• DOI:10.1215/03335372-2389578
• Corpus ID: 54047905

The Structure of Repetition in the Cinema: Three Hollywood Genres

@article{Shaham2013TheSO,
  title={The Structure of Repetition in the Cinema: Three Hollywood Genres},
  author={Inbar Shaham},
  journal={Poetics Today},
  year={2013},
  volume={34},
  pages={437-518}
}

• I. Shaham
• Published 21 December 2013
• Art
• Poetics Today

Thestructureofrepetition,asMeirSternberg(1978)definesit,consistsinthe repeatedpresentationofafabulaiceventalongthetextcontinuum.Ithasthreetypesof component members: (1) forecast (e.g., command, scenario); (2) enactment (represent- ing the forecast's objective realization, as communicated by an authorized narrator); and (3)report (about an enactment, a forecast, or another report, all delivered by some character). This research examines the repetition structure in cinematic narrative: specifically, in heist, adventure, and military operation films. Throughout, the argu- mentproceedswithspecialreferencetothesegenres,aswellastothecinema'smedium, practice, and conventions in general, often citing literary parallels or precedents for comparison.It examines thedifferent elements that serveto (re)compose therepetition structure for certain ends; the types of member brought together within the structure; their size, number, forms of transmission, order of appearance, representational pro- portion, and possible interrelations (overlap, partial overlap, contradiction, expansion or summary of a previous member). Above all, the analysis relates these interplays themselves to the structure's functions at the level of plot, meaning, and rhetoric, notably including their generic variations, as exemplified by the three focal genres.