Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

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  • Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

    I'm currently working on the fourth draft of a script, that is still told in a linear form, but doesn't work the way I want it.

    Reason: the second half of the story is taking place on a ship, and the confinement of space is not something I want for that movie. The movie is about mystery and a wide range of options on how life develops, and the confinement in a ship is just the opposite expression.

    Another reason: the whole story is one of mystery, and the more three-dimensional story space (how about calling non-linear storytelling three-dimensional story telling?) is more suited for that kind of story.

    Solution: non-linear storytelling, where you are not weighed down in one location.

    Another plus: I always liked the riddle structure of non-linear story telling.

    The key thing is to have great rules on how the non-linear story shall unroll.

    My favorite movie of that kind: Memento: one of the five best movies of the past 20 years. It's incredible how mysterious the world becomes having a protagonist without short-term memory (and no memory at all after a particular catastrophic even).

    It's actually linear story-telling (telling it backwards), but it comes across as non-linear, because we have so few clues of what's coming next.

    No other non-linear movie has done this better: to create a clear reason why the story is told as it's told, in this case: backwards.

    That rule does not have to be logically derived from the story (in storytelling, the logical/conclusive is always the obvious, and therefore boring). Going backwards in time has nothing to do with memory loss (you can't go back in time with memory loss).

    That story telling tool is derived from the audience's perspective: you are going backwards in time with this story, but you don't know what comes earlier. As if you had forgotten - just like the protagonist with his lack of short-term memory.

    And this works great in Memento.

    So I'm currently working on the non-linear story space/perspective of my story.


    What's your take on non-linear storytelling?
    "Ecco il grande Zampano!"

  • #2
    Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

    Personally, I love non-linear story structure. Some of my favs:

    Pulp Fiction
    The Fountain
    Pans Labyrinth
    Vanilla Sky
    Watchmen
    The Prestige
    Sin City
    "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

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    • #3
      Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

      Many of the above listed movies were sucesses and I cannot argue there is a market for it. However--and this is just me personally--I do not care for most non-linear stories. I do not want this thread to deteriorate into some other discussion, but I am no fan of Pulp Fiction, Memento or Sin City. I think of non-linear as a cheap plot gimmick in many of the films where it is used, but I realize I analyze structure more than the average film viewer.


      Non-linear can be done well and can be a valid structure. I realize around DD I will be in the minority on this item and don't plan to post endlessly about the merits of the above listed films. Just my humble little opinon respectfully submitted.


      R.O.T.

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      • #4
        Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

        I could make a list of favorite non-linear films, but what you have going sounds like it would like to unfold a bit the way Lost did in that you're facing the same challenges. With Lost, instead of telling the entire story shipwrecked on the island, they flash back to what each character had going on before they crashed so we could see what their background/baggage was before they arrived and how they were overcoming that. That kind of idea might work well in your enclosed space/ship setting. Just a thought.

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        • #5
          Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

          I disagree some with your analysis of Memento - yes, the A story is told "backwards" but it's cut against the story of him in the motel room, which runs forwards.

          Pulp Fiction is something I find interesting, because it's a lot less non-linear than it first appears. It's a series of vigenettes, and the vignettes are not told in chronological order, but for the most part the aspects of that which matter (eg, John Travolta's appearance in more than one of them) don't really affect the storytelling very much. eg, in the vignette where he gets killed, you could replace him with a different character and it really wouldn't change things significantly. Are we ever put in a situation where we know how a particular vignette ends while we're watching it?

          But the thing I like about Memento is that the non-linearity is woven into the content and concept of the story. THe non-linearity matters, it serves a cinematic purpose and actually connects us to the lead by making our experience more like his.

          So much of the non-linearity I see feels gimmicky because that's not the case. Heck, I just saw "Begin Again" last night, and large aspects of the non-linearity in the opening of that film felt really gimmicky to me without really adding anything (overall I really liked it). I thought they had a few neat tricks (eg, using watching a video to segue into the scene of that video) but at other times, it fell into the classic trap of making things less interesting because I knew where they were going. (eg, there's a long sequence about how Mark Ruffalo ends up a the bar where we know he's going to end up, and it feels a lot more expositional than it might if it was told linearly).

          That is to say, just chopping up the story and moving pieces around tends to replace the question of, "What's going to happen?" with, "How is that going to happen?" Since the "how" is already a part of the "what," you're, in my opinion, reducing drama unless you have some other thing going on to make up for that.

