NARRATION IN THE FICTION FILM

FABULA, SYUZHET AND STYLE

In films is important to differentiate between fabula , syuzhet and style . Firstly ,

Fabula (sometimes translated as “story”) embodies the action as a
chronological , cause-and –effect chain of events occurring within a given
duration and a spatial field . Ideally the fabula can be embodied in a verbal
synopsis ,as general or as detailed as circumstances require . The viewers build
the fabula on the basis of prototype schemata (identifiable types of persons ,
actions , locales …) template schemata (principally the “canonic story”:) and
procedural schemata( a search for appropriate motivations and relations of
causality , time and space ). So to say that a film’s fabula is never materially
present on the screen or soundtrack.

Talking about syuzhet , we can say that it (usually translated as “plot” )is the
actual arrangement and presentation of the fabula in the film , it is a more
abstract construction , the pattering of the story as a blow–by–blow recounting
of the film could render it . It is also a system because it arranges components
(the story events and states of affairs ).

Another important concept is style simply names the film’s systematic use of
cinematic devices although this word can have other uses (to designate
recurrent features of structure or texture in a body of films such as “neorealist
style “). So to say that the systems of syuzhet and style coexist , although
syuzhet embodies the film as a “dramaturgical “ process ; style embodies it as
a “technical “ one .