Storytelling on Screen

"Storytelling on Screen" provides an historical accounting of narrative across time, genre, and media - from the age of ancient myth to the moment of multimedia spectacle. This wildly capacious and deft synthesis of narrative theory details key concepts, the roots of symbolic narrative, the protagonists who inhabit the narrative landscape (e.g., hero, antihero, the fool), and the many manifestations of narrative in film and popular culture - from "Spartacus" and "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest" to the experimental worlds of video games and dramatic television series that pivot on their narrative strength (.eg., NYPD Blue, ER). "Storytelling on Screen" will summarize the key shifts in the evolution of selected narrative traditions, show their 'entry points' into the realm of cinema, and comment on their presence in contemporary popular culture. Since the biggest stories in our age 'of the spectacle' are shown rather than told, the book pays close attention to performance, Aristotelian poetics, and dramatization of the narrative, while exploring dramatic forms, including tragedy and comedy, in connection to storytelling on screen.Each chapter in "Storytelling on Screen" will begin by introducing a relevant cultural theory and exploring a narrative tradition using multiple references to literature, film, and popular culture. Each chapter will conclude with a summarizing case study (five pages) of two films, further clarifying new notions and ideas though textual analysis. The book will also have a Glossary; Side-bars; Bibliography/Filmography; 20 b/w images.