Metaleptic and Pseudo-diegetic Narration in Dennis Potter’s Karaoke / Cold Lazarus (1996)

85Vol. 16, No. 1 (2015)IMAGE [&] NARRATIVE

Metaleptic and Pseudo-diegetic Narration in Dennis Potter’s Karaoke/Cold Lazarus (1996)

Silvia Van Aken & Renaat Vandekerkhof

Abstract:

This article will explore the types of relations between different narrative levels in Dennis Potter’s final television series Karaoke/Cold Lazarus (1996), which were first screened on the BBC and Channel 4 two years after the British screenwriter’s death. Our research interest concerns metalepsis, the transgression of the diegetic boundaries between narrative levels. In this article, we will discuss the metaleptic device that unfurls itself within Cold Lazarus. Therefore, we will analyse its narrative function and strategy to appeal to the spectator. To explore this device, it is useful to compare it with two similar concepts as practiced in Karaoke: mise en abyme (in this case, a series within a series) and pseudo-diegetic narration (an event is told as if it was real, but is actually represented as a story or a hallucination). To discuss illustrations of both series, we will combine a stylistic, a structuralist and a cognitive approach to study its narrative structure.

Résumé:

Cet article explore les types de relations entre les différents niveaux narratifs dans Karaoke/Cold Lazarus (1996), la série télévisée de Dennis Potter qui était diffusé pour la première fois sur la BBC et Channel 4, deux ans après la mort du scénariste britannique. Notre intérêt de recherche se concerne la métalepse, c’est-à-dire la transgression des frontières entre les différents niveaux narratifs. Dans cet article, nous allons discuter le dispositif qui se déploie métaleptique en Cold Lazarus. Nous allons analyser la fonction narrative de la métalepse et de la stratégie d’impliquer le spectateur. Pour explorer ce dispositif, il est utile de le comparer avec deux concepts similaires comme pratiqué dans Karaoke: la mise en abyme (dans ce cas, une série dans une série) et la narration pseudo-diégétique (un événement raconté comme diégétique, ce que l’on a pourtant présenté comme métadiégétique: par exemple une histoire ou une hallucination). Pour discuter des exemples de ces concepts, nous allons combiner des approches différentes: l’analyse esthétique de film, la narratologie classique et cognitive.

Keywords:

Dennis Potter, television series, narrative levels, metalepsis, pseudo-diegetic narration, mise en abyme


Introduction

Since the 1990s, a growing number of feature films is exploring the narrative device of metalepsis (Campora, 2009, p. 120). Metalepsis is introduced by Genette (1972) in the context of literary texts, and refers to the transgression of the diegetic boundaries between narrative levels (Genette, 1980, p. 234-235), this concept will be discussed in detail further on. Different metaleptic experiments in film are discussed in recent publications. Campora (2009) analysed multiform narrative and sonic metalepsis in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). According to Pethő (2010), Agnès Varda accomplished a kind of metaleptic leap between levels of “fiction” and “reality” in several of her movies. Katarzyna (2010) studied the metaleptic narration applied in Adaptation (2002), Buckland (2013) does the same for Inland Empire (2006) and Kiss (2012) for Inception (2010).

Even though television series have several features in common with movies, the traditional rigid television programming automatically influences its narrative structure. That explains why metalepsis is rarely applied to the television format. Recently however, narrative experiments are making a slow entry into television serials and this under the influence of new (digital) distribution channels (Klarer, 2014, p. 203-207). Klarer is referring to American television series like Netflix’s House of Cards (2013-), this series implements not only metalepsis but also direct audience-address (a character looking and speaking directly to the viewer).

Narrative experiments in television series are not a completely new phenomenon though. Since the 1960s, Dennis Potter introduced several experimental narrative devices to the television format, from his early scripts on (Creeber, 2013, p. 247): Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton (1965), Pennies from Heaven (1978), Blue Remembered Hills (1979), The Singing Detective (1986), until his final script Karaoke/Cold Lazarus (1996). These experiments include the use of mise en abyme (the telling of a story within a story), direct audience-address, lip-synching, character doubling (Hochscherf & Leggott, 2011, p. 119-120), but especially metalepsis which has become his trademark. In this regard, Potter strays away from the more linear narrative structure of the British heritage series – such as Sense and Sensibility or Brideshead Revisited (1981) – that usually avoided narrative experiments such as metalepsis and direct audience-address (Doust, 2002, p. 471).

