Non-Linear Movies
April 14, 2009
I do contract web development work for Blockbuster, the movie-rental company headquartered here in Dallas. I had a conversation about non-linear movies a few weeks ago with some of my colleagues there. Two of my ten favorite movies (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Memento) are undisputably non-linear movies, and two others (The Usual Suspects and Pan’s Labyrinth) make an extensive enough use of flashbacks or frame narratives to be classified as such by some. Let’s just say I like movies that are not in chronological order.
Some of the colleagues involved in this conversation are responsible for the new Blockbuster blog that launched a couple weeks ago. They invited me to contribute a post on non-linear movies for that blog. I have included the introduction below; visit the Blockbuster blog to read the rest.
Most movies present events in chronological order, one event following the other in a linear fashion. This is not surprising, since we experience the real world in chronological order. But some movies, often categorized as “non-linear” movies, present events in some alternative order to achieve certain effects. Read Full Post »