Reverse chronology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reverse chronology is a method of story-telling whereby the plot is revealed in reverse order.
In a story employing this technique, the first scene shown is actually the conclusion to the plot. Once that scene ends, the penultimate scene is shown, and so on, so that the final scene the viewer sees is the first chronologically.
Many stories employ flashback, showing prior events, but whereas the scene order of most conventional films is A-B-C-etc, a film in reverse chronology goes Z-Y-X-etc.
As a hypothetical example, if the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk were told using reverse chronology, the opening scene would depict Jack chopping the beanstalk down and killing the giant. The next scene would feature Jack being discovered by the giant and climbing down the beanstalk in fear of his life. Later, we would see Jack running into the man with the infamous magic beans, then, at the end of the film, being sent off by his mother to sell the cow.
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[edit] Examples of use
[edit] Theater
A number of plays have employed this technique. George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's 1934 play Merrily We Roll Along is told in reverse order, as is Harold Pinter's Betrayal (1978).
[edit] Cinema
Pinter's play Betrayal was made into a film in 1983; this was perhaps the first filmed example of reverse chronology. It was later employed in two movies in 2000, Memento and Peppermint Candy (Bakha Satang)[1], and in the 2002 film Irréversible (right), to such an extent that the end credits are not only shown at the beginning of the movie, but they crawl down the screen, rather than upwards as is familiar. The 2004 film 5x2, directed by François Ozon, tells the story of a relationship between two people in five episodes using reverse chronology.[2]
Pulp Fiction (1994) does not use reverse chronology, but the three separate storylines overlap significantly, so that the third segment features a character who was killed during the second segment. Similarly, in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), a main substory is told in reverse.
[edit] Television
A 1997 Seinfeld episode, The Betrayal employs the technique.
Reverse chronology is used in a 2002 ER episode, Hindsight.
[edit] Literature
Martin Amis's novel "Time's Arrow" (1991) tells the story of a Nazi war criminal in reverse chronology, starting with his death and ending with his birth.
Amis has suggested[citation needed] that he adapted the idea from Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" (1969), where the main character recounts events from his life in a seemingly random order.
[edit] Music
The lyrics to All Along the Watchtower, written by Bob Dylan, are, he says, "in a rather reverse order"; indeed, the final verse begins with the words "All along the watchtower", and if reversed, the verses would tell the story in the correct order.
The song "One Thing Leads to Another" by the Pet Shop Boys (on a limited release of their 1993 album Very) describes the events leading up to a man's death in reverse order.
[edit] Purpose
The unusual nature of this method means it is only used in stories of a specific nature. For example, Memento features a man with anterograde amnesia, meaning he is unable to form new memories. However, this is paralled by the audience's ignorance of previous events - the reverse chronology gives the viewer the same claustrophobic perspective as the protagonist.
In Irréversible, an act of homicidal violence takes place at the start of the movie (i.e. it is the final event to take place). During the remainder of the film we learn not only that the violence is an act of vengeance, but what exactly is being avenged. The film was highly controversial for its graphic nature; had the scenes been shown in chronological order, this violent content would make it a simple, and pointlessly brutal, revenge movie. However, as it is, told in reverse, the audience is made to consider the exact consequences of each action, and there is often 'more than meets the eye'.
