RUTH PERLMUTTER
MULTIPLE STRANDS AND POSSIBLE WORLDS
possible world narratives are "virtual."J Usually nested, they have at least
two co-existent realities, like the loop story by Julio Cortazar,
IfContinuiry of Parks."4 Filmic counterparts like 1.A idle and Mesbes oj the
AJtNl100n play with endless recursions, tricks of time and alternate lives in
the history of a character who crosses over between differem space and
time zones. In some of the films of Alain Resnais, characters coexist in
strata of time with each present moment reRected in the past and the
future (LA,t Y,ar al Maritllbad), or they share disconnected pasts (Hiro,bima
Motl Amour), or two characters assume multiple and interchangeable roles
(SmolOnglNo SmolOng).
Resume: eet artide examine plusieurs films qui deploient des voies narratives multiples, qui menent a des fins diverses et montrent plusieurs mondes possibles. Ces
oeuvres posent fa question: • que se passerait-jf si _. .,1 Ces textes induent l'idee
de fa c deuxi~me chance 'It des limites de j'experience partielle et de la transgressi<?" du personnage. Nous nous attarderons aux films de Krzysztof Kieslowski et de
ses deux heritiers, Julio Medem (Lovers of the Arctic Circle) et Tom Tykwer (Run Lola
Run). Nous condurons que les films
a voies narratives multiples prefigurent la
proliferation des nouveaux medias.
he no~-linear narrative and recycled texts which Borges brought to our
conSCIousness nearly half a centwy ago with Labyn"ntbs have become an
equally important aspect of contemporary film' Films with multiple or
divergent strands and/or multiple endings deserve the same close critical
attention that has been paid to those forms in literature. 2
Possible world narratives fonn a category of multiple strand narratives,
where there are several story versions, each with its own possible authen·
tic world, its "what might have been." In other words, possible world narratives question whether characters with parallel lives would behave differently and whether their destinies would be altered. In the case of films
with multiple endings (Blind Chanc<, Run Lola Run), the parallel worlds often
retain similar elements (characters, locale, situations) hut tum on a single
twist of fate that changes the course of events.
In possible world films, characters aspire to more than one life, become
multi·vocal, metamorphic, or exchange personalities with other characters, thus Violating character consistency. According to Marie-Laure Ryan,
T
CANADiAN JOURNAl Of fiLM SJUDIES • REVUE CANADIEN"E D"huDES CINtMATOGIlAPHIQUES
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This study is prompted by the rash of recent films that scramble
s~quential time,s repeat beginnings,6 provide alternative endings,7 and
~xpress continuity with connecting skewers (characters or objects).8
Although this development is frequently a srylish narrative device and may
also simply reflect the growing popularization of the fonn, the films I have
chosen to discuss provide significant interpretive pleasures and prompt
moral reflections on the contingency of human experience, while some of
these films also anticipate important cultural trends.
Drawing on specific works, I will devote the next section to delineating
some of the characteristics of these films. I will then attempt a taxonomy
with brief examples followed by a more extensive discussion of the work
of Krzysztof Kieslowski, one of the filmmakers who has consistently innovated the multiple strand film with ·what if" parallel universes and characters or motifs that migrate across a series.9 Thereafter, I will examine two
specific cufTent,possible world narratives, Lov<rs of lb, Arctic Cirel, and Run
Lola Run. In the conclusion I will suggest that recent films prefigure the
next "remediation," i.e., the proliferation of new media. lo
CHAIlACTERlsnCS
Three characteristics underlie the story structure of possible world
films, where events can be reversed and characters from different worlds
can coexist simultaneously. These are: second chance desires to reverse
fate by characters who act as saviors (and where salvation often takes
the form of self-realization), the limitations of experience due to the partial nature of art, and character transgression (the destabilization of
character construction).
Jacques Rivette'S elli", aHJ Juli' Go Boating is an example of a ·what-if;
second chance movie with a complex angel scenario and characters who
achieve self-recognition through doublings, time shifts and a defiance of
MUUlPU SRNIDS AND POSSIBLE WO.LD5 45
traditional character/spectator relationships. The two eponymous
protagonists get to change their fixed roles because they have been able to
influence what happens in the embedded fiction they invade. In the story
within the story, they act as "angels" (they are both called "Angele"), "saving" the threatened life of a little girl and also "saving" each other from dysfunctional life styles. Their interplay expands as they become spectators as
well as characters in the parallel worlds they straddle in and out of the past.
Although Celine and Julie surmount traditional fictional limitations,
they are ultimately invented characters, imprisoned in partial experience.
While seeking a second chance is one concomitant of possible world
films, the constriction artists feel about the inability to draw all experience on screen is another, and no one has warred against this more than
Peter Greenaway. II Even in his early experimental films, Greenaway
relentlessly assembles extensive detail to surmount the frustrating limitations of art. Forever declaiming against what he calls the "'foolish" realism
of me classical film, he amasses a catalogue of the infinite world of representations (he calls it "'stuff') and articulates them serially: in schematic
numbered takes (Tbt Fall" DrolUlling By Numbm), palimpsest overlays
(Prosperos Books), and scroll effects that challenge the limitations of the
frame (Tbt Pillow Book)."
