In
history,
film,
television and other media, a
flashback (also called
analepsis) is an interjected
scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the
story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened prior to the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial
backstory. In the opposite direction, a
flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future. The technique is used to create suspense in a story, or develop a character. In literature,
internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative;
external analepsis is a flashback to before the narrative started.
An early example of analepsis is in the
Mahabharata, where the main story is narrated through a
frame story set in a later time.
A variation of prolepsis is
prophecy, as when
Oedipus is told that he will sleep with his mother and kill his father. As we learn later in
Sophocles' play
Oedipus the King, he does both despite his efforts to evade his fate. A
self-fulfilling prophecy is also found in
Krishna’s story in the
Mahabharata.
A good example of both analepsis and prolepsis is the first scene of
La Jetée. As we learn a few minutes later, what we are seeing in that scene is a flashback to the past, since the present of the film’s diegesis is a time directly following
World War III. However, as we learn at the very end of the film, that scene also doubles as a prolepsis, since the dying man the boy is seeing is, in fact, himself. In other words, he is proleptically seeing his own death. We thus have an analepsis and prolepsis in the very same scene.
Analepsis was used extensively by
author Ford Madox Ford.
The
1927 book
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by
Thornton Wilder is the progenitor of the modern disaster epic in literature and film-making, where a single disaster intertwines the victims, whose lives are then explored by means of flashbacks to events leading up to the disaster.
In the world of television flashbacks are also very common. They are sometimes incorporated into episodes, but often whole episodes are devoted to them. One recent show which is well-known for this is
Lost which utilizes flashbacks in every episode to advance the storyline and provide a link between the characters' past and their current behavior.
In a story if flashbacks are presented non-chronologically it can be ambiguous what is the present of the story: if flashbacks are extensive and in chronological order, one can also say that these form the present of the story, while the rest of the story consists of flash forwards. An example of this is Slaughterhouse Five where the narrative jumps back and forth in time, so there is no actual present time line.
Occasionally, a story may contain a flashback within a flashback: one example of this is the film
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: the main action of the film is told in flashback, with the scene of Liberty Valance’s murder occurring as a flashback within that flashback. An extremely convoluted story may contain flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks: two examples of this are the movies
Passage to Marseilles and
The Locket.
In movies and television, several camera techniques and special effects have evolved to inform the viewer that the action on the screen is from the past. For example the edges of the picture may be deliberately blurred or unusual coloration may be used.
Though usually used to clarify plot or backstory, flashbacks can also be used in the manner of the "
Unreliable narrator."
Alfred Hitchcock's
Stage Fright infamously featured a flashback that did not tell the truth, but, instead, dramatized a lie from a witness. The multiple and contradictory staged reconstructions of a crime in
Errol Morris's
The Thin Blue Line are presented as flashbacks based on divergent testimony.
Akira Kurosawa's classic film
Rashomon does this in the most celebrated fictional narrative use of contested multiple testimonies.
Near the end of his life, film director
Howard Hawks boasted that he was proud that none of his films ever used a flashback.
History is the study of the past, focused on human activity and leading up to the present day.[1] More precisely, history is the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race [1]
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Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.
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Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V., or more recently, tv; sometimes called telly, the tube, boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures
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In fiction, a scene is a unit of drama. A sequel is what follows, an aftermath. Together, scene and sequel provide the building blocks of plot for short stories, novels, and other forms of fiction.
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In fiction, a plot or storyline is the rendering and ordering of the events and actions of a story, particularly towards the achievement of some particular artistic or emotional effect.
Structure of plot
Plot has structure at several levels and forms.
..... Click the link for more information. In narratology, a back-story (also back story or backstory) is the history behind the situation extant at the start of the main story. This literary device is often employed to lend the main story depth or verisimilitude.
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A 'flashforward' (or prolepsis, also sometimes known as flash-forward or flash-ahead) in a narrative occurs when the primary sequence of events in a story is interrupted by the interjection of a scene representing an event expected, projected, or
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A frame story (also frame tale, frame narrative, etc.) is a narrative technique whereby a main story is composed, at least in part, for the purpose of organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story—or for surrounding a single story
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In Western religion, prophecy (from Greek, "before-speech") is the divine gift of speaking the truth, especially about the future. One who speaks prophecy is called a prophet. The meaning and understanding of prophecy varies by culture and history.
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Oedipus (Οἰδίπους - Oidĭpous [pronounce[1]], meaning "swollen-footed") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes.
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Sophocles (ancient Greek: Σοφοκλῆς IPA: [sopʰoklɛ́ː̀s]; circa.
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Oedipus the King
Antigone Leads Oedipus out of Thebes by Charles Francois Jalabert
Written by Sophocles
Chorus Theban Elders
Characters Oedipus
Priest of Apollo
Creon
Tiresias
Jocasta
Messenger from Corinth
Herdsman of Laius
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A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true. Although examples of such prophecies can be found in human literature as far back as ancient Greece and ancient India, it is 20th-century sociologist Robert K.
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Krishna (कृष्ण in Devanagari, kṛṣṇa
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All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
La Jetée ("The Jetty") is a 1962 28-minute black and white science fiction film by Chris Marker. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel.
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World War III (abbreviated WWIII), or the Third World War, is a term used to describe a hypothetical conflict on the scale of World War I and World War II, or even larger, such as a nuclear holocaust.
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This article or section is written like a personal reflection or and may require .
Please [ improve this article] by rewriting this article or section in an . (, talk)
“Authorship” redirects here.
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Pseudonym: Ford Hermann Hueffer, Ford Madox Hueffer
Born: November 17 1873(1873--)
Merton, Surrey
Died: May 26 1939 (aged 67)
Deauville, France
Occupation: novelist, publisher
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20th century - 21st century
1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s
1924 1925 1926 - 1927 - 1928 1929 1930
Year 1927 (MCMXXVII
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Penguin Modern Classics Cover
Author Thornton Wilder
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Penguin
Publication date 1927
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Thornton Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. [1]
Life
Family history
Thornton Niven Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and was the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a U.S.
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IMDb profile
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a classic Western movie made in 1962, starring James Stewart, John Wayne, and Lee Marvin, and directed by John Ford. The story is adapted from a short story written by Dorothy M. Johnson.
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The Locket (1946) is a suspense film directed by John Brahm, starring Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum, and Gene Raymond. The film is based on a screenplay by Sheridan Gibney, adapted from "What Nancy Wanted" by Norma Barzman, wife of
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unreliable narrator (a term coined by Wayne C. Booth in his 1961 book The Rhetoric of Fiction[1]) is a literary device in which the credibility of the narrator is seriously compromised.
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Alfred Hitchcock
Birth name Alfred Joseph Hitchcock
Born July 13 1899(1899--)
Leytonstone, London, England
Died March 29 1980 (aged 82)
Bel Air, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
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IMDb profile
Stage Fright is a 1950 Crime film starring Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, and Richard Todd. Others in the cast include Alastair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Kay Walsh, and Patricia Hitchcock in her movie debut.
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Errol Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American Academy Award winning documentary film director. In 2003 The Guardian listed him as number seven in their list of the world's 40 best directors.
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The Thin Blue Line is a 1988 documentary film concerning the murder of a Texas police officer who had stopped a car for a routine traffic citation.
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Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa on the set of Kagemusha (1980).
Born March 23 1910(1910--)
Ota, Tokyo, Japan
Died September 6 1998 (aged 88)
Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan
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