Maureen Thomas
Cambridge University Moving Image Studio
THE POWER OF NARRATIVE focuses on the screen - from the cinematic to the
interactive.
Today, many undergraduates have a more comfortable relationship with the
screen than with the page; and the miniaturisation and accessibility of
audiovisual equipment enables them to use moving images as Darwin - or
Erasmus, Marlowe, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Mary Somerville, Emily Davies or
Rosamond Lehmann - used paper, pencil and pen. Nonetheless, understanding
of the language of moving images remains somewhat passive. This lecture,
exemplified through clips and demonstrations, examines the evolution and
working of screen narrative. Though often featuring actors playing roles,
film drama is recorded and delivered through lenses, the camera
representing a single viewpoint, mediating the story via an inbuilt
observer, narrator or character. Film-makers thus wield the narrative
powers both of novelists and dramatists to spellbind their audiences; but
in addition, like the 19th-century illusionists who first recognised the
potential of film as entertainment, they can deploy moving image magic to
make us actually see - and believe - the fantastic and the improbable. The
advent of interactive digital technology, virtual cameras and performers
increases the strength of an already potent mix: in the 21st century, the
power of screen narrative attains new heights.