Buckland-Warren-Puzzle-Films-Complex-Storytelling-Contemporary-Cinema

98 Stefano Ghislotti← ...+ C3(e-2) + C2(e-1) + C1(e)]While watching the film, it is very difficult to keep its stimuli distinct fromour mental construction because our normal way of making memories followsthe temporal arrow of the film’s screening. So we experience, even afterrepeated visions, confusion between the two temporal dimensions. Theyinterfere with each other, and we are not able to see them at the same time.To complete the mental representation of the film structure, we haveto wait for the final sequence, BW22, which begins in black and white,but switches to color. It is the solution of the puzzle that we have beenexpecting since the third sequence, for it explicitly signifies the temporalrelationship that exists between the black and white and color sequences.At this point, the viewer can take a look at the whole fabula of the film.The transition between the first and the second story line is made usingthe Polaroid photograph taken after Jimmy’s murder. As the imageappears, the colors become progressively more definite, turning the entirescene to color.Two photographs, two mementos of past events, are at the beginningand at the end of the film. It’s indeed a stylish choice, but it’s also the useof mnemonic devices, such as photographs, that appears to be a characteristicof the film.The Film’s Overall StructureIn order to understand and schematize the film’s complete structure, it isworth using a more subtle notation, following the suggestion made by AndyKlein in a review of the film (Klein 2001). We shall number the blackand white sequences from 1 to 22, and use alphabet letters for the colorsequences, “A” being the color part of sequence 22, “B” the following colorsequence in chronological order, and so on. We obtain not only a listof sequences, but also a mental diagram of the film. Such a diagram recallsmnemotechnical schemes of oratory teachers: when the memorizing taskwas difficult, their advice was to associate the things to be remembered toa well-known ordered list, like numbers and alphabet letters (Carruthers1990). Two different dispositions of the ordered lists help us to recall thefabula structure or the film’s structure. The latter starts from the last event(shown in the first sequence, W) and alternates color sequences with blackand white scenes.