David Bordwell — Narration in the Fiction Film

David Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film (1985) — the book where Bordwell sets out narration as an activity the viewer performs, and sorts films into historical modes that each cue that activity differently.

What is actually in the library

A fragment, not the book. The scan holds roughly one chapter — the Soviet material, pages 241–273, entered as three unnamed PDF pieces. The theoretical apparatus the book is famous for, including the plot/story distinction the wiki uses in Chronology and the account of the classical, art-cinema and parametric modes, sits in chapters that are not here. Its page offset is also unverified, so treat nff citations as provisional and check a running head before quoting.

If you need Bordwell's definitions rather than his Soviet chapter, use *Film Art*, which is complete and hand-checked.

Good for

What it does hold is worth having. The Soviet chapter argues that montage is not a cutting technique but a mode of narration — a whole system for organising what the viewer knows and when, in which crosscutting builds an omniscient, collective point of view rather than an individual one. That is a stronger claim than the one Montage currently makes, and it is the natural next step for that note: Eisenstein's grammar treated as narration rather than as editing. It also bears on Point of view, since the argument turns on whose knowledge a film is organised around.

Handle with care

Beyond the fragment problem: this is Bordwell at his most systematic and least casual, written for film-studies graduates rather than for a classroom. The prose assumes the vocabulary that the missing chapters supply. Worth completing the scan before leaning on it.

In the library

Held in Reel, the local research library of scanned and indexed film books. 3 parts, 106 indexed passages. Page numbering is unverified.

Cite passages from this book as nff <page> — for example nff 214.

Caution. Fragment only: the library holds roughly one chapter — the Soviet montage material, pp. 241-273 — not the whole book. The theoretical apparatus (fabula/syuzhet, the four modes of narration) is in chapters that are not present. Page offset unverified: check a running head before citing.

Strongest on

Measured, not guessed. Each figure is how much denser this book is on a concept than the library average — so common words don't crowd out real specialisms.

• Spoken language — 11.1× the library average (41 passages)
• Editing — 3.0× the library average (22 passages)
• Character — 2.3× the library average (24 passages)