Viktor Shklovsky’s Theory of Film Narrativity

• In Event: Liberating Narratives: Experiments with Soviet Film Storytelling

Abstract

One crucial unresolved issue in the study of cinematic narrative is narrativity, or what makes film narratives exciting. This paper proposes the answer can be found in the narrative theory of the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky. Shklovsky provides a conception of narrativity that is not dependent on the narrational point of view, temporal chronology, or event change; as such, his conception is more suitable for the study of film. This paper will use Stalin-era cinema as its examples.

Author

• Maria Belodubrovskaya, U of Chicago