The Narrative Analysis of the Film "Dogville" by Lars fon Trier

Such vehicles of signs as cinema, theatre, shows probably provide greater possibilities for rendering and combining the signs and their systems than writing. Anything becomes a kind of narrative as soon as it is meaningful, but it becomes meaningful, when somebody attaches meanings to its signs. It happens any time somebody tells something. Chandler adds, that
“any representation is more than merely a reproduction of that which it represents: it also contributes to the construction of reality. Even ‘photorealism’ does not depict unmediated reality. The most realistic representation may also symbolically or metaphorically ‘stand for’ something else entirely.” (Chandler, 2002)
In order to analyze the narrative of the movie, it must be taken as a kind of representation. The question is, what kind of representation it is, who the narrator is and how the elements of the movie are arranged in order to say what the author has had to say. If, in the case of a literary text such elements as the author (director), the implied author, the narrator (or narrators) and the audience must be taken into account, then cinema involves also the play of the actors, the cameraman, the choice of props and settings, lights, and so forth, everything leaving many and varied signs.…