lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,812 
|
Post by lidar2 on Jan 6, 2020 10:44:49 GMT
Not sure if this is the best sub-board for this, but here goes anyway...
I was looking at the Davros Timeline on this forum and one of the issues was the placement of the framing sequence of I, Davros in which Davros is on trial. I personally find it hard to place and disagreed with some other posters' placements and as I was thinking about it, I thought to myself that it was a lot of bother and problems being caused by a short 2 minute sequence that was pretty superfluous anyway. Then I wondered why it had been felt necessary to have it in the first place - it doesn't really add any value or insights and I,Davros would work perfectly well without it.
That then got me thinking - why do so many stories have framing sequences? In the vast majority of cases they are totally superfluous book-ends.
Another recent example was the Omega Factor novel Festival of Darkness which is a story set in 1979 yet has a very short framing sequence at the beginning and end with Adam set in the present day. Again ... why? What does it really add? Wouldn't the novel have been just as good and worked just as well without it?
The 2 examples I have given are from BF, but the practice is not confined to BF and we can all think of lots of stories with such framing sequences.
I came up with 3 possible answers:
1. The framing sequences are actually integral to the main story and/or a separate story in their own right. A BF example of this would be the Sara Kingdom trilogy in the Companion Chronicles. The framing sequences are fair enough in this case, and there are others like it, but I would argue that such instances are the exception rather than the rule, especially in BF.
2. The framing sequences can make the body of the story more accessible to readers and/or are a jumping on point. That's fair enough for something like Wuthering Heights, where it builds the atmosphere and tension, but I'm not sure it applies to much of BF's output. Take the 2 examples above. In the case of I, Davros the framing sequence would probably make a casual listener more rather than less confused and as regards The Omega Factor novel I would be very surprised if there were very many (if any at all) casual listeners coming to it with no previous knowledge of the TV series.
3. Writers are simply doing it because it's "the done thing" without really thinking through logically the reasons why they are doing it and the benefits (if any) of doing so. I think in the majority of cases this is the reason why framing sequences seem to be so ubiquitous nowadays.
Anyway, enough said. Now that I have thought of it, it is rapidly becoming a bugbear for me. What does anyone else think? |
|
shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,666
|
Post by shutupbanks on Jan 6, 2020 14:06:28 GMT
A good framing device should deepen the story being told, rather than just provide a breather for the audience.
The best example I can think of is Norman Spinrad’s novel The Iron Dream. It’s a full-length novel about the rise of a strong and charismatic leader who aims to unite his people who have been made weaker by various struggles after a nuclear war. He unites the last of the true humans and throws the mutants and other undesirables out of his country and proceeds to conquer the globe, before the mutants strike back and nuke them back into the Stone Age again... but not before he’s launched a rocket into space containing pure human “germ plasm” that will populate the stars with pure humans.
The framing device for this comes from the title page which bills it as a classic novel of science fantasy by a master of the genre... Adolf Hitler. In the universe that the novel was written in Hitler was depressed by his failure as an artist and emigrated to the US where he became a successful genre writer. There’s an afterword, written by the in-universe academic Homer Whipple in which he talks about what is enjoyable about the novel (titled “The Lord Of The Swastikas”): the strength of will of the hero, the vivid settings, the stirring speeches and set pieces written by the author... and then goes on to highlight the less successful and more disturbing aspects of the novel: the sexual imagery created by the subordinate characters swearing allegiance to the hero by kissing the end of his weapon, a massive club; the unhealthy attention to detaii placed on the descriptions of the leather uniforms of the hero’s army; the depiction of the mutants and non-humans as being vaguely anti-semitic; and, finally, the depiction of a country that goes from being a non-entity destroyed by war and infighting to becoming a major word power - industrially, financially, technologically as well as militarily - in just a few years.
It’s a brilliant example of the form because it serves the purpose of the author by drawing the reader into an exciting adventure and then pulling the rug out from under them.
