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

64 Daniel Barratt(a) comprehension(construction)syuzhetcuesstylecinematography,editing, lighting,mise-en-scèneschemasfabulapersonactioneventfabula(b) memory(reconstruction)schemaspersonactioneventFigure 3.1Comprehension and memoryin psychology textbooks – it should be acknowledged that they areperhaps best thought of as opposite sides of the same coin: how we memorizea scene at time t 2 is a direct indication of how we attended to thatscene at time t 1 .The scope and limitations of attention and memory are frequentlyexploited by filmmakers: M. Night Shyamalam’s The Sixth Sense is a primeexample of this. How, though, does Shyamalan specifically ensure that afirst-time viewer will remain “blind” to the film’s narrative twist? A possibleanswer to this question is that he relies, at least implicitly, on a numberof extremely powerful effects and procedures which are at play in everydaycognition. In this section, I intend to outline these effects and proceduresbefore going on to discuss their possible role in a first-time viewing ofthe film. 3(a) Attention and memory: the role of schematic (re)constructionThe first key question is: How do we attend to – and comprehend – thepeople and events presented by a fiction film (see Figure 3.1a)? In orderto answer this question, let us follow the cognitive and narrative theory ofthe film scholar David Bordwell (1985, 1989). To begin with, we need tocite the fundamental distinction between fabula and syuzhet. The fabula is