Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique FROM THE PUBLISHER
In a book as entertaining as it is enlightening, Kristin Thompson offers the first in-depth analysis of Hollywood's storytelling techniques and how they are used to make complex, easily comprehensible, entertaining films. She also takes on the myth that modern Hollywood films are based on a narrative system radically different from the one in use during the Golden Age of the studio system. Drawing on a wide range of films from the 1920s to the 1990s-from Keaton's Our Hospitality to Casablanca to Terminator 2-Thompson explains such staples of narrative as the goal-oriented protagonist, the double plot-line, and dialogue hooks. She demonstrates that the three-act structure," a concept widely used by practitioners and media commentators, fails to explain how Hollywood stories are put together. Thompson then demonstrates in detail how classical narrative techniques work in ten box-office and critical successes made since the New Hollywood began in the 1970s: Tootsie, Back to the Future, The Silence of the Lambs, Groundhog Day, Desperately Seuking Susan, Amadeus, The Hunt for Red October, Parenthood, Alien, and Hannah and Her Sisters. In passing, she suggests reasons for the apparent slump in quality in Hollywood films of the 1990s. This work will be of interest to movie fans, scholars, and film practitioners alike. Kristin Thompson is an honorary fellow in the Communication Arts Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Thompson--coauthor of The Classical Hollywood Cinema--doesn't agree with current film historians who claim that a "post-classical" style (fragmentary scenes often built around spectacular stunts, stars, and special effects) now dominates American moviemaking. The classical narrative style, a unified narrative of an easily understood chain of cause and effect with a goal-oriented protagonist that was popularized in Hollywood's Golden Age, remains the norm. To prove her point, she analyzes the narrative structure of ten popular films of the 1980s--including Amadeus, Alien, Tootsie, and Parenthood. This analysis of individual films forms the bulk of the book. Thompson also takes the opportunity to critique another popular notion--the three-act pattern predominant in Hollywood screenwriting manuals. She prefers a film structure divided into four parts of roughly equal screen time: the setup, the complicating action, the development, and the climax. Well argued and well presented, this book is recommended for academic and special subject collections.--Marianne Cawley, Charleston Cty. Lib., SC Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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