Narrative and Nonnarrative

Style, the way in which filmic elements are selected and arranged, determines the overall ambience and can help indicate historical setting. Any story can be told in many ways.

Franco Zeffirelli, Romeo and Juliet, 1968. Romeo and Juliet.

Baz Luhrmann, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1996.

Every story is constructed using a chain of events called causality. The storyteller presents us with a series of clues, which we construct into meaning.

Titanic. Young Rose preparing to jump.

Titanic. Elderly Rose at ship's railing.