What Can Film Style Do in Narrative Cinema?

Abstract

Analytical stylistics is grounded in the presumption that style serves one or more functions or effects to the end of a filmic work. So, to understand analytical stylistics, this chapter defines and delineates these functions of style in film art in a precise way. The chapter importantly distinguishes two kinds of theory of the functions of film style: the macro functional theory of film style and the micro functional theory of film style. The difference between these two kinds of functional theory lies primarily in their degree of generality. The macro theory proposed by Carroll and Bordwell elucidates the functions of style in narrative film more generally, irrespective of the genre, period or origin of the films. Meanwhile, the micro theory of Keating, Toshiro, Barnwell and Nielsen targets the functions of particular stylistic devices such as lighting, production design and camera movement across a large filmic corpus from a specific period, region or production mode.