Asides and Unreliable Narration in Fleabag, Alfie and I, Tonya Matthias BRÜTSCH Abstract: The article explores the employment of the “aside” in film and in TV series, a device originating from the stage, but increasingly appropriated by the screen in recent years. The impact of the direct address is analyzed at the level of the mise-en-scène, the dramatic structure, and the em... Read More Keywords: Aside, breaking the fourth wall, direct address, unreliable narration, look into the camera |
Loop Narratives and Eternalism in David Lowery’s A Ghost Story (2017) Dino ESTRELINHA Abstract: A Ghost Story, written and directed by David Lowery (2017), stands out in the current cinematic Keywords: Time loop, Eternalism, Modular Narratives, Future Narratives, A Ghost Story |
The Voice Doesn’t Lie. A Revisit to Suzhou River Through Listening Carmen Xi LI Abstract: The starting point of this article is the debate over cinematic realism, “truthful cinema,” and “the truth of cinema” in Chinese language cinema, providing a close reading of Lou Ye’s Suzhou River (2000), a film that delves into the boundaries between truth and false, past, and... Read More Keywords: Lou Ye, voice-over, unreliable narration, truth of cinema, Gilles Deleuze |
Narrative Polyphony in Split-Screen Cinema – Gaspar Noé’s Vortex (2021) André SIMÕES Abstract: Despite audience’s incessant exposures to a multitude of screens, windows, and images in contemporary times, the presence of more than one screen at once in a cinematic context creates a problem that conflicts with the medium itself: the competition for protagonism among the different narratives that ... Read More Keywords: Split-Screen, Polyphony, Musicality, Vortex, Gaspar Noé |
Fátima CHINITA Abstract: Renowned narratologists, especially those focusing on film studies, have little interest in the prologue as a narrative device. I argue that this film segment is crucial in postmodern narratives, usually characterized by their nonlinearity. In films that feature it, this introductory scene/sequence is part ... Read More Keywords: Hermeneutic Decoder, Prologue, Complex Narratives, Enigma Films, INLAND EMPIRE |
Immersive Transmedia Storytelling and Embodied Urban Experiences of Psychogeographical Works Kai Qing TAN Abstract: According to critics such as James Dalby, Matthew Freeman and Renira Rampazzo Gambarato, immersive transmedia storytelling encourages recipients’ participation and changes their ontological beliefs regarding social issues. Recent psychogeographical works, which can be used as tools to foreground class... Read More Keywords: Psychogeography, affective enactment, affordances, transmedia storytelling, urban imagination |
Agency, Control and Power in Video Games: The Procedural Rhetoric of Inside Tamás CSÖNGE Abstract: This paper examines Inside, a 2016 puzzle-platformer indie game that thematises questions of play, agency, autonomy and control, and therefore operates as a critique of ideology through its procedural rhetoric. The term was coined by Ian Bogost in his 2007 book on video games and it refers to an innovative ... Read More Keywords: Agency, control, ideology, procedural rhetoric, ludonarrative consonance |
Rebooting Interactive Films: An Intermedial Approach to Cinema and Videogames Georgios DIMOGLOU Abstract: Interactive films such as FMVs (Full-Motion Videogames) were declared to be a shortlived and relatively obscure genre of the past until recently, when they started to reappear primarily as videogames and films in online streaming services, generating newfound interest in both audiences and researchers. This... Read More Keywords: interactive film, FMVs, intermediality, narrative, gameplay, agency |
Telling the Untellable: Experiments on Wisdom in Contemporary Cinema Jorge PALINHOS Abstract: In “The Storyteller,” Walter Benjamin proposes the concept of wisdom as the underpinning of the act of telling stories. His inspiration comes from the oral traditions of the past and especially the tradition of religious wisdom stories. Drawing from this idea, I try to reflect on the meaning and... Read More Keywords: Walter Benjamin, Boyhood, Richard Linklater, Wisdom, Narrative |
Homo Deludens: An Attempt to Determine the Ludicrous Elements of Culture Doru POP Abstract: As Mattel celebrated the 65th anniversary of Barbie in 2024, to address the issues raised by by this plastic object and its influence in our culture and collective imaginary carries profound implications. Barbie, the iconic doll created by Ruth Handler in 1954, has a long cultural history as a globally rele... Read More Keywords: Barbie, Mattel, homo ludens, ludification, schizoanalysis, narrative strategies in games, marketing storytelling, cinema adaptations, gamification, puerilization, infantilization |
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