Another one is the novel and movie versions of The Princess Bride. The movie has the device of showing the boy warming to the story and to his grandfather while the novel is mostly about how the William Goldman of the novel is trying desperately hard to get through to his son and make some kind of connection. Both of them work in deepening the meaning of the story and its themes.
A lot of the time, though, the author sometimes wants to begin a story in media res then release some of the details piecemeal so that the conclusion can be even more of a surprise. Iain M. Banks (no relation)’s novel Use Of Weapons is a great example of this: it tells the story in two strands (one being a conventional retelling of the protagonist’s current adventures, while the other tells the story of how he got there in reverse). It’s a fantastic read, by the way.
Then there’s stories that exist with a framing device that just retell the events of what happened because it provides a great hook to the audience. Most tv episodes that start with a bang then have the post-opening credits open with a caption that reads “12 Hours Earlier...” are often guilty of just shuffling the pages of the script around rather than having a genuine frame because there’s often no point save dramatics for the story to start that way (*cough, cough, Creatures Of Beauty, cough, cough*).
In the case of I, Davros, we see Davros on trial for his life so it’s only really natural that he might be reminiscing on what has gone before to see where he went wrong or what he might have done differently. As a framing device, it works, but, as you say, it would work just as well without it. However, it does give us the opportunity of hearing Terry Molloy in every episode rather than the ones that it would just be logical for him to be in. But by having Davros contemplating what went on, it makes us think a little bit more about the incidents that he is recalling... why this and not that? Why that conversation and not this?
.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2020 14:51:39 GMT
I agree they can often be used lazily and as a crutch. So often I see an episode of TV that starts in the middle then goes to flashback and it's for no real effect other than to open with an action scene. That kind of thing is horribly lazy. Some of my favourite types of framing device (and some spoilers for some films but mostly quite old).
Beginning at the end - Sunset Boulevard we know is being narrated by a dead man so there's a mystery involved in using the framing device that wouldn't be if we didn't have it. We see William Holden dead at the start...but how does he die? Let's find out. Wheras to cut that would mean a straight forward Hollywood story with a death at the end somewhat out of step with the tone of the film. Could have worked..but not as deftly as waiting for the hammer to fall. See also Curse Of Frankenstein. The framing device allows us to see what Cushing's story of his Monsters creation is but he may also be mad and have made it all up. That ambiguity is removed if we take the framing device of him confessing his sins away. Frankenstein is trying to escape the guillotine through relaying events from his perspective. Rather oddly this also involves him confessing to murder but hey!
Stories within stories - ShutUpBanks used the best example of this with The Princess Bride. What is wonderful to me about those scenes is being able to undercut any "cheese", any cliche that the genre has. We can have Fred Savage point out the cliches that a more cynical audience of the 80s would have about an old fashined swashbuckler but then we realise he's fallen in love with the cliches by the end as we have and most importantly it's brought him closer to his grandfather. Even something like Mad Max 2/Road Warrior uses this device though. It turns Max from the first film into more than a man but a mythical character which, again, wouldn't be done without the framing device of the voiceover from the feral child turned tribe elder. One of the best of these - that also falls into beginning at the end - is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Jimmy Stewart is ready to reveal how his career was built on a lie and that Tom Donophan (John Wayne) really was the one who deserved the credit but the editor of the paper Stewart confesses to knows that the legend is more powerful than the truth so tosses the story in the fire. Again, removing this framing device would kinda kill the movie. It'd just be a straight western rather than a meditation on civilisation being built on the back of murder and whether a lie to protect a bigger truth is excusable.
Unreliable narrators - Like Frankstein as I mentioned above, the idea that the person framing the story is wrong is also a good reason to frame a story that way on occasion. Big Fish sees us doubt Albert Finney's adventures as the exaggerations of a lonely old man only to realise he DID have this exceptional life when characters arrive for his funeral. Memento is a lovely subversion of this as Leonard forces himself to be the unreliable narrator through lying to himself on his post-it notes that he relies on to fill in the gaps in his short term memory. So we spend 2 hours here hunting down a baddy...to realise we were not just wrong but lied to by our main character who doesn't actually realise he's lying. Only Nolan could pull that off!
