Visual storytelling is an important aspect to keep in mind when creating any form of visual media. Visual storytelling enables a filmmaker to tell a story using just images, for example, the silent era of film, or to enhance an existing story. This means an understanding of how visual storytelling techniques are used is important for anyone trying to create visual media for example if someone wants to create a movie or even an advert it’s important to be able to adapt and replicate the many methods of visual storytelling. This essay will focus on the cinematic side of visual storytelling so it’s important to understand people like Tom Gunning who came up with a theory called “the cinema of attraction”. He describes it as “First it is a cinema that bases itself on the quality that Léger celebrated: its ability to show something. Contrasted to the voyeuristic aspect of narrative cinema analysed by Christian Metz, this is an exhibitionist cinema.” (Gunning, 64) This tells us that there is a whole genre of film dedicated to the visual arts, and this shouldn’t come as a Suprise when you realise that it wasn’t until 1927 that “the first feature-length film to incorporate synchronized sound for sequences of dialogue.” (MoMA). This gives credit to the importance of the visual side of filmmaking as there is a whole genre dedicated to exhibitionism and Gunning even believed that it made a kind of resurgence just before Paris, Texas was released when he says “Clearly in some sense recent spectacle cinema has re-affirmed its roots in stimulus and carnival rise in what might be called the Spielberg-Lucas-Coppola cinema of effects.”(Gunning, 70). I do think that with this return of the spectacle to cinema in the era described things had changed, I think the spectacle side of filmmaking became a tool to complement the narrative of films and Paris, Texas is a perfect example of this change.
There are many visual storytelling methods, and this paper will attempt to explain a selection of these methods using examples from the movie Paris Texas. There were multiple reasons why Paris Texas was chosen to be the subject of this paper, the first being its review scores from both critics and the public with it having scored over 90% for each of these categories on Rotten Tomatoes (figure 1). Additionally, the British Film Institute (BFI) ranks it within their top 200 films (185th) (Figure 2) Further showing that this is a respected movie amongst critics. Another reason is that it uses a lot of visual storytelling techniques, and this will become apparent as the paper goes on. The examples being explored will mostly come in the form of screenshots from the movie itself that demonstrate a specific technique or decision being used to convey additional meaning to the plot of the movie. Wim Wenders has commented on his methods in biographies and interviews on multiple occasions which will be valuable for understanding his decision-making along with providing insight into his style of visual storytelling. This could be useful for anyone trying to improve their skills as it will give them an expert’s insight. An important genre of sources I will use is explorations into storytelling as a general concept or even individual aspects of storytelling such as books exploring colour theory. The paper will additionally attempt to explain why visual storytelling an important aspect is when creating a film and the value it provides to the intended audience. The key aspects of visual storytelling I wish to address in this paper are set design, characters’ actions (e.g. facial expressions), framing, colour theory and finally costume design. Exploring these areas specifically will allow for the analysis of different aspects of visual storytelling techniques to be explored. Because techniques are used in tandem it is better to explore the story and how the techniques are being used at different stages of the movie instead of just relying on analysing one technique at a time. For example, the setting changes throughout the movie as the protagonist of the movie (Travis) Goes through his hero’s journey. Overall, the purpose of this paper is to analyse visual storytelling techniques used in the movie Paris, Texas and how they change throughout the movie as the tone of the movie changes. Any Images shown in this essay will be from the 2014 rerelease as it’s the latest version.
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