Character transgression is a third constituent of many multiple strand
films, where multiple subject roles and variations in serial stories cast doubt
on the controller of the text. In their circularity and involution, these films
interrogate the notion of a single author or the limitation of a character to
a single role. Circular time loops suggest the "as if" (conditional tense) that
could have occurred, thus, blUrring the traditional distinctions between
plot (the unfolding events) and story (the sum total of events). Each retold
version varies the configurations of objects, events, characters that are
posited in the original story, all of which resemble a narrative ·fugue....
With competing voices co-existing within an assemblage of events, characters have the opportunity to take on other identities within the text. In
a proliferating narrative like Ztlig, the metamorphic chameleon, Zelig is
built by editing to spin identities out of himself." An "impossible" character insened within self-C!c:~ted -impossible- events and existing only by
the manipulations of montage, he functions as a metonymic device, a selfengendered "filmic" man. Dialogically both a freak (social deviant, exceptional man) and a conformist (endlessly asSimilable), Zelig and the film,
Ztlig, exemplify character hybridization and the defiance of spatial logic
and continuity. I"
f
TAXONOMY OF POSSIBU WORLD FILMS"
Patchwork Narratives: In patchwork narratives, there is no central plot
and no Single-line character. Instead, one'story begets another and the
primary conceit is part-for~whole (synecdoche). [n Sladar; each autonomous
sequence introduces a character who has appeared en passant in one
sequence and becomes the main character in the next totally independent
story. Slacktr is guided by an internalized serialization: characters are created through editing and their appearance in the frame is unrelated to who
and what comes before or after. Underlying the editing playfulness is the
proposition that narrative fiction (and the film itself) is about projected,
alternative worlds and that stories go on forever, defying closure.1 6 Toutt
Unr Nuit, which parodies the romanticism of traditional films and avoids
closure (for viewers as well as characters) is another patchwork example. A
series of lovers come together, clinch or part in two-minute-Iong fragments that distill the significant junctures of love relationships.17
Forlting Paths, In "The Garden of the Forlting Paths," Borges imagines
an infinite series of times that impossibly co-exist. Thus, a virtual reality is
built of alternative possibilities. Luis Bufiue!'s films are as labyrinthine as
the divergent trails in Borges' parable. In Th, Discml Charm of tb, Bo"rg'oi'i',
there is little rational explanation for the endless branchings of its already
improbable story. The braidings that characterize Bunuel's films in general
suggest an unwillingness to select a paradigmatic plot which would signal
that some elements are present and that everything not selected is absent.
Rather, the interest lies in a kind of narrative cubism: a proliferating storehouse of features of the text underscores the notion that where there is no
one decisive narrative, all narrative possibilities can coexist.
In other diverging films, events in the present are subvened by incursions from the past, imaginings of the future and conflicting stories about
the same character{s). In these films, protagonists live in a frozen past as if
they are already dead or ghosts (IA" Y,ar al Mari",bad), or one actor plays
two different but similar people (Vertigo, Th, Doubl, Lif' of Veroniq"r, Suzhou
Rioer), or two actors play different facets of one person (ThaI ObscHrt Obj,ct
ofD"i"), or three sets of actors in three different cities f!=peat the same dia10gue and ruminate over the same situation (Flirl). Some films are structured in a way that questions truth and fictional realism, either as whole
films (Cilit'" Kan', Ra,bolllon) or as replayed sequences (Thr Lif' ofan American
Fireman, the photograph session in Ptrsona).18
Some divergent films (like Chel,,,, Girl, and JIm, CoJ,) use real time, split
screens and more than one story line and/or sets of characters that may
MULnPU 5lRANDS AND POSSl8U WORLDS 47
intersect. In the four simultaneous side·by·.ide: plots of TIOII< Cod,. lor example, each panel is a single take for ninety-three minutes and the viewer is
forced into 11 k.ind of "interactive channd-surfing" in order to decode and
reassemble the separate actions.
Multiple Endings, Multiple ending films ate organized in seclions with
either the same or different characters andlor locales in varying contradiclory configuratjons and with different endings, each one revising or
annulling the one before, e.g., Blind <:banet. Sliding Doon, Lovtn of 10< A"'bo
Ci",1t. Go. Run u,la RUK. FUrl. While many multiple ending films seem to be
motivated by a denial of death, they also express underlying anxietiesabour choices made in the past and difficulties in the present-which pro·
mote a desire- for new beginnings.
Side-By-Side< Side-by-side or tandem lilms are a hybrid of the multiple
ending film. in that they are two films by the S3me maker. where the sec·
ond refashions the first. In SmoldngJNo SmoltiKg. two actors play many roles
in a series of alte,matlve scenarios. In SOH NotfJ at Vrtli.st Dolts Calcutta D(5rrf,
Marguerite Dura. constructs a totally different locale and image track but
uses the same soundtrack as her previous film, fndia Song. thus evoking the
tTaumatic events and endless reflexivity of the earlier 'Work. 19
The... films suggest that multiple ending films in general are a kind
of remake in that the author rephrases hislher old work. In effect, one
section derives from another and in its quotation, challenges. eadier
meanings as well as questions the superiority of the revised text over Its
previous incarnation.
