What is sprung vs. unsprung narrative?

September 5, 2007 1:17 PM

What is sprung vs. unsprung narrative?

In this review, Jonathan Rosenbaum describes Full Metal Jacket as an "experiment in sprung and unsprung narrative". I'm wondering if anyone has come across these terms, or has a handle on what's meant here well enough to clarify. A Google search revealed nothing useful.

Here's the first part of that paragraph, for context:

I'll never forget escorting the late Samuel Fuller, the much-decorated World War II hero and maverick filmmaker, to a multiplex screening of Full Metal Jacket, along with another critic, Bill Krohn, 11 years ago. Though Fuller courteously stayed with us to the end, he declared afterward that as far as he was concerned, it was another goddamn recruiting film--that teenage boys who went to see Kubrick's picture with their girlfriends would come out thinking that wartime combat was neat. Krohn and I were both somewhat flabbergasted by his response at the time, but in hindsight I think his point was irrefutable. There are still legitimate reasons for defending Full Metal Jacket--as a radical statement about what conditioning does to intelligence and personality, as a meditation about what the denial of femininity does to masculine definitions of civilization, as a deeply disturbing experiment in sprung and unsprung narrative, and perhaps as other things as well. But as a piece of propaganda against warfare, it's specious, providing one more link in an endless chain of generic macho self-deceptions on the subject.

posted by rottytooth to sports, hobbies, & recreation (9 comments total)

This is not a complete answer to your question, but the term comes from poetry. See sprung rhythm, sprung rhyme.
posted by ourobouros at 1:47 PM on September 5, 2007

My google search got me this, among other things,

"Writer Charlie Kaufman grabbed a lot of attention with Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and Human Nature. He showed his innovative ideas and sprung narrative organization. He’s maintained his form in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a circuitous plot inviting consideration of a seductive, science-fiction idea.

which isn't much of a clue, but brings to mind another term from poetry -- the conceit. The narrative "springs" from whatever science fictiony premise lies at the story's heart (a gateway into John Malkovich's person, a way to erase unpleasant memories), just as all of a poem's metaphors can be made to "spring" from a single core metaphor.

But that's just a guess.
posted by notyou at 7:40 PM on September 5, 2007

Maybe "sprung" means kind of "circular," like the shape of a spring, like it keeps circling around he same things and events keep repeating themselves? I'm guessing that entirely from the context of the Eternal Sunshine review notyou quotes. It's been long enough since I've seen Full Metal Jacket that I can't speculate how that might relate.

Anyway, as far as I (a Film Studies grad student) know, it's not a standard term used to talk about film narrative at least among critics. Google kind of bears this out, since most of the results seem to be in the "wtf does Jonathan Rosenbaum mean?" vein.
posted by SoftRain at 8:23 PM on September 5, 2007

Hmm. I think SoftRain is on to something. There's no literal repeating of events, but when the second story ends, there's a sense that the same kinds of things will keep happening to the characters, while the first story has more of a resolution. So maybe that's it.

I'll try emailing Rosenbaum. Don't know how likely it is he would answer, but if he does, I'll post it.
posted by rottytooth at 6:50 AM on September 6, 2007

I've never seen FMJ (or, indeed, any of the films reviewed by Rosenbaum in that essay), so I can't really address this in the context of the film. But, I would ask: how can a narrative be said to rhyme?

- When plot elements echo each other in rhythm.

In poetry, the opposite of a sprung rhyme is a perfect rhyme. In terms of narrative, what would be a perfect rhyme, and what would be a sprung rhyme?

- Perfect-rhyme narrative: when plot elements work neatly in parallel. Example: in The Importance of Being Earnest, Miss Prism reveals that she was the one who lost Jack in a train station, and so Jack is actually Algernon's older brother.
- Sprung-rhyme narrative: when plot elements form unexpected or slightly off-kilter parallel relationships. Example: in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David insults someone in the parking lot who later turns out to be a producer on a project he's doing.

Perfect-rhyme narrative would be full of on-the-nose revelations and plot twists, while sprung-rhyme narratives would be full of quirky connections. Does this fit with FMJ, and with the passage you quoted?

One other note: when Rosenbaum uses "unsprung", I don't think he's just saying "The opposite of sprung." There better ways to say "the opposite of sprung", including "perfect" and "true." I suspect that Rosenbaum is using "unsprung" as a rhetorical flourish -- in this context, it probably means something more like "crazy and unhinged." Again, these are just conjectures -- if you've seen FMJ, you probably have a better chance of putting these terms in context.
posted by ourobouros at 6:53 AM on September 6, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

This link to a conversation archived to Google Groups from a listserv seems to point to the theory that the term relates to the voice-over in the film.
posted by GreenTentacle at 6:58 AM on September 6, 2007

ouroborous, I really like that idea of perfect vs sprung rhyme narratives. I can see that in the film as well, but I'm not sure if it's just because I'm looking for it now.

Perhaps, as GreenTentacle suggests, it's about voice-over after all. I was thrown off by "narrative" rather than "narration". But looking through the script, there is a poetic quality to some of the voice-over:

"The dead have been covered with lime.
The dead only know one thing.
It is better to be alive."

posted by rottytooth at 7:26 AM on September 6, 2007

Sorry to disagree, but I don't think it has anything to do with sprung rhythm. I think Rosenbaum is playing with the notion of 'sprung' and 'unsprung' narrative as analogous to the sprung and unsprung weight of a vehicle.

I don't know much about the inside of cars (nor, I rather suspect, does Rosenbaum), but my very untechnical understanding of the matter is that the 'sprung weight' is everything connected to the suspension, and the 'unsprung weight' is everything else. A high proportion of sprung to unsprung weight is generally regarded as a good thing, as too much unsprung weight makes the car harder to control.

So what Rosenbaum seems to be saying, in a maddeningly elliptical way, is that Kubrick is not one of those directors who insists on total control over every tiny detail of a film. Instead, he deliberately lets the narrative slip out of his control (hence 'unsprung') in order to achieve the effects he wants. Rosenbaum returns to this theme in another review, where he writes: 'Virtually all of Kubrick's features concentrate on elaborate, ingenious control systems that ultimately spin wildly out of control. After the opening scene in Full Metal Jacket, it's the narrative itself that goes haywire, though most critics .. saw this as a failing rather than as a radical, meaningful artistic strategy.'

Hope this makes sense. I'm afraid Rosenbaum's prose style is -- how can I put this? -- somewhat over-sprung.
posted by verstegan at 1:14 AM on September 7, 2007

That makes sense, verstegan -- it accounts for the "unsprung" as well as the "sprung," which the poetry explanation doesn't.
posted by ourobouros at 6:28 AM on September 7, 2007