Surely the daddy here is Rashomon. We can't believe all the narrators giving their version of the terrible crime totally but to give ourselves closure we have to come down somewhere. There are lies, there are truths and there is no judgement from Kurosawa at the end as to who has told us what. We can allow ourselves to believe the most sympathetic and easy solution but then recognise a far uglier one is just as likely.
Usual Suspects and The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari are interesting as some may feel that finding out the story you've spent a whole film watching is made up and didn't happen is narratively a cheat but I think if the rugpull is fun enough it's a wonderful device. The cleverness and cheek of Verbal in not just lying but in ad-libbing based on coffee cups and whatnot makes Suspects a wonderful experience for me.
|
|
|
|
Post by whiskeybrewer on Jan 6, 2020 15:04:49 GMT
Most of those are great examples of how a Framing Device can elevate a story.
One that always comes to mind for me of a Bad use of it is John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. Thats a film that could have been slightly improved by taking out the Framing and just told the story
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2020 15:31:36 GMT
Most of those are great examples of how a Framing Device can elevate a story. One that always comes to mind for me of a Bad use of it is John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. Thats a film that could have been slightly improved by taking out the Framing and just told the story And as Who fans of course we've just had almost exactly this with the "Trial-less" version of Vervoids on the S23 set which seems to have gone down very well. |
|
lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,812
|
Post by lidar2 on Jan 6, 2020 15:51:04 GMT
I agree they can often be used lazily and as a crutch. So often I see an episode of TV that starts in the middle then goes to flashback and it's for no real effect other than to open with an action scene. That kind of thing is horribly lazy. Some of my favourite types of framing device (and some spoilers for some films but mostly quite old). That's my gripe and why I started this thread. I think more often than not they are used just for their own sake or else lazily as a away of artifically generating a bit of extra drama. The examples quoted, where the device is used properly are all good, but they are the exception rather the rule for today's storytellers who use them |
|
|
|
Post by glutamodo on Jan 6, 2020 16:24:40 GMT
To me, this mostly comes down to "pre-title sequences" and while they, of course, tie into the story, do they ever really add much to that story? Would I rather have the titles roll out and the story just begin? I tend to lean towards not having pre-titles.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2020 13:47:46 GMT
Most of those are great examples of how a Framing Device can elevate a story. One that always comes to mind for me of a Bad use of it is John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. Thats a film that could have been slightly improved by taking out the Framing and just told the story And as Who fans of course we've just had almost exactly this with the "Trial-less" version of Vervoids on the S23 set which seems to have gone down very well. Another example from Who -- on the other end of the spectrum and linking to I, Davros directly -- is Lance Parkin's Davros. Technically, from a structural standpoint, everything that occurs at TAI with the Doctor and the Baines belongs to a framing device. One so richly layered and developed that we don't notice it, but it's nevertheless still there. Constructed to contextualise the flashbacks to Skaro. Part of what I think makes a strong framework is a story that provides not just context, but contrasts as Davros does here. Prompting questions about memory and how we perceive events relative to our own experiences. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 7, 2020 14:17:58 GMT
And as Who fans of course we've just had almost exactly this with the "Trial-less" version of Vervoids on the S23 set which seems to have gone down very well. Another example from Who -- on the other end of the spectrum and linking to I, Davros directly -- is Lance Parkin's Davros. Technically, from a structural standpoint, everything that occurs at TAI with the Doctor and the Baines belongs to a framing device. One so richly layered and developed that we don't notice it, but it's nevertheless still there. Constructed to contextualise the flashbacks to Skaro. Part of what I think makes a strong framework is a story that provides not just context, but contrasts as Davros does here. Prompting questions about memory and how we perceive events relative to our own experiences. Or another look at a story that falls apart without it's framing is Doctor Who And The Pirates. The framing story IS the story, everything else is unreliable narration or sleight of hand from Evelyn to hide what's really going on, that is so much more powerful that "The Gilbert And Sullivan one with Bill Oddie" should have any right to be. Try and tell that story in sequence, straight up, and it loses almost all the power. |
|