KRlYSZ1UF KJESLOWSItI: SUL\lJsr EXTltAOROlNlUI£
Although multiple strand films and serial narratives are fast becoming
almost a cliche. fot serious directors they provide an alternative to the
triteness of the single-line narrative.'" Some, like Chris Marker. Alain
Resnais, and Eric Rohmer. are motivated by a personal sense of moral
urgency and the hope that multiple approaches LO fundamental human
issues may lead to deeper understanding. For Peter Greenaway. serializa·
tion is both a fonnal solution and a philosophical. approach to cinema. His
Unneaus·like lists. eneydopedic detail and embedded texts express his wssatisfaction with those who think they can capture the complexity of "real"
Q"periencc jn univocal fiction,
Kieslowski's serialist experiments with multiple strand stories that turn
back on themselves and play tricks with time and c1osu~. encompass most
of ihe characteristics of multiple strand films. Dissatisfied with the partial
---
experience: of rhe "truth*telli"g" genre., the documentary, he turned to multiple strand fictional narratives in order to explore interiorized and transcendent stales of mind." His predilection for hypothetical situations (the
paradigmatic "c" --<:hoice, chance, coincidence) hinges on a delicate bal·
ance of "what·ifs" and multiple endings (most obvious in BliHd Chaner), and
a conflatiol1 of the past with the future (Rtd). Character transgression is
manifested in characters that metamorphose fTOm previous selves or
another existence. while patriarchal authority figures are allegorical $tandIns fo' either state control or unstable oedipal ",Iationships. Most particularly. since Kieslowski wtyly stated (in a recent biopic, 1'. . So-Sol that he
hides himself in his films, there are characters who adopt directonal roles.
like the recurrent non·interventional mysterious "stranger" i.n the
Decalogue who assumes: the point of view of the absent director/vlewersl
and witness~ the anguish of moral decisions at critical moments. 1J
In many KieslowsJd hlms, (Blind <:baKcr. Tbt Dtcalogu,. Tbt D""blr LI' of
Vtton.....'. Tbt Trioolor Trilogy). thete is no unique lile in one film. The works
resonate with parallels and doublings amidst ruminations about the aroi·
trariness of destiny. Kieslowskian characters reappear or int~sect each oth~
while recurrent metaphorical fonns, images of liquid substances,
eJ'S' lives;
oblique angles, distOrted mirror shots, self.propelling objC1:ts, and rad'ant
Ctnanations that seem to illuminate his characters from wi,hin express
States of consciousness and deep longings to sunnount t:.xtemal constraints.
Irene JKob ~nd Je.an-t.ouis Trifltitnant in Red. Courtesy of Irena Stnahr..owska lind S.F. TOC'.
Klcslowski expresses his frustration over these constraints in Blirul
a.,.Ct, whIch follow.
0"" character, a med,cal student named Witek.
through three alremative professional and politIcal compromise•. In all
three cases. Witek fails to escape autocratic. repressive Poland. As a
puppet or state-controlled careerism sufrenng from opportunism and
betrayal In his first incarnation, as: a cooven to religion in his sc:.cond, as
a passive, virtUous soul in his third. he is always at a moral crossroads. For
all his protC'Stations of indepenckncc from political machinations. Witek
is trapped in a "no exit" world ruled by expediency, human frailry, un;atisf-actory father-figures iind untimdy death. His entrapment is reinforced by
his blindness to his other potential selves in each segment and thus, there
is no trajectory towards ;elf· liberation."
Blind eJ.,ncr belongs to rhe Gtegory of pas ible world narratives
Anger fuels both «yle and method 01 B1..d a.,." The opening, nondiegelic close-up of Witek's mouth shrieking out an emphatlc "Nol" is a.
mcraphor for the film's triple accumulation of bitter negations and Witek's
vaclJlatlons between moral responsibility, human weakness and victimization by an unyielding system. A iogle cause has dtfferent effects. yet in
the end, each path is a bitter denunciation of a world fettered by discord,
anti.Semitlsm, political expediency, and disappointing father subslJwtes.
The negation throughout the. three parts proVIde:: a decper denialthat of iii. stOgIe-line story With a ce.ntnJ consciousness as the narrative link
Instead of conventional character consistency and narrative logiC,
Kit:slowski suggests that on one handf a character is only an authonal coo-
struct and therdore eminenrly manipulable. On the other hand, since in
where ccrtain clements remain the samc. Witek retains his namc and
each section Witek has the same past history withm the same oppressive
system, there is a suggestion that no matter what alternative he chooses,
many of his fundamental pe"onaliry patterns in three incompatible ver·
he is victimized by the vagaries of "blind chance.""
sions, each possible yet impossibly co-existent. At a pivotal point, the
provenance is repeated: each of the segments depends on whether or not
Witek will catch a tram. Repeated, as well, is a surreal sequence in a hospital COrridor, which may refer to W'tek's birth and/or death. As in Tbr
Dm.loglU. protagonists in one strand reappear as minor characters
10
another and then (.s if in anticipation of the ending of Red), are reunited
at the end.
