lone Star mixes slant and direct narrative perspective throughout the film.
I guess the clearest filter we saw in The West Wing was Josh’s flashback to cutting his hand on the glass (a fallible filter). Unreliable filters translate to film and television more easily that regular filters. Even though the flashbacks ‘belonged’ to Josh, only the scenes where he is shot feel like he’s telling them. I think that the majority of the flashbacks are seen through a narrative slant. We see things that Josh could not (worried looks from his co-workers, C.J’s detective work with the painting). To make those flashbacks filtered, we might have heard sirens whenever there was music. And yet, they’re presented as Josh constructing what happened x days ago, so you’d think they’d have to be filtered.
If feels subjective to assign these terms to literature, and even more so when we’re talking about film/television, because of the ambiguity of who is ‘speaking’ (character, narrator, author?). I thought Chatman’s specific textual examples were very helpful, but I don’t think these terms are applicable in every situation. The ambiguity is part of the narrative design, and without textual tags and clues, I can’t imagine dissecting a film into who’s focalization is being presented.
Coming into Lone Star, having watched the preview and knowing it was murder-mystery oriented, I suspected all narrative viewpoints to somehow reconnect back to Sam Deed’s quest for the truth. Or, at the least, a Crash-type situation where all stories come to a dramatic conclusion at the end of the film. However, none of these things occur (and I believe the movie is definitely better because of it). The characters are connected to each (love interests, old grudges, etc…). However, when the viewers are in one characters viewpoint, we are truly in their viewpoint, seeing their thoughts and feelings in their own personal narrative (Pillar’s fight to educate her son, Big O’s fight to reconnect with his family). There is no need to search for clues about other narratives in the film, because their probably aren’t any. In this way Lone Star plays out much more like a novel than a film.