Classic and Modern film focalization: information structures in the history of narrative film

Abstract In narrative films, viewers extract information about the plot either from reading the characters’ mental states or through assumptions about the intentions of the implicit author of the work. This reading can be supported by inferences about the subjects’ behaviours or through the representations of the characters’ stream of consciousness. This text examines the relationship between the mentioned variable of the mental state and the filmic style – Classic or Modern. It uses the Internet Movie Data Base, pointing to concepts that refer to the subjective construction of a character’s consciousness stream, such as Voice Over, Point-of-view hot, or Flashback. The results and their methodological limitations are framed within theoretical debates about the Focalization and Information Structure of a fiction plot. Classic Cinema uses behaviour to infer the characters’ mental states, while Modern Cinema considers the possibility of audio-visual representation for such streams of consciousness. The “objective” discourse of “zero focalization” best fits the inferences about behaviour employed in Classic Cinema, while Modern Cinema adapts to the subjectivity expressed by “internal focalization”. As further investigation, it would be convenient to discover the relationship between the styles of Cinema, Classic or Modern, and their potential to develop the theory of mind.