Although Dennis Potter influenced a whole generation of directors and screenwriters, there still remains a lack of academic studies about this influential British screenwriter (Creeber, 2013, p. 247); particularly about his use of metalepsis. Gras and Cook (2000) and a special edition of the Journal of Screenwriting (Creeber, 2013) make an effort to put this writer on the map of a wider cultural debate. This article is an attempt to enlarge the debate about the legacy Potter has bequeathed to non-linear television dramas. We will discuss the way metalepsis unfurls itself within Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. Furthermore, we will analyse its narrative function1 and strategy to appeal to the spectator.

Narratological approach

In order to explore the metaleptic device, it is necessary to discuss a few other narrative concepts first,

1. Prince describes a narrative function as “an act defined in terms of its significance for the course of the action in which it appears” (Prince, 1987, p. 36).


such as mise en abyme and pseudo-diegetic narration and to begin with: the concept of narrative levels.

Narrative levels

Within the field of narratology that study literary texts, Genette (1980, p. 227) introduced the concept of narrative levels to identify the different narrating acts that recount a story. Kuhn (2013, p. 81-87) distinguishes2 an extradiegetic, an intradiegetic and a metadiegetic level for films – like Genette did for literary texts. The extradiegetic level is organized by an extradiegetic narrator: Chatman (1990), Verstraten (2008) and Kuhn (2009) distinguish between an image and a sound narrator who regulate the diegesis (the spatio-temporal universe were the story takes place) from outside this universe. This narrating entity can address himself directly or indirectly to a narratee (a fictive entity to which the narrator directs his narration) (Prince, 1987, p. 57). The intradiegetic level – embedded in a higher extradiegetic level – can also contain a narrating character (intradiegetic narrator) who tells a story, dream or memory; this story, dream or memory takes place on a metadiegetic level and is embedded in the intradiegetic level. It can lead to further meta-levels who can develop themselves as Russian dolls: e.g. a memory told within a memory (Pier, 2011, p. 1).

In this article, we will apply Kuhn’s narrative levels to the television format and will focus on the relationship between the intradiegetic and the metadiegetic level of Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. In this context we will discuss mise en abyme, pseudo-diegetic narration and metalepsis.

Mise en abyme

The narrative device of mise en abyme refers to “a miniature replica of a text embedded within that text” (Prince, 1987, p. 53); such as a film within a film, a memory within a memory or a dream within a dream. Like metalepsis, mise en abyme incorporates different levels of narration – the embedding story (an intradiegetic level) and the embedded (a metadiegetic level) – but the relation between both levels is one of similarity or contrast3 rather than one of transgression (Pier, 2014, p. 32); the lather refers to both pseudo-diegetic narration as metalepsis.

Pseudo-diegetic narration

The first form of transgression between the intradiegetic and the metadiegetic level is pseudo-diegetic narration which is defined by Genette as:

Une figure moins audacieuse, mais que l’on peut rattacher à la métalepse, consiste à raconter comme diégétique, au même niveau narratif que le contexte, ce que l’on a pourtant présenté (ou qui se laisse aisément deviner) comme métadiégétique en son principe, ou si l’on préfère, à la source (Genette, 1972, p. 245).

2. Genette (1980, p. 228) distinguishes the same narrative levels, but claims that the extradiegetic level is the lowest level. 3. Mise en abyme – as a metadiegetic story embedded in an intradiegetic level – can fulfil an explanatory function (causal relation), thematic function (similarity or contrast) or narrational function (distraction or obstruction) (Genette, 1980, p. 231-233).


This concept refers to a telling as if it were diegetic but has nevertheless been presented as metadiegetic in its principle or origin (Genette, 1980, p. 236). In Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (1920) a man is telling about a memory, but a twist ending reveals that it has actually been represented as a hallucination. The narrative level is misinterpreted by an average viewer because the lack of narrative information (in this case, the narrating character who is in fact an inmate of a mental asylum); so he identified the hallucination only retrospectively. This means that the transgression of the pseudo-diegetic narration takes place in the viewer’s cognitive process, not in the text. After all, it has been a hallucination right from the beginning.

Metalepsis

Metalepsis is the second form of transgression between the intradiegetic and the metadiegetic level which Genette describes as:

toute intrusion du narrateur ou du narrataire extradiégétique dans l’univers diégétique (ou de personnages diégétiques dans un univers métadiégétique etc.) ou inversement, comme chez Cortazar, produit un effet de bizarrerie soit bouffonne (quand on la présente, comme Sterne ou Diderot, sur le ton de la plaisanterie) soit fantastique (Genette, 1972, p. 244).

