Updated19 December 2000
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Every Picture Tells A Story: Agency And Narration In Film
Panel: Movies as Paradigmatic Narratives
Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Washington, D.C., December, 2000

INTRODUCTION

This is the long version of a paper for the annual Modern Language Association Conference in Washington, December 2000.  I will be presenting a much briefer version of this paper at the conference itself.  Time constraints will (fortunately!) keep me from being able to read the whole thing.  I hope to develop the ideas and analyses here further for future publication.  I would like to invite your comments (whether you are an academic or not!) and feedback.  For your convenience, I have broken this paper into sections that are linked together and provided e-mail links for your immediate feedback.  [Click here for the short version of this paper.]

My e-mail address is:    donald.larsson@mnsu.edu
If you want to reach me the old-fashioned way, my mailing address is:

Donald F. Larsson
Department of English, AH 230
Minnesota State University
Mankato, MN  56001

 

CONTENTS

1 Art, Narrative, Narration, and Agency: An Overview
2 Types of Fictional Agency
3 The Implied Author as Agent
4 In (Moderate) Defense of the Implied Author
5 Narrative and Medium
6 "Author" and "Narrator" in Film
7 Another View of Narrative Agency in Film
8 Narrative Agency and Cognitive Schemata
9 Evocation of Film Agency: Four Examples
9a 49-17 and Overdetermined Narration
9b Film as Artifact: The Implied Filmmaker and A Star Is Born
9c "A Story about Us": Conflicting Narrators in Rear Window
9d The Film Narrator as Guide: The Case of Magnolia
10 Conclusion
  Notes
  Works Cited

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