A Guide to Post-classical Narration

Eleftheria Thanouli

In A Guide to Post-classical Narration, Eleftheria Thanouli expands and substantially develops the innovative theoretical work of her previous publication, Post-classical Cinema: an International Poetics of Film Narration (2009).A Guide to Post-classical Narration: The Future of Film Storytelling presents a concise and comprehensive overview of the creative norms of the post-classical mode of narration. With dozens of cases studies and hundreds of color stills from films across the globe, this book provides the definitive account of post-classical storytelling and its techniques. After surfacing in auteur films in varied production milieus in the 1990s, the post-classical options continued to gain ground throughout the 2000s and 2010s, gradually fertilizing several mainstream productions in Hollywood. From Lars von Trier's Europa (1991) to Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead (2021) and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022), the post-classical narration has shown not only impressive resilience but also tremendous creativity in transforming its key formal principles, such as fragmented and multi-thread plotlines, hypermediated realism, parody, graphic frame construction, complex chronology, and intense self-consciousness.Through the meticulous textual analysis of the post-classical works, Eleftheria Thanouli addresses head-on a series of methodological questions in narrative research and brings the tradition of historical poetics back into the limelight. By reinforcing her previous work with numerous new films as well as more nuanced narrative terms and concepts, she not only strengthens her position on post-classical cinema but also establishes the relevance of formalist analysis in the study of film today.

Author leads the pack of theorists going against David Bordwell/classical narration or storytelling

AcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroduction1. Post-classical narrative logic1.1. Introduction1.2. Post-classical compositional motivation1.3. Post-classical realistic motivation1.4. Post-classical generic motivation1.5. Post-classical artistic motivation1.6. Conclusion2. Post-classical space2.1. Introduction2.2. Intensified continuity2.3. Graphic frame2.4. Spatial montage2.5. Conclusion3. Post-classical time3.1. Introduction3.2. Mediated time3.3. Complex chronology3.4. Elastic duration3.5. Conclusion4. Post-classical narration4.1. Introduction4.2. Self-consciousness, knowledgeability, communicativeness4.3. Levels of narration4.4. Conclusion5. The post-classical auteur: Quentin Tarantino5.1. Introduction5.2. Pulp Fiction (1994)5.3. Kill Bill Vol. I (2003)5.4. Inglourious Basterds (2009)5.5. Once upon a time in Hollywood (2019)5.6. ConclusionConclusionReferencesFilmographyAppendix A: List of suggested post-classical films