Flashback (cinema)

Definition of the process

In a cinematographic narration, the flashback (or flashback , English term which can result in “ flashback ”) is a process which, in narrative continuity, utilizes a scene being unrolled before the action in progress or principal.

This process is used most of the time to bring to the spectator of the elements necessary to his comprehension of the action in the course of evolution. But it can also be used at ends poetic, humorous, etc

The main difficulty for the Réalisateur is well to render comprehensible with the spectator whom the scene is located in the past, but it has many artifices to reach that point: costumes ( the Godfather, 2 {{E}} left Francis Ford Coppola), places, presences of characters, voice of the narrator (interior Voix in the day rises , 1939)… It can also support the effect by a technical transition like the introduction from blur between two plans ( Bewitched the of Vincente Minnelli) or a treatment different from the image ( Large Meaulnes of Jean-Gabriel Albicocco).

In general, the flashback is thus articulated around an element pivot, connection one moment old of the principal time of the account at one former moment, then thanks to a second element pivot, which is generally a variation of the first, set up in reference, it is operated a return to the principal time of film.

A whole film can thus be built in a flashback: sequence of introduction by a narrator, for example, then at the end of film, return to the time of the narrator who comes to close the account.

The realizer can also choose not to provide any information and to let accept a continuity in order to handle the spectator ( the Hooligan of Claude Lelouch).

A disputed process

The flashback is often regarded nowadays as a dated process, as well as the Field-reverse shot. In the the Fifties, Hermann disadvised of it already employment. According to him, this process slows down suspense, by defusing curiosity of what will arrive and yet, acknowledged Hermann, it remains popular.

More recently, Field also disadvises the flashback like “dated” process. And Claude Chabrol, in a number of Cinématographe condemns it as a realizer: “ Generally, says it, one makes a flashback when one has a strong idea of first scene. One attacks the spectator with violence, and after one explains how one arrived there ”.

Since the Years 1990, realizers prefer déstructurer rather the chronological continuity of the account than to call upon traditional the flashback; this destructuration was facilitated by the appearance of the video assembly on hard drive (proceeded Avid), making it possible to carry out many tests compared to the direct assembly on film. One can quote the work of Robert Altman (in particular Short Cuts or Kansas City ) and Quentin Tarantino ( Reservoir Dogs , but especially Pulp Fiction ), as well as young realizers: in Memento of Christopher Nolan the process follows a narrative goal whereas in Amores Perros or 21 grams of Alejandro González Iñárritu the objective seems more of the esthetic field.

Types of flashbacks

One can classify the flashbacks with the cinema according to various types of use, types of account, types of significances, etc

There are flashbacks-puzzles , in which one seeks to solve the mystery surrounding a character who, generally, has just died, and on which confront testimonys. The various witnesses who evoke it bring, by their accounts, of the scenes of the past to be lived again in front of our eyes - with always ambiguity, specific to the cinema, on objectivity of what is told. This model answer of many films, like Citizen Kane of Orson Welles, the Countess with the barefeet of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the Man of marble of Andrzej Wajda, the Man who loved the women François Truffaut, Lenny , That the spectacle begins and Star 80 of Bob Fosse, Chaleur and dust of James Ivory and also Lola Montès of max Ophuls .
Of very many films is mainly made up of a flashback : after an introduction, the film plunges in the past, often at the time of a narration, until narrative continuity joins the time of the introduction, before the final outcome: marital Chains of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the Woman to cut down Raoul Walsh, Horse-gears of Yves Allégret, the Messenger of Joseph Losey, Lawrence of Arabia of David Lean, Boulevard of the twilight of Billy Wilder, Little Big Man of Arthur PEN, the Chorus-singers of Christophe Barratier, Fight Club …
Another alternative is that where the versions of the various witnesses contradict themselves, and strongly call themselves into question; in particular when it is a question of finding the truth on an event in an investigation… One of the most famous examples is that of the Rashōmon of Akira Kurosawa, where the three various accounts of the same fact (a rape followed by a murder) follow one another according to three different points of view, letting plane the doubt about “ la ” final truth. This process is always used, as in the film Québécois the Negro (1997) where an investigator tries to disentangle unmatched testimonys of three witnesses in a history of murder. This process knows multiple alternatives. Certain scenarios play astutely with the time of the narration : time that the man passes to tell or to remind his last history is taken into account in the course of the action at the present, it does not have there suspended time.
There exists also flash-backs treated in a more nostalgic way, in the style “ With the research of time lost ”, whose ultimate model is the film the wild Strawberries of Ingmar Bergman. The hero, an old egoistic professor, walks there in flesh and bone in the time of his youth, which it observes while hiding. the Messenger of Joseph Losey, and many films as Casablanca of Michael Curtiz in which a brief Flash-back in form of Assembly-sequence comes to recall an old idylle, or an old drama.

Elsewhere than with the cinema

Contrary to a spread idea, the flashback is not a cinematographic specificity. Admittedly, it is the cinema which makes the greatest use of it. But the process can be used with the theater (cf Amadeus , dirty hands , Mort of a commercial traveller ) or as a cartoon (cf Maus , the series Alix , the series El Nino ).

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