Narrative film

Fictional film, fiction film or narrative film is a film that tells a fictional or fictionalized story, event or narrative. In this style of film, believable narratives and characters help convince the audience that the unfolding fiction is real. Lighting and camera movement, among other cinematic elements, have become increasingly important in these films. Great detail goes into the screenplays of narratives, as these films rarely deviate from the predetermined behaviours and lines of the classical style of screenplay writing to maintain a sense of realism. Actors must deliver dialogue and action in a believable way, so as to persuade the audience that the film is real life.

Probably the first fictional film ever made was the Lumière's L'Arroseur arrosé, which was first screened at the Grand Café Capucines on December 28, 1895. A year later in 1896, Alice Guy-Blaché directed the fictional film La fee aux choux. Yet perhaps the best known of early fictional films is Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon from 1902. Most films previous to this had been merely moving images of everyday occurrences, such as L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat by Auguste and Louis Lumière. Méliès was one of the first directors to progress cinematic technology, which paved the way for narratives as style of film. Narrative films have come so far since their introduction that film genres such as comedy or Western films, were, and continue to be introduced as a way to further categorize these films.

Narrative cinema is usually contrasted to films that present information, such as a nature documentary, as well as to some experimental films (works such as Wavelength by Michael Snow, Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov, or films by Chantal Akerman). In some instances pure documentary films, while nonfiction, may nonetheless recount a story. As genres evolve, from fiction film and documentary a one emerged, docufiction.

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