Hyperlink cinema is a style of filmmaking characterized by complex or multilinear narrative structures with multiple characters under one unifying theme.[1] In spite of the name, these films are not actualhypermedia and do not have actualhyperlinks, but are multilinear in a more metaphorical sense.
In describingHappy Endings, Quart considers captions acting asfootnotes andsplit screen as elements of hyperlink cinema and notes the influence of the World Wide Web andmultitasking.[2] Playing with time and characters' personal history,plot twists, interwoven storylines between multiple characters, jumping between the beginning and end (flashback andflashforward) are also elements.[2] Ebert further described hyperlink cinema as films where the characters or action reside in separate stories, but a connection or influence between those disparate stories is slowly revealed to the audience; illustrated in Mexican directorAlejandro González Iñárritu's filmsAmores perros (2000),21 Grams (2003), andBabel (2006).[3][4]
The hyperlink cinema narrative and story structure can be compared to social science'sspatial analysis. As described by Edward Soja andCostis Hadjimichalis spatial analysis examines the "'horizontal experience' of human life, the spatial dimension of individual behavior and social relations, as opposed to the 'vertical experience' of history, tradition, and biography."[10] English criticJohn Berger notes for the novel that "it is scarcely any longer possible to tell a straight story sequentially unfolding in time" for "we are too aware of what is continually traversing the story line laterally."[10]
An academic analysis of hyperlink cinema appeared in the journalCritical Studies in Media Communication, and referred to the films as Global Network Films. Narine's study examines the filmsTraffic (2000),Amores perros (2000),21 Grams (2003),Beyond Borders (2003),Crash (2004; released 2005),Syriana (2005),Babel (2006) and others, citing network theoristManuel Castells and philosophersMichel Foucault andSlavoj Žižek. The study suggests that the films are network narratives that map thenetwork society and the new connections citizens experience in the age ofglobalization.[11]
Alberto Toscano and Jeff Kinkle have argued that one popular form of hyperlink cinema constitutes a contemporary form ofit-narrative, an 18th- and 19th-century genre of fiction written from the imagined perspective of objects as they move between owners and social environments.[12] In these films, they argue, "the narrative link is the characters' relation to the film's product of choice, whether it be guns, cocaine, oil, or Nile perch."[12]
^abSoja, Edward W.; Hadjimichalis, Costis (1979). "Between Geographical Materialism and Spatial Fetishism: Some Observations on the Development of Marxist Spatial Analysis".Antipode.17 (2–3):59–67.doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.1985.tb00334.x.
