Narrative Theory

A narrative or story is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images. There are many types of narratives and theories behind each.
A narrative is defined by David Bordwell as ‘a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space’. Although causality (and time and space) is central to narrative, films may also make use of different principles, such as parallelism, whereby two separate lines of action are intercut in order to allow us to compare and contrast. Network narratives (Pulp Fiction, Babel, Crash, etc) – which show parallel lines of action and conceal causal links – are also increasingly popular.

Unrestricted narration

A narrative which has no limits to the information that is presented (gives as much info as possible, not hiding any pieces of information to the audience (unrestricted) i.e. a news bulletin.

Restricted narration

Only offers minimal information regarding the narrative (offering little amount of narrative which hides some information from audience, perhaps to create enigma/mystery) i.e. thrillers.