To get more familiar with non linear storytelling it is required to go back in time and read where the idea of telling stories in a different way compared to the conventional way in general, and creating movies in particular, came from.
I started from the oldest movie that uses a non-linear narrative that I know: Citizen Kane. Citizen Kane is a film released in 1941 by Orson Welles, who acted as producer, co-screenwriter, director next to playing the title character. It seems necessary to me to look further into art and theories Welles has been influenced by.
I went back to read about the nonlinear basics. When reading the sentence:”Nonlinear film emerged from the French avant-garde in 1924 with René Clair’s Entr’acte, Dadaïst film and then in 1929 with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou (English: An Andalusian Dog).” I understood I had to go back in time even further than I thought.
“The Avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde . The Avant-garde concept was about creating art pieces differently, as well as more of a critiquing tool than the “mainstream” art and media were.
As the non linear storytelling isn’t, or at least wasn’t the mainstream way of telling a story it is considered to be affected by the avant-garde concept. I shall read much more about those before writing about my opinions, and how it will lead me to my subject in the next blog entry.
