1 Rhizomes and Non-linear Pathways: New Approaches to Narrative in the Competitive Hobbyist Documentary By David Shaerf 2 Submitted by David Shaerf, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Film Practice, October 2010. This thesis is available to the Library for use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis that is not my own work has been identified and that material has previously been submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other University. …………………………………….David Shaerf 3 Abstract This PhD study will serve to question and explore questions and methods of narratology (more specifically narrative structure) within the construct of the documentary filmmaking process. The arguments that follow in the written section of this thesis will serve as a text that allows a synthesis between my practical work in the documentary film, The Love for the Game (2010), and the underlying narratological theories posited in this PhD submission. Ultimately, this thesis’ aim is to contribute to and expand upon theories of narrative structure within documentary film; a largely underdeveloped area within documentary theory. More specifically, the thesis is inspecting the genre of documentary which I am calling competitive hobbyist films: a group of films that has recently emerged within the documentary field of filmmaking which closely inspect niche interest groups within a competitive environment. The documentary titled The Love for the Game (2010), then, will document the community that surrounds the game of Backgammon (predominantly in the United States). Both the film and supporting text will look at new approaches to documentary practice within the competitive hobbyist genre. More specifically, an inspection of the film’s narrative structure serves to expand upon the competitive hobbyist genre and examine how the films within this genre are approached from a narratological perspective. I will conclude by illustrating how my research, looking specifically at alternative narrative structures, deploying non-linear, Rhizomatic forms, is relevant, not only to narrative fiction films, but also very much within documentary film. Moreover, I will illustrate how these non-linear forms have affected the way documentary filmmakers may approach the genre of competitive hobbyist documentaries. 4 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................... 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................................................... 5 ROOT SYSTEMS: .................................................................................................................................... 6 RATIONALE ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 RHIZOMATIC NARRATIVES ................................................................................................................................... 14 COMPETITIVE HOBBYIST FILM .............................................................................................................................. 20 DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCUMENTARY ............................................................................................................ 38 PRACTICAL DOCUMETARY WITH RHIZOMATIC THEORY ................................................................................. 40 DOCUMENTARY NARRATIVE THEORY ................................................................................................................ 42 DOCUMENTARY MODES OF REPRESENTATION ................................................................................................. 45 RESEARCH DEDUCTIONS ....................................................................................................................................... 61 THE LOVE FOR THE GAME: ........................................................................................................... 63 WHY BACKGAMMON? ............................................................................................................................................ 64 METHODS AND APPROACHES ............................................................................................................................... 67 AESTHETICSA .......................................................................................................................................................... 71 THE RHIZOME IN THE LOVE FOR THE GAME ...................................................................................................... 74 NODAL SYSTEM ....................................................................................................................................................... 76 CONCLUSIONS & CONVERGENCE ..................................................................................................... 93 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ................................................................................................................... 96 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................... 97 FILMOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................... 100 5 Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Will Higbee for his support and guidance throughout this five-year endeavour. Without his unwavering friendship, mentorship and counsel the PhD would have been impossible to complete. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues within the Film Studies Department at the University of Exeter. In particular, I would like to mention Dr. Jennie Cousins and Josh Gaunt: my siblings in all but blood. Their undying friendship and humour always an uplifting presence in my life as a PhD candidate. I would further like to thank Josh for his drive and passion towards filmmaking; it was this spark that enticed me into my own pursuits as a film director, and frankly, could not have done this without him. I would also like to take this time to thank Stuart Mitchell and Jonas Hawkins of the Exeter Phoenix. It was through their facilitation, that I was able to learn the technologies available to me and facilitated and produced the making of my first two short films. The biggest thank you to Jamie Shaerf, my brother and best friend; as well as Angel Wuellner, my forever supportive and loving partner, the raging yang to my sobering yin. I would like to thank my friends in the UK, New York City and Wellington who have all been so patient and supportive throughout this long PhD period. It has been a long road that is finally coming to a close. 6 Root Systems: Discussions of a Rhizomatic Narrative in Documentary Filmmaking 7 Rationale Project Origins “Practice without theory is empty and theory without practice, blind” (Fair 2010) The feature length documentary The Love for the Game represents a culmination of my PhD research with a focus on narratological structures in narrative-based film. It is a film that attempts to look at new approaches to narrative structure within the documentary form specifically. The film is directly linked with my previous PhD research into varying narratological structures. These narrative structures have been implemented by filmmakers creating innovative film narratives in opposition to what is broadly referred to as Classical Narrative structure. The alternative narrative structures that I had been inspecting were in opposition to discourses outlined predominantly by film historian David Bordwell (Bordwell, Staiger, Thompson 1985) and further augmented by Kristin Thompson (Thompson 1999) and later reconfirmed by Murphy (2007) and Martin-Jones (2006). Before going into detail concerning the methodologies and decisions made within the filmmaking process, it is important to give this thesis something of a preface regarding where my research process began. Moreover, we must look at the research path and procedure that would ultimately lead to the conclusive decision that the best possible way to present my research was through practice: more specifically through a filmic narrative informed and shaped by the theoretical inquiry and methodology that had hitherto formed the basis of my doctoral research. As already mentioned, this doctoral thesis began as an inspection of narrative-based films (that is to say, fiction films) whose narrative form deviated from what has come to be termed ‘classical’. David Bordwell, in his efforts to delineate a set of formalized rules within fiction film narration, continually refers back to two very specific terms first mentioned in his work in Narration and the Fiction Film (though 8 he still utilizes this terminology today): the fabula and the syuzhet (Bordwell 1985: p49). Though he borrows these terms from Russian formalists such as Vladimir Propp, he effectively redefines them in a cinematic context to make his point of the existence of a classical structure. He defines the fabula as “embody[ing] the action as a chronological,