The Image of Reversed Narrative. The Case of Irreversible Cover Image

Obraz odwróconej narracji. Przypadek Nieodwracalne
The Image of Reversed Narrative. The Case of Irreversible

Author(s): Kamil Lipiński
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: narrative; film studies; temporality; Gaspar Noé

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the case of reversed narration in the film Irreversible by Gaspar Noé as a one of the examples of group of films produced in the 1990’s based on the reversed narration and complex, modern construction of the sujet. The author stresses that temporal aspects of metonymic contiguity shows parallels with displacement of one event on the axis of chronology and the transitions between erzählte Zeit and Erzählzeit. Narratological reading of retrospective events provides dating back in time from primary narrative as a result of the use of i.e. the internal analepsa showing the time span in the story told. The shift from present and past goes beyond the linear and causal order by drawing on a comparison between J.W. Dunne’s various forms of theory of time and the Moebius strip. The group of events arranged in the causal but discontinuous order show the parallels that precede climax event and initiate the secondary narrative dating back in time.

  • Issue Year: 19/2014
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 33-43
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: Polish