          And where Memento used non-linear storytelling to connect us to the lead, in many other stories it can reduce that connection, because all of a sudden we know more than they do. If you're not very careful, the audience can get impatient waiting for the characters to "catch up." The character's behavior can appear stupid. (Suspense usually works in small doses, and while there are exceptions - North by Northwest - they are rare).

          So, for me, I would generally approach a story where the non-linearity is added after-the-fact with a great deal of caution.

          YMMV.

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          • #6
            Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

            Originally posted by finalact4 View Post
            My favorite movie of that kind: Memento: one of the five best movies of the past 20 years. It's incredible how mysterious the world becomes having a protagonist without short-term memory (and no memory at all after a particular catastrophic even).

            It's actually linear story-telling (telling it backwards), but it comes across as non-linear, because we have so few clues of what's coming next.

            No other non-linear movie has done this better: to create a clear reason why the story is told as it's told, in this case: backwards.
            I'm not saying it's a better film, but I think "(500) Days of Summer" is also as clear as any film could ever be regarding why it follows the timeline it does.
            .
            Last edited by Manchester; 07-14-2014, 10:12 AM. Reason: - also

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            • #7
              Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

              Originally posted by Manchester View Post
              I'm not saying it's a better film, but I think "(500) Days of Summer" is as clear as any film could ever be regarding why it follows the timeline it does.
              Ditto Annie Hall, to which 500 Days owes an awful lot.
              My stuff

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              • #8
                Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

                Non linear storytelling is just non chronological storytelling, the story itself is still linear.

                From a Script Tip of mine:

                Chris Nolan's MEMENTO opens with the end, then goes *backwards*, scene-by-scene, to show you HOW the end came to be. We finally get to the spark that set off the story - and that's the end of the film! Most stories are about WHAT happens, but this story is about WHY things happen.

                It's similar to a standard murder mystery, where the detective starts with the crime, then probes the past to find the events leading up to the crime... ending with the solution to the mystery. Like a murder mystery, MEMENTO focuses on motives - WHY the event occurred.

                Though MEMENTO may seem like some bizarre structure because the story is told backwards, it's actually a traditional three acts. Act One introduces the problem: Our hero kills the man he thinks murdered his wife. Act Two escalates the conflict: Piece by piece we learn about the wife's murder, the suspects, and we begin to wonder if our hero shot the right guy! Act Three resolves the conflict: Because we've moving BACKWARDS we eventually get to the wife's murder - and learn why she was killed. This answers the WHY question - resolving the conflict in a very unexpected way.

                Though the chronological end might happen in the middle of the film or the beginning or the actual end, most films still follow a story structure based on the importance of the events to the characters. Structure is NOT about time, it's about story.


                If you were to watch MEMENTO in chronological order (my DVD can do this), the film would not work because the story order is completely wrong. The story was created to be told using this backwards structure... and not something that was slapped on later as a gimmick.

                Bill
                Free Script Tips:
                http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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                • #9
                  Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

                  The great thing about Memento is that we see the clues, and then we go backwards and see how it all came together.

                  There are the fancy clothes and the Jaguar, and in the end we see the protagonist's pickup and cheap clothing.

                  Like a detective investigating clues we see the clues not in objects or imprints left behind, we see the clues on what is changing as we go backward.

                  Truly great is also the revelation when we find out our hero has killed the wrong man.

                  "Annie Hall" has more of a bookend structure with the end of the relationship at the beginning, then they meet and we progress through the love story to the breakup and Woody's attempts to hook up again, and then seeing her again a last time as a friend.

                  There's a lot one can do with non-linear storytelling - but only if you really need it, if the material demands it.

                  I'll check out 500 days of Summer. I passed on that movie so far, but if it's a working non-linear story I'll take a look at it.

                  So, in case of the second half of my script playing on a ship, I want it to open up, and mix ship scenes with scenes from other locations, as I feel the story demands it. So I have to break the timeline for that, but I haven't yet found how the story wants me to do it.
                  "Ecco il grande Zampano!"

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                  • #10
                    Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

                    OUT OF SIGHT and (if I remember correctly) THE LIMEY.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

                      Both mix up chronology and both are by Soderbergh and both are influenced by POINT BLANK.

                      Bill
                      Free Script Tips:
                      http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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                      • #12
                        Re: Non-linear storytelling: your favorite examples?

                        I absolutely love THE PRESTIGE.

                        Describing the narrative would likely boggle the mind of someone unfamiliar:
                        A story told non-linearly through the diaries of two magicians, often times one diary will delve into the contents of other. Plus: magic!



                        I love how the film uses the plot point of the "three acts of a magic trick" and basically uses them as the three acts of a screenplay/film structure, so the film essentially becomes one big magic trick.

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