I am exploring the limited genre of movies with disjointed narratives. Specifically, how the use of non linear story telling defines the movie itself.
What are examples of your favorite films that have disjointed narratives? What makes these films work?
I'll start:
Head. Written by Jack Nicholson, starring The Monkees in that era after they were done being TV stars and decided to become psychedelic rock gods. I would argue that these movies rarely work outside of the nonlinear narrative. Pulp Fiction, minus the editing, is a pale reflection of Killing Zoe, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance or Natural Born Killers. Memento is literally a subplot in Winter Sleepers extended to a bombastic and tiring 90 minutes. But Head is such a psychotronic bizarro-fest that the nonlinear narrative becomes about the only thing holding anything together.
Highly recommend The Double Life of Veronique, one of my favorites from director Krzysztof Kieslowski.
(500) Days of Summer I think what I liked about it was the non-linear nature of the movie really fed into the chaotic nature of love.
I really liked Enter the void, although its non-linearity is debatable.
Mulholland Dr. might count if you think about it. It's Lynch, though, so expect weirdness and confusion if you watch it. One of my favorite movies ever after it clicked.
I guess Primer (2004) would be the... prime example. There's a whole bunch of time travel/alternate timelines craziness in this one. It's one of those films you'll have to watch a couple times to figure it all out.
Predestination is another time travel film with no linear narrative. It's based on Robert Heinlein's "All You Zombies." Instead of watching it again I read its wiki to clear a couple things up. I already read the story but didn't catch onto one early scene. Spoilers/no spoilers: The film has one character.
There have been a lot my favorite films posted so far, but not my favorite: Rashomon. Most of the other movies posted so far have kind of followed the same general topes, disparate threads leading towards the "main" plot thread. What I like about Rashomon is that instead of directly playing with time and the nature of narrative, it instead is an examination of how everyone has a unique set of experiences, memories and perceptions, even though they're all are recounting the same events.
I pretty much like all the ones I've seen, so: Cloverfield (2008) A clever use of the found footage theme, where it's all taken from one camera, displayed as-is, but a plot point is that the cameraman himself has overwritten older footage on the tape with newer footage, so you get bits and pieces of what was previously on the tape. Jacob's Ladder (1990) The main storyline is intercut with flashbacks to Vietnam, and there's a particularly lengthy sequence where Jacob's son is alive (after it's been established he's dead) and he's still with his wife (who he divorced), which makes you question everything you've been seeing so far, and what's a dream and what isn't. Semi-fits into the category of non-lineary narratives, though to say more would invoke spoilers. Kill Bill. Vol 1 (2003) & 2 (2004) Of course like almost any Tarantino movie, he plays with the timeline. Nothing more needs to be said. It's Tarantino. It's fun. The Machinist (2004) Similar to Jacob's Ladder in many respects, the main character thinks he's going crazy, though this one doesn't play with time so much as it does withhold a vital flashback scene until the end. However, the opening sequence is interesting because without context, you quickly forget about it, but then it is repeated later in the movie and you get a sense of deja vu. If you like this, you may also like Stay (2005), also not strictly having a non-linear narrative, but of the same vein as The Machinist & Jacob's Ladder. Reservoir Dogs (1992) Another Tarantino. Awesome as usual.
Citizen Kane was the first film to ever do it. Think about that; every film ever before that was chronological but Orson Welles had the epiphany that it did not have to be done that way. And I feel like disturbing some shit and so I will also mention the tv series Lost. I have even watched the whole series chronologically. http://www.chronologicallylost.com/
Brain Dead. Fun cast, pretty dark, awfully screwed up. Went to the movie with my dad when it came out. We were the only people in the theater and our movie didn't start when the time came. We left the theater to complain, but it wasn't a movie that we were dieing to see so when we saw a movie called Brain Dead was starting right at that moment we went in. We were once again the only people in the theater but the movie started up. Kinda blew our minds as we had no expectations.