英国留学生论文：Rhizomatic1 Time and Temporal Poetics in Ame

　　英国留学生论文：Rhizomatic1 Time and Temporal Poetics in American

　　This essay deals with the temporality of ?lmthrough an examination of narrative, structureand image in Sam Mendes’ ?lm American Beauty(2000). Beyond ?lm studies, temporality invitesan interdisciplinary approach in that the study oftime has traditionally been conducted withinboth the science and humanity faculties, being afocus of attention of both physical scientists andphilosophers. Within ?lm studies ideas aroundtime and temporality have tended to emergefrom discussions of narrative structure.Exceptions to this often purely narratologicalfocus include Gilles Deleuze’s full-lengthphilosophically-based studies of time in cinema –Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (1983) andCinema 2: The Time-Image (1989) – andsubsequent commentaries that these texts haveprovoked.
　　2What follows takes something fromthe narratological approach, and at the sametime refers to Deleuze’s work and also that ofHenri Bergson on whom Deleuze draws in hisdiscussion of time.
　　At the simplest level a ?lm’s temporality lies inits very nature; ?lm unfolds in time. Morecomplex temporalities are transmitted throughthe narrative layer – through presentation of plotorder, duration and frequency and therelationship between story, plot and screen time,which can be orchestrated to impart a variety ofrhythms – in the editing, framing andrelationship between components at every level,from individual photograms, to shots,sequences, scenes and whole ?lms. Thepresence, absence, and deployment of actors,cameras, settings, props, lighting, sound,dialogue, colour and other aspects of mise enscène all contribute to a ?lm’s sense of time. Andmost obviously time can be a ?lm’s subject ortheme, either overtly or covertly. Examples of?lms that feature time as a manifest themeinclude Memento (2000), Groundhog Day(1993), Sliding Doors (1997), or the manyvarieties of time-travel narratives (Frequency(2000), Timecop (1994), Timescape (1991),Twelve Monkeys (1995). More frequently themanipulation of plot time provides the structuralbasis for economical and effective storytelling,through a wide repertoire of narratorial 留学生论文andtechnical devices, such as ?ashback,?ashforward, elliptical editing, montagesequence, freeze-frame, slow-motion, fast-motion, rewind, dissolves and wipes.American Beauty employs few of these time Apart from this relatively rare trope of point ofdeath, or post-death narration or action (other?lms of this type include Sunset Boulevard(1950) and Jacob’s Ladder (1990)), and theinteresting moments of slow motion andrepetitive motion episodes (which emphasise thefantasy sequences, and the various reactions tothe sound of gun?re that signals Lester’s death),the ?lm includes several scenes that invitespeculation about their temporal layering. Thesescenes are those cinematically self-re?exivescenes that involve on-screen video recordings.The ?rst scene shows Ricky playing Jane avideotape he has recorded of a paper bagtossing and falling in the wind. He narrates astory about this moment and how signi?cant itwas for him and how he recorded the event toremind him. This is a simple image of two peopleusing ?lm, the embodiment of memory, to lookinto the past. We are in the present of the twocharacters and we are watching an image of thepast (this is all contained within the contextualenvelope of the past being remembered andnarrated during a ‘single’ elastic presentmoment).