Modular Narratives in Contemporary Cinema (Hardcover)

This title combines, in a unique and innovative way, analytical approaches from literary narratology, film studies and new media studies.This title examines the recent cinematic trend of 'modular' narrative form, in which the temporal flow of the narrative is disrupted. It identifies and describes four different models of cinematic modular narrative. There is increasing academic interest in the topic of narrative complexity in film, illustrated by significant recent attention in journal articles, but this is the first monograph to study the phenomenon exclusively. It combines analytical approaches from literary narratology, film studies and new media studies. It includes analysis of a number of 'cult' films that are popular among film students both in the UK and the US e.g. Run Lola Run, 21 Grams, and Memento.Since the early 1990s there has been a trend towards narrative complexity within popular cinema. This book examines a number of contemporary films that play overtly with narrative structure, raising questions of chance and destiny, memory and history, simultaneity and the representation of time.