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Silly Questions and Arguments for the Implicit, Cinematic Narrator

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Abstract

How does movie narration work on the viewer so that she comprehends a story? This chapter concerns the controversy in the philosophy of film over the right answer to this question. The focus is on the view that there are ubiquitous, implicit narrators in fiction films. The debate between friends and foes of the cinematic narrator has been at a stalemate most centrally because there seems to be no resolution as to whether the questions critics raise about the implied narrator in movies are legitimate ones to ask. In this chapter, I aim to advance the debate by examining how what is known as the “absurd imaginings” problem arises for all the central arguments for the elusive cinematic narrator and to discuss why the questions critics pose about this narrator are legitimate ones to ask.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an influential discussion of make-believe and the mimetic arts, see Kendall Walton (1990). For recent discussions of fiction and imagination, see Matravers (2014) and Stock (2017). For an accessible overview of some key debates about fiction and imagination, see Stock (2013).

  2. 2.

    See Wilson 2013 and Livingston 2005 for a survey of some of the points in contention about narrative, in general. For skepticism about the usefulness of talking about cinematic narration, see Pye (2013: 136).

  3. 3.

    For an introduction to the basic principles of cinematic narration, see Bordwell (1985: 48–61) and Carroll (2008: 116–146).

  4. 4.

    See Gaut (2004) and Thomson-Jones (2007).

  5. 5.

    See Wilson’s discussion of the implied filmmaker of Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) in Wilson (1986: 134–9). Some, such as David Bordwell, reject the notion of an “implied filmmaker” and, instead, prefers to talk about how the “narration itself ” cues the viewer to be surprised, sympathetic, and so on (Bordwell 1985: 62). Greg Currie (1995a, b) uses the concept of an “implied filmmaker” to address unreliable narration in fiction films.

  6. 6.

    Gaut (2004: 235–236) calls it the former; Kania (2005: 47–48), calls it the latter.

  7. 7.

    For the same reason, some who accept the idea that storytelling or narration is an intentional activity reject Kendall Walton’s suggestion that there could be a “naturally occurring” and non-intentionally produced story, for instance, cracks in wood that seem to tell a story, provided the audience standardly decided to use such things as “props” in their game of make-believe (Walton 1990: 52).

  8. 8.

    See Kania (2005: 48), Köppe and Stürhring (2011), Gaut (2004: 235–237), and Wilson (1997: 299–300).

  9. 9.

    See Levinson (1996: 252–256); so-named by Andrew Kania in (2005).

  10. 10.

    Levinson describes the cinematic narrator as an agent who provides access to the story world. But in a note, he also endorses another role for the cinematic narrator: the cinematic narrator is also responsible for crafting the plot, the underlying sequences of events in the story (see Levinson 1996: 280, footnote 21).

  11. 11.

    Carroll (2006: 197), Thomson-Jones (2009: 299); see also Matravers (2014: 123).

  12. 12.

    Walton (1990: 265), Matravers (2014: 122).

  13. 13.

    Wilson (2011: 7). Wilson is inspired by a fascinating discussion of visualization at the theater and at the movies in Williams (1973).

  14. 14.

    For discussions of seeing in, see Wollheim (1998: 217–238), Hopkins (2008, 2016), and Stecker (2013). For a response to Wollheim that imagined seeing should not be understood in terms of seeing in, see Walton (2002).

  15. 15.

    Some philosophers, such as Noël Carroll, Colin McGinn, and Greg Currie maintain that imagining at the movies is standardly impersonal imagining. See Carroll (1995: 98–99, 2006, 2016), Currie (CitationRef CitationID="CR400">1991</CitationRef>, 1995a, b), and McGinn (2005) and Gaut (1998: 333–334, 2010: 217).

  16. 16.

    For personal versus impersonal imaginings, see Currie (1990: 181–185).

  17. 17.

    But see Thomson-Jones (2012), who argues that some films prompt the audience to imagine that they are moving within the world of the film.

  18. 18.

    Gaut (2004: 245), Carroll (2006: 181, 2016: 120).

  19. 19.

    The problem of just what an appreciator of fiction “fills in” as she comprehends a story is a subject of great debate. See, for example, Lewis (1978), Beardsley (1981: 242–247), Walton (1990: 144–161), Lamarque (1990), and Lorand (2001).

  20. 20.

    Catherine Wilson (2004), Elisabeth Schellekens (2007).

  21. 21.

    See also Curran (2016: 103–106).

  22. 22.

    Wilson remains open to the possibility that what he means by “imagined seeing” at the movies is what Currie means by perceptual imagining. See Wilson (2011: 75–76). Currie revisits his views about imagined seeing at the movies in Currie (2018).

  23. 23.

    For Wilson’s view on imagined seeing as “seeing in” look at Wilson (2013: 167–168).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA

    Angela Curran

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  1. Angela Curran
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  1. The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Noël Carroll

  2. William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, USA

    Laura T. Di Summa

  3. Baton Rouge Community College, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Shawn Loht

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Curran, A. (2019). Silly Questions and Arguments for the Implicit, Cinematic Narrator. In: Carroll, N., Di Summa, L.T., Loht, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19601-1_5

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