Introduction

The ‘classical Hollywood film’ has traditionally been associated with a linear, cause-effect mode of sense-making. This is particular the case because the classical film, due to its focus on narrative progression and resolution, can be said to adhere to a linear onto-epistemology (cf. Chapter II). This onto-epistemology has been perceived as a justification for scholars to utilize a methodology that itself adheres to classical scientific cause-effect principles that produce a monolithic linear understanding of the classical cinematic regime. This chapter questions such restricted comprehension of the classical paradigm, and argues that it stems from a lack of sensitivity for the inherent ambiguities that reside in the cause-effect dramaturgy of classical cinema.

The linear conception of Hollywood has been elaborated at length in Bordwell, Thompson, & Staiger's The Classical Hollywood Cinema (1985). In this volume, Bordwell (1985b) sums up the main characteristics of the classical film as follows: ‘Here in brief is the premise of Hollywood story construction: causality, consequence, psychological motivations, the drive towards overcoming obstacles and achieving goals. Character-centered – i.e., personal or psychological – causality is the armature of the classical story’ (16). In Deleuze's (2005a) depiction of the action-image as the model, which ‘produced the universal triumph of the American cinema’ (145), the linearity of the Hollywood film is equally emphasized. Consequently, in spite of usual reservations, Deleuzian scholars have shown a surprising acceptance of the cognitive-formalist description of the classical film.