Genette not only describes the transgression between the extradiegetic and the intradiegetic level (extradiegetic narrators or narratees who intervene in the diegesis, or the inverse), but also between the intradiegetic and the metadiegetic level (e.g. characters or narratees who intervene in a story, or the inverse) (Genette, 1980, p. 234-235). These are examples of vertical metalepsis that includes a change of level and in this a change of narrator, character or narratee4 (Figure 1).

But Genette’s typology – even in his revision (Genette, 2004, p. 16-18) – neglect transgressions between two temporal or spatial divergent narratives: e.g. a character of one story appears in another (from another diegesis). This is an example of horizontal metalepsis (Prince, 2006, p. 628); a concept that Kiss called illusory metalepsis (Kiss, 2012, p. 37).

An often cited typology is Ryan’s rhetorical and ontological metalepsis. She describes rhetorical metalepsis as a window that is opened briefly: two narrative levels remain distinct, but a momentary visually or verbally reference is made from one level to another (Ryan, 2005, p. 207-208). At the opening of The Simpsons Movie (2007), Homer (intradiegetic character) is addressing and looking to the audience (extradiegetic narratee): “I can’t believe we’re paying to see something we get on TV for free. If you ask me, everybody in this theatre is a giant sucker. Especially you!”. The more intrusive ontological metalepsis refers not only to a narrator or a character – but also to a narratee as mentioned previously – crossing the boundaries of its narrative level (Kukkonen & Klimek, 2011, p. 2-3). In The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), a male character (metadiegetic) steps out of the screen in a movie theatre to meet a woman (intradiegetic).

4. In this context, Klimek distinguishes between a narrator and a character, but does not mention narratee (Kukkonen & Klimek, 2011, p. 25).


Metalepsis can be considered as a popular postmodernist concept across media, not only in literary but also in film texts. Although this was not always the case (Huber, 2014, p. 91-184), this cultural phenomenon was rarely applied during the period of realism. Even in the mid-1990s, when Potter was creating his final series, metalepsis still was uncommon for the television platform; we will come to that later on.

EXTRADIEGETIC LEVEL: extradiegetic narrator (image and sound narrator)

INTRADIEGETIC LEVEL: intradiegetic narrator (character)

METADIEGETIC LEVEL: e.g. story, memory, hallucination

METAMETADIEGETIC LEVEL:

e.g. a story within a story

VERTICAL METALEPSIS Etc.

. METADIEGETIC LEVEL

INTRADIEGETIC LEVEL: character as narratee

EXTRADIEGETIC LEVEL: extradiegetic narratee

Figure 1: Visualization of vertical metalepsis across narrative levels of fictional texts.


Casestudy: Karaoke and Cold Lazarus

To understand how Potter used the metaleptic device in Cold Lazarus, we must compare it with the function of mise-en-abyme and pseudo-diegetic narration in Karaoke.

Mise en abyme and pseudo-diegetic narration in Karaoke

The central character of Potter’s Karaoke (intradiegetic) is Daniel Feeld, a screenwriter whose television series Karaoke (metadiegetic) is in the editing stage; we will refer to Daniel’s Karaoke without italics, to distinguish it from Potter’s Karaoke. Mise en abyme (a series in a series) takes various forms in Karaoke: such as Daniel’s hallucinations concerning his Karaoke story and the rushes of his Karaoke script. We will describe for each the narrative and stylistic features as well as the narrative functions with illustration of an example. First we will discuss Daniel’s hallucinations concerning the script, and the relation between the intradiegetic and the metadiegetic level.

Daniel’s hallucinations concerning his Karaoke script

Daniel has five hallucinations concerning his Karaoke script (mise en abyme). The two visual hallucinations consist of short flashes5and are announced by close-ups of Daniel used as a start and an end marker, which is a rather common visual indicator of a hallucination (Verstraten, 2008, p. 111). The three auditory hallucinations concern text lines of approximately ten to sixty seconds: Daniel hears strangers speaking the lines from his script. On one such occasion, Daniel and his colleague Anna are sitting in the same restaurant as Sandra and her boyfriend Peter. Daniel claims he can hear Sandra and Peter speaking the lines from his script, despite being many tables away in a noisy room. Occasionally Sandra’s and Peter’s voices are subtly transformed into those of the actors who play Sandra and Peter (two characters from the rushes of Karaoke); Daniel has accidently given them the names of