Non Linear Storytelling Examples

Why was Citizen Kane so different from the traditional Hollywood Films? Citizen Kane defies the traditional narrative and classic elements of Hollywood cinema by uniquely setting up the story in a different fashion from what the typical storyline would usually follow. It took on an approach of arranging the events of the story as it unfolds in a nonlinear pattern, while using multiple narrators while leaving the suspense of what did the meaning of a dying man’s last word open to the audiences’ interpretation.

Citizen Kane by Orson Welles is a story that was made for excellence. However, since it was about William Randolph Hearst, it did not do too well. Many movies didn't want to play the film because they were scared of Hearst and his power. Although, many could not see the movie it still became one of the greatest films ever made through its uncommon angles, montages, and lighting.

Another non-linear narrative structure which was really important in the novel in order to create tension is Lanyon’s letter. This letter reveals to the reader about Hyde and Jekyll’s relationship. The letter is for Utterson. Lanyon wants him to open it after his own and Jekyll’s deaths.

The 1940s film industry favored films that were based on reality, such as Citizen Kane. Orson Welles is the director of the 1941 film, Citizen Kane, which uses the cinematic techniques of long takes and deep focus shots. Long takes and deep focus shots are associated with space and time. I will be writing about scene D where Susan, the second Ms. Kane, is in the middle of a singing lesson. Scene D contains examples of long takes, deep focus takes, and camera movements.

One example of the use of linear plot structure is in a movie called Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. This movie has a pretty straightforward and easy to follow plot as it follows a high school student, Ferris (Matthew Broderick), through his shenanigans as he decides to skip school with his friends. The linear plot structure in a movie involves the beginning, middle, and the end with a climax towards the end of the middle section. This works with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off because at the beginning you’re basically finding out who Ferris is, then the action begins to rise towards the middle and reaches the peak at the climax where you almost think the dean (Jeffry Jones) is going to catch Ferris, then the end of the movie. This linear plot structure appeals to audience members of all ages because it’s easy for all ages to follow from kids to

Example 1.) Citizen Kane was released at the point where the American Studio System was at the peak of its power. The producers of this film were able to have complete control over what was included in the film, and you can tell that by the controversial scenes surrounding Kane, and all of the trials and tribulations that surrounded a man in this time period.

Citizen Kane is filled with symbolic imagery. In most of the movie you can pick out scenery, character actions, lighting, camera movement, and the composition within the frame of key shots that help tell the story without the character orally telling the full story. However, because of its new and experimental use of mise-en-scene, the movie did not do well in the box office. In time Orson Welles movie would become one of the best movies of all time and would even come to change filmmaking in

The first example from Citizen Kane that did not follow the classic hollywood style was the predictable plot. This movie does not have a traditional happy ending like other movies. No one figured out what Mr. Kane’s dying words, Rose Bud, meant. He did not die happy and with one of the two girls he loved. Even though part of the ending appeared in the beginning of the movie, there were still a lot of plot twists that would not have appeared in a classic hollywood style movie.

Bordwell and Thompson shared that the manipulation of story order, time and frequency in the plot illustrate how the audience actively participate in making sense of a narrative film (81). Bordwell and Thompson mentioned that typically, in fictional biographies, life stories are presented chronologically and let their plot present incidents in story order (80). In Citizen Kane, however, Kane’s life is traced through flashbacks by people who knew him, resulting in the creation of an unusual relation of the plot to the story. Furthermore, Citizen Kane presents an

The structure in the film Citizen Kane is non-linear in that it does not follow any planned order. The story is well formulated and presented using flashbacks that pertain different times in the life of Kane (Welles). These flashbacks are unplanned search that they offer the viewer an incomplete glimpse of Kane’s life and essentially adding more suspense. It takes the form of the memory when a person tries to remember an event that took place a long time ago. The use of the non-linear structure helps to portray how complicated the life of Kane was. It is vital to note the film uses several narrators. The mystery of Kane’s life is also being put together like a puzzle (Welles). The audience is with the journalist in the quench to find what the mystery word meant to Kane. The layout of the story is also planned with

Citizen Kane brought the aspects of a newspaper tycoon in the 1940’s to life in a form of a dramatic narrative. This film is based on a true story of a newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst and based off of some aspects of Orson Welles(Writer and Director). This filmed has been named, “The best American film of all time” due to the fact that, during the time of its making, it was the first film to take on many new techniques of cinematography. Citizen Kane is a revolutionary film not only in the drama genre, but in filmmaking of all forms.

An example of nonlinear is when a film utilizes flashbacks. When creating the screenwriter uses several other options to aid in the story. These include the struggle for human dignity, a complexity in human relationships, a truth in human nature. They could use social problems which reflect conversations that are currently occurring in society. They could use moral problems to question what is right or wrong.

A narrative is an order in which something is put. there is often a reason behind this order. Directors frequently use flashbacks to show previous stories or a passing of time to the audience (Bordwell and Thompson 79). Character and time help the audience to make sense of a narrative and allows them to speculate about what is about to come. Some different narrative theories suggest ways in which stories are commonly put together. A linear narrative has the simple beginning, middle and end story line and the story will flow chronologically from beginning to end (Bordwell and Thompson 85). A non-linear narrative is a narrative that does not follow a regular beginning-middle-end pattern where the storytellers often change the order of events (Bordwell and Thompson 80). This

Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane is a revolutionary film. Although it might not look like much to the modern viewer, many aspects of the film were the first of their kind to appear and are still used today.

Native-like writing practice represents the most challenging language skill for English language learners (ELLs) because “it demands use of vocabulary, grammatical structures, and rhetorical conventions that are very different from conversational language” (Fu, 2009, p. ix). Even though some empirical studies have addressed the challenges ELLs encountered in literacy learning and the helpful intervention strategies to cope with their literacy learning difficulties (Van Staden, 2011), the use of multimodal storytelling as strategic writing intervention as well as representation of ELLs’ identity construction have not been fully studied yet. This study intends to extend the conversation about the impact of using multimodal storytelling on the