The neutrality of the apolitical Witek
10
pan three will rcsonalC
In
the
films that follow. Kies]owsk,'s di;enchantmenr and lovclhate relatIonship
with Poland, explain why so many of his characters do not intervene and
often Withdraw (rom society and retreat into their Inner re5ources--a-S
ghOStS or angels, as eavcsdropperslvoyeursl or as suicidal types.. 15
With TIx Dou&l, L/, 0/ V"...iqu" Kieslowski departed from the possible
realms of BH.d
a.,.Ct and embarked on an explorarion of impossible
tlVlJ1H.E sraAHOS AHD POSSIIU WOIU.DS 51
Thert: are two lilms '" Tb< Doablt LiJ' oj V"OllU1"' born out of the. tenSIon
between material and immaterial worlds." Story A concerns the. theft of
Vc.ronique's life by Alexandrt:, her puppeteer!lover, who has Crt:ated a
show. a book and the film we see, based on his (imposSIble) fort:knowlc.dge
and (perhaps) inv<::'ntion or Vcronique's palilOormal connectiOns to her
double, Weronika Story Bconcems Veromquc.'s pedagogical lesson. Like
the chrysalis Alexandre transfonns in,o a butterfly, she <merges from the
death of Weronika and whetheT by coincidence or fate, displaces the post
and Alexandre's betrayal with the recovery of her life.'" Thus, she anticipates Julie (Blu,), who also moves towards self-rt:alization, and anolher
survivor. Valentine (Rtd), who is saved from disaster along with all the
protagonist-couples of TIr Tncolo, Tril<>gy.
Although Tb< Tricolo, Trilogy, like Th D«alogllt, is an omnibus senes with
loose. thematiC and formal connections, R,J rt:sc.mbles the Impossible pos·
sible worlds of Tbt Doubl, LiJ' oj V",o.iqa,.'" It is also a loop story-wlthin-astory, and this time. the paternalistic prescient manipulator is Judge Joseph
Kern, who spies on his neighbors because of a personal, romantic
betrayal
and a professional mISdeed in his pa t.
Story A concerns the many near-miss connections heNcen two mam
alternatives, a c.tegory best described by Nancy Traill as a "paranonnalreality (the laws of gravity and chronological space/time)" To achieve
characters, Valentine and Auguste. Story 8 is theJudge's loop. Once he has
been guided back to "fratemiry' (the ideological theme of RtJ) by
Valentine's generous spirit, he can put away his vengeful spying parapher-
natural world," wh(:re there is a b~ak with the limitations of physical
this, Kic:slowski enviSioned a parallel universe that allowed two similar
nalia and tum his attention towards redemption in another possible world.
women (Weronikn and Veroniquc) to coc:xist in two different countries
As if Kern were rt:bom forty years later, he edits his regretted past by
(Poland and France), with one as the beneficiary of the experience of the
other. The film works like a loop slory, with nested narratives that paradoxically collapse Into one. In the original project, Kieslowski planned differt:nl cndings on seven differenl cities, a feal which would have grafted
narrative tricks of chance (as in the extemal dlrectonal manipulations of
possible worlds in Bl,..a Cb..«) '0 the m.gical revelatory techniques of the
arranging for his double, Auguste, to mcct up with Valentine and be
'."ved' with her from Ihe "Biblical' flood he "may" have prt:dicted. By an
dl,pticallc.ap from remembering himself in the past, the Judge rt:Vises the
future, thCrt:by vicariou ly recapturing his lost happiness. A cycle of unrealized transactions across two time zones chat borrows from the past to
a1ler the prc.sc.nt and make possible a happier futurt:-that 15 how
Impossible world of the: VttOniqucs. 27
Kieslowski metabolizes coinciden~ and n::fashions memory and history.
The two (or onel) protagonists rt:semble many of Kieslowski's characters who stru8llie with the pa,hs they take, the ca=rs they choose, and
The yeamings for a second-chance, redemption and rebIrth that rcsonate throughout the T,ilogy stem from K.eslowski's lifdong preoccupatIOn
with characters who hold a misguided belief that they can fulfill their second chance dreams and tnumph over a world ruled by fate and indifferent
authorities. They sed.. new lives with uncertain success, sometimes in
the monl impcl'3tiVC$ they accept or reject. In her predilection for mysti4
cal, transcendent experiences and in giving up her ~rsonal life for a
cart:er, Weronika rt:prc.sc.nts the despair and pessimism of Eastem Europe
She is reincarnated in her mOn: pragmatic: F~nch double, Veronique, who,
having leamed from her absent "angd"/ghOSl, can Start over again with a
different career and trajeclory toward life aflinnalion.
other countries, and ofu:n at the price of abandoning ratherhood or ideo-
logical 'fathers: These preoccupations rt:nect the linkage Kieslowski
makes lxtween a passion for cinema and characters who agoniz-e over
choices and wordlessly yearn for moraVphilosophical guidelines.
Underlying his shuffled chronologies, character splitting, and dreams of
transcendence, is Kieslowski's quasi-religious mission to use the camera
as an ethical conscience to fight against conformity, compromise,
self-delusion and external repression.
IN THE KIE5L0W51UAN TIIADIT1ON: LOvrillS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCU AND
RUN LOLA RUN
In Julio Medem's Loum of t!lt Arctic Grelt, coincidence, paranormal communication, recurrent images and visual puns/messages magically link past,
present and future. Lke the names of the lover-protagonists, Otto and
Ana, the film itself is palindromic, with simultaneous and often contradictory points of view (narrated by each character off-screen and in the first
person) as well as alternate endings (foreshadowed in the opening shots).
Since Ana waits for the coincidences that will fulfill her destiny with Otto,
her perceived end shows them happily united. Otto, on the other hand,
believes that unseen consequences shape destiny, that everything always
retum~ to the beginning and starts over again. For him, experience is made
up of a succession of Itwhat ifs1'-starting with his question about' how the
story of himself and Ana would have turned out if he had not run after her
one day when they were young. To Otto, destiny is irrefutable, history
repeats itself, and lives are irrevocably and eternally Iinked-dTcling in a
timeless orbit of true love, beyond death and beyond narrative closure.
With its incessant backward, forward and circling movement, the film
interweaves these impossible connections, Circular motifs--eyes, sun, the
Arctic Circle, shifting quasi-incestuous and oedipal relationships-rein-
Devoted to cinema, Tykwer is preoccupied with time.]) There are
clocks everywhere and the metronomic adrenalin-pumping music reinforces Lola's desperate twenty-minute deadline, while split-screen
sequences and many spirals and circular motifs defy conventional notions
of chronological time. A varied multi-media format adds to the film's flashy
ebullience. Tykwer switches between video, 35mm film (for the contemplative interscenes), a cartoon which mimes Lola's run, and a series of ten-
second rapid photo sequences that predict the future 01 people Lola passes.
It is as if we were looking through the photo albums of the movie's extras,
whose fates unfold outside the narrative as a.consequence of Lola's impact
on them.
His most innovative contribution, these sequences demonstrate
Tykwer's interest in the contingency of human experience. B The Aashforwards attest to how much every action influences the future, how
every person completes the universe, and how even the most minimal
change in one's life can produce a huge alteration in someone else's. Most
of all, the photos suggest actions not taken that could result in many
other narratives.
Although on the surface, Lola seems a far cry from the "grace" of
Kieslowski's secular saints, yet, she is a postmodem angeVsavior who is
finally rewarded with earthly success when she challenges fate and alters
her world to conform to her (and our) desire. Like some extraordinary stunt
woman, she can solve problems even when all the odds are against her. For
all its cartoonish levity, zippy beat and day-glo hyperreal color tonality,
the film reaffirms the underlying message of many multiple strand films, in
all possible and impossible worlds, love conquers death and time."
force the film's central notion that what goes around comes around.
As in Lovrrs oj Ib, Arctic (ird<, the palindrome is the rhetorical figure
implied in the children's primer-like English title of Tom Tykwer's Ru. Lola
Run. The repeated imperative-to run-mimes the urgency that propels
spunky, tireless Lola across Berlin three separate times to rescue her sleazy
lover, Manni. \Xfith its three-part, three-ending structure, Run Lola Ru.
shares Kieslowski's predilection for parallel plots and alternative outcomes, and it is interesting that Tykwer was chosen to direct Htavtt1. an
adaptation of a script Kieslowski was working on just before his death."
As a pomo-techno-cyber-rornp, the Gennan film lacks Kieslowski's transcendent style and is less complex about social relationships. Rather, Lola
reflects the comic book two·dimensionality and hyperactive pace of our
Ritalin culture.
54
RUTH PlILMUTTI:.
CONCLUSION
RIol,. Lola RUN epitomizes the characteristics of multiple strand possible
world narratives: Ita what-ift' scenario; a heroine with magical powers and
an obsessive love who wrestles with the limitations of experience (and cinema), and a character who transgresses the power of her creator, comending for control of the film in order to alter an undesirable ending.
In its branching plot structure and instant replay effect, the film anticipates a nascent filmmaking era-where we can choose the narrative we
want and dream our possible worlds. As a crossover between art film, cult
Him, MTV video and arcade game, Run Lola Run prefigures the impact of
the electronic revolution (e.g., multi-task hypertexts) as envisioned by
Marie-Laure Ryan, who links possible world narrative theory to computer
MUUlPLE snAHDS AND POSSIBLl WORlDS 55
processing techniques. Ryan refers to the way bits of stacked infonnation
map out narrative boundaries that send the user into multiple virtual
worlds. To Ryan, possible world narratives with their metaphoric frames
and embedded structures already constitute a virtual reality, and are therefore, eminently adaptable to the infinite loops generated by artificial intelligence. For her descriptions of imaginative story-telling leaps, Ryan borrows phrases hom cyberspace language-"crossing domains," breaching
"ontological boundaries," and "recentering into a new system of reality.H35
Such terms certainly apply to a film like Th, Doublt liJ' oj VtroItiqu, (or &-9
Jobn Mali<ovicb). Characters cross over into a "between" world where reality
and the imagination converge, sometimes as if existing in someone else's
dream, inside a painting, or in an infinite series of stories within stories.
Thus, Veronique enters a new system of reality when her life is influenced
by her double in a parallel universe. She crosses deeper into the domain of
the impossible when she finds herself in Alexandre's multiple pre-tellings
of that relationship.
Storytelling is not the only discipline that conceptualizes permutations
of a single plot. Counterfactual history is also preoccupied with alternate
narratives and the uncertainties of the subjective conditional (Without A,
event B might not have happened). Economics and political forecasting
systems posit plausible scenarios with the knowledge that linear projections are inadequate. Modal philosophy constructs side-by-side universes
in order to recondle detenninism with contingency. Business management, in particular, aware of the vagaries of risk and psychological mechanisms, hypothesizes parallel and alternative systems.
The loss of aura that Walter Benjamin predicted in the age of mechanical reproduction has resulted in a millennial change, whether we call it
postmodernism or the heralding of the dawn of new media. At any rate,
the effects of both, one parodying the past, one looking forward to the
Future, is to dismantle earlier assumptions-that there is an author, an
objtt d'art, a" institutional site where art takes place (museums, galleries,
publishing houses, theaters). Rather, viewers will become (are already)
interactive users who can alter human experience by exploring endlessly
branching networks. In short, an entire system of art making, distribution and exhibition is being transformed to accommodate digital com·
puter characteristics. With the help of new media technologies, the user
can invoke multiple versions, "morph" virtual reality characters, navigate
to yet other links, and as with computer game strategies, change what
happens next.
56
lunt
P'UIUIunu
Possible world films have contributed to or been influenced by these
developments. With its partial views of reality and built-in dialectic of
apparent presence and actual absence, cinema itself is the ideal embodiment of the insatiable human desire to invent and believe in temporal
shifts, shadows, ghostly traces, and magical alternative worlds.
1.
Jorge luis Borges. L.ab)lrinths: Selected Stories and WriUngs (New York New
Directions, 1962).
2.
The following is an abbreviated list of texts dealing 'with multiple strand and passible
world literary theory: lubimir Oo&oz.eI, "Possible Worlds and literary Fictions: Possible
~ in Humanities, Arts and Sciences: Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 65, Sture
Allen, ed. (Berlin. New Yorlc de Gruyter, 1989),221-42; Umberto Ero, The Limits of
InteqKetotion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); Thomas G. Pavet
FidionoI Worlds (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986); Gerald Prince. '"The
Oisnarrated Style: StyIe.22.. 1 (1988): 1-8; Ruth Ronen, Possible \rVorIds in Uter-arr
Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Marie-taure Ryan. Possible
Worlds.. Artifidallntelligence and Narrative Theory (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1994).
3.
To Ryan, virtual narratives are "umealized possibilities around the actual worler' and -as-good-as actual realitt.' (Marie-Laure Ryan. VIrtUal Na"atives in Postmodem Fiction:
4.
Julio Cortazar, -Continuity of Palts; End of tfIe Game and Other Stories (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1967). In the story's time warp loop, a man is reading about a man
S.
Pulp Fiction reverses the ordering of events; e.g.. A comes before B and then B before
A. Memento aeates a hodge-podge of parts that never quite cohere. Blade. and 'Nhite
sequences go backwards in time and color moves forward, yet there is also a CDnfusion
Style 29_ 2 119951: 262-86.)
who is reading and will be murdered
about the internal relations of each sequence..
6.
Go replays the beginning for each of the three characters' version of the story, attering
the
outcome each time.
7.
See later for a discussion of multiple ending films.
8.
In a skew"er film. a single object is passed along to different characters in different time
zones (Toles of Manhattan" Favorites of the Moon,. The Red VIOlin" Dress).
9.
Alain Resnais. Peter Greenaway, Robert Attman, Jim Jarmusch and Olantal Akerman are
other filmmakers with a propensity for serial narration.
10.
The following is an abbreviated list of texts dealing with new media and the influence
of films on digital cutture; JtI'f David Bolter and Richard Grusin. Remediation
(cambridge: MIT Press, 1999); Jay D;Md Boher, Writing Spoce: Compute<>, Hypertext
and tile RemecfKltion of Prillt (London: Lawrence Erlbaum. 2001); 'nteradivities,·
Millennium Film Journal 28 (1993); lev Manovidl, The wnguoge of New Media
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001).
11.
Hollis Frampton (Zom's Lemma) and Michael Snow (LD Region centrale) are also cosmophanic filmmakers.
MUlJ1PU snANDS AND POSSlIU.I WO!lUtS 57
12
of uncertainty, especially about a sid~ -wt'lat-ff1" wor1d. the viewer has more participation in the development and completion of the story-
Greenaway's wort in progress. The Tulse Luper SWtoose Trilogy, is an ever-expanding
series of simultaneous divergent incomplete elements that (as is Greenaway's wont)
will pt'obabry demonstrate the (unpossible) atternpt to express the infinity of representations that comprise the whole world. tt will incorporate many media fonns: ttvee feature films, a TV series. two CD-ROMs. 1001 Internet stories, and it will lake place simu~
taneously in many cities dlroughout the world.
13.
14.
zeJig provides an example of WiUiam Ashline's category, "Multi-Wortds' cast of
Characters," where maraders imported from other texts are "incompossib&e" (Oeleuze's
term for seriality as the paradoxical c.oexistence of divergent. incomplete or ambiguous
elements that unfold simultaneously and contemporaneously). (William L Ashline, ""The
Problems of Impossible Fictions,· Style 29.2 (1995]:215-234.) See also my essays on
charader transgression: ~I FeerlllgS: Holtywood Melodrama and The Bitter Tears of
Petro \b) Kant.."' The Mmnesolo Review 33.80 (1989): 29-89; -Zelig According to
Bakhtin: in Comedy/Cinema/Theory, Andrew' Horton, ed. (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1991),206-221.
For a desaiption of how characters internalize other agents of the text by reiterating
traits and interactions of viewers and dir~ with the result that characters assume
the manipulative roLe of -Watchers," ieo. function as spe<1ators within the text, see
Douglas Colin Muecke, Irony and the Ironic (London: Methuen, 1982), n-85.
21.
I1lr Kieslowski's growing disenchantment with documentary filmmaking. see KiesJowsJc;
on J(jesJowski, Oanusia Stok. ed. (london: Faber & Faber, 1993),86.
22.
For a review of rm s~so, see Ruth and Ardlie Perlmutter, "A Testament to KiesIowski:
Rim Critidsm 21.2 (1996-7): 59--61.
23.
iilek belie\les Wrtek is aware of his previous politicised selves and stages them as a
pt'eparation for the final ·tear story, where he is neutral and d"asaffected. (Slavoj ii!ek,
The Fn"ght of Real Tears: Krzysztof KiesJowski Between Theoty and PosHheory [london:
British film Institute, 2001 J, 80.
24.
According to lubetski, Kiesiowski stated that atthough he himself had experienced situations that occ.U"ed to aU three charaders, he feeis closer to the lturd, who is not
involved in politics or social adion. (Tadeusz. lubelski, "From Personnel to No End;
Kieslowski's Political Feature Films," in Lucid Dreams: The Films of Kaysrtol XiesJowsJci,
Paul Coates,. ed. (Trowbridge: F1ids Books, 1999),67-88.
25.
For further discussion of re<Urrent characters, see Ruth Perlmutter, "Testament of the
father: Kieslowskrs The Oem/ague." Film Critidsm 22.2 (1997·98): 51-65.
26.
Nancy Traill "Fktional Worlds of the Fantastic: Style 25.2 (1991): 195-210.
15.
There are other IUnds of serials that are outside the purview of this essay, sum as
omnibus films, which are alternately called portmanteau. anthology or amphibian fflm
(crossovers between TV and art film exhibition like The Decalogue, Heimat. Berlin
Alexanderpfatz). lbere are also remakes (Slor Wa13") and "mosak" films. where multiple charaders interweave amongst a number of plausible plots (Short Cuts.. Magnolia).
27.
Ahhough not accomplished, the plan indicates KiesJowski's intense need to go beyond
the bounds of a single path, both for his characters and for himsetr as an author trying
to penetrate and surmount through repetition and prolongation the limitations of char·
acter logic and fiction. kiesJowski did consttud a different ending for the American print.
hO'vYeYef. See KiesIowski on KksJowski 187·188.
16.
As stated in a recent artide, diverse voices in SkKker move Iateralty along an endless
28.
Wison believes that the central subject of Veronique is the discrepanq between v;rtual
chain of possibilities, aeating a sense that everything is equat therefore, the same. See
Jon Radwan. ·Generation X and Posbnodern Cinema: Slacker,· Pbstsaipt 19. 2 (2000):
34-48. Furthefmore, the film opens with a desaiption of possible wor1ds..The first charader to appear spouts Borgesian notions about how "every thought you have aeates
its own realit(."
and adual worlds, particularly with reference to ethical issues about the way the image
distorts and misrepresents reality. (Emma Wilson, Memory and Survhtal: The French
Cinema of KnyxzOJf KiesJowsJd (Oxford: l<genda, 2000L 4-11.)
29.
In much the same way that cinema itself is a recording of reality, the second story is less
true and less real because Alexandre has stolen Veronique's original experiences and
unique memories.
17.
Akerman's Night and Day is a similar fragmented narrative and The Golden Eighties
consists of scattered parts of a musical that finalty erupt into a fuD dress rehearsal
30.
18.
For an exc:eBent short artide on divergent films, see Mu"ay Smith. -Parallel Unes,· in A
Sight ond Sound Reader, Jim HiUier, ed. (London: British Film Institute, 2001), 155·164.
Each film of the trilogy is linked to a color 01 the French flag and to one of the foundil1g principles of the French republic: liberty, equality, fraternity.
31.
Heaven was the opening film of the Bertin Film Festival February 2002
19..
Unlike Indio Song, there are no characters in Son Nom de Venise Dons Colwtto Desert
until the very end. Instead, the camera roams abstradty OYer the ruins of a French
chateau. For a desaiptioo of "ciJle.repetitions'" in Ouras' two films, see Joan Copjee. "The
Compulsion to Repeat,.· in Feminism and Film Theory-, Constance Penley, ed. (New York:
Routledge, 1988), 22~243.
32.
'n looking at Run Lola Run_certain elements that interest me keep resurfacing. TllTle.
for instance, and the way time gets manipulated.... Tom Tykwer, Press IGt, 1998.
33.
With its dlain of coincidences and parallel Ila"ative threads. WintersJeepers, the film
Tykwer made before Run w10 Run, anticipates his interest in comedians. TytaNer diswsses c.onnectiveness in an interview with Ray Pride in Filmmaker 7.3 (Spfing, 1999): 89.
34.
Othel spinoffs
20.
In all fairness. it should be noted that even the most traditional singie-line central con·
sciousness films inCOfporate techniques for emphasis, whether through do~ups,
excessive non-diegetic musi<,. lighting or other techniques that guide our identification
and sympathies. "Thus, there ate always narrative innovations that offer variety, express
modernist dissatisfaction with a simplist:k coherent fidional (alternative) world, and
question the pseudo-realism of fiction and the purported objectivity of the dOOJmentary. In Ihis essay, I have tried to lows on films that challenge the spectator's imprison·
ment in the conventional march towards dosure., charader unity, and limitations set by
a script Besides, by viewing all sides of a character or event and by experiencing a sense
51 1lUTlt . . . . . . . . . . .
a la Kieslowski generally lade. his sty\istic rigor, orchestral transcendence
and grand objective. Love Stories, written, directed and acted by Jerzy Stuhr, one of
KiesJowski's favorite actors (Cameta Buff, Decalogue '0. White), is an homage to his
mentor's second chance fables about life-choices, and the film is dedicated to him. The
fadle British romance, Sliding Doors, conflates the multiple endings of Blind Chance
with a double-charaeter·as-the--same-woman a ta Veron;que. The "what-if1" idea
serves more as a romantic backdrop to the camera's fascination with Gwyneth
Paltrows star tum than as a metaphysical KieslowstUan reflection. In 1he Five Senses,.
MUlIlPU. SRANDS AND POSSI.U WOti.DS 51
the main characters live in the same building. their names begin with the letter "R,."
and eadt suffers a sense deprivation. yet the ruling device of the five senses appears
schematic rather than inherent and substantive.
35.
. 5 ee aIso Z···Ize k '"'8)
Ryan,. 175·200 paSSIm.
\' , who considers Run Lola Run as a natural heir..
to Kieslowski's mutti-outcome stories and an anticipation of tile "cyberspace hypertext:
Meshes of the Ahemoon (USA, 1943, Maya Deren)
Moral Toles (France, 1967-1983, Eric Rohmer)
Night and Day (France, 1991, Chantal Akerman)
No End (Poland, 1984, Knysztof Kieslawsla)
Thar Obscure Object of Desire (France, 19n. luis Bunuel)
Persono (Sweden, 1966, Ingmar Bergman)
Filmogrophy
PiUow Book (UK. 1997, Peter Greenaway)
Prospera's Books (UK/1'he Netherlands, 1991, Peter Greenaway)
Bode to the Future (USA, 1985, Robert Zemeckis)
Being John Ma/kovich (USA. 1999, Spik.e Jome)
Berlin Alexonderpkrtz (Germany, 1980, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Blind Chance (Poland, 1981, Knysztof Kieslowskl)
Comero Buff (Poland. 1979, Knysztof
Kieslawsla)
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Ffance,. 1974, Jacques Rivette)
Chelsea Girls (USA, 1967, Andy Wilmol)
Citizen Kane (USA, 1941. Orson Welles)
The Decalogue (series; Poland, 1988, Ktzysztot K.ieslowski)
The Discreet Chorm of tbe Bourgeoisie (France, 1972, luis BunueQ
The Double life ofVeronique (PolandfFrance, 1991, Knysztof Kieslowslu)
The Dress
(Th~
NetherlandS. 1996, Alex van warmerdam)
Drowning By Numbers (UK, 1967, Peter Greenaway)
The Falls (UK. 1980, Peter Greenaway)
Fovorites of the Moon (France,. 1984, Otar losseliani)
The FIVe Senses (canada, 1999, Jeremy Pode:swa)
Flirt (USA,. 1995. Hal Hartley)
Go (USA, 1999, Doug Uman)
The Golden Eighties (france, 1986, Chantll Akerman)
Heimat (series; Germany, 1982, Edgar Reitz)
Pulp Fiction (USA. 1994, Quentin Tarantino)
Rashomon (Japa", 1951, Akira Kurosawa)
The Red Violin (canada, 1998, Francois Girard)
La Region Centrale (Canada. 1971, Michael Snow)
Run l.lJ1o Run (Germany, 1998, Tom Tykwer)
Short Cuts (USA. 1993, Robert Ahman)
Slodca- (USA,. 1991, Richard Link1ater)
Slidit>g Doors (UK, 1998, Peter Howitt,)
Smolcing/No Smoking (France, 1993. Alain Resnais)
Son Nom de vemse Dons Cokutta Desert (France, 1976, Marguerite Ouras)
Star WOrs (USA. 1977, George lucas)
Suzhou River (Otina/Germany, 2000, Ye lou)
Tales of Manhattan (USA, 1942, Julien Duvivier)
Trme Code (UK, 2000. Mike Figgis)
Toute Une Nuit (France. 1982. Chantal Akerman)
The Tricolor Trilogy:. Blue, White, Red (France, 1993-1994, Krzysztof Kieslowskr)
vertigo (USA, 1958, Alfred Hitch<ock)
Wi_pets (Germany, 1997, Tom Tykwer)
Mig (USA, 1983, Woody Allen)
Zorn's Lemma (USA, 1970. Hollis hampton)
Hecven (Germany, 2002, Tom 1)'kwer)
Hiroshima Mon A/no(Jr (France, 1959, Alain Resnais)
I'm So-So (Polonc!, 1996, Knysztof Wierzbicla)
India Song (France. 1975, Marguerite Duras)
It's A wonderful Life (US.... 1946, Frank Capra)
La Jetee (France, 1962, Ouis Marker)
Lost ~r at Morienbod (hance, 1961, Alain Resnais)
RUTH PERLMUTrER taught film history for many year.; at the
University of the Arts and Temple University and teaches presently at the
University of Pennsylvania. She has lectured widely on film and published
in a number of scholarly journals. With her husband, Archie, she reports
on film festivals around the world in popular journals.
The Ufe of on American Fireman (USA, 1903, Edwin S. Porter)
Love Stories (Poland, 1997, Jerzy Stuhr)
Lovers of the Arctic Cirde (Spain. 1998, Julio Medem)
Magnolia (USA, 1999, Paul Thomas Anderson)
Memento (USA, 2000, Olfistopher Nolan)
60
RUTH PULMUTTER
MULlJPU STLVlDS AND POSSlllU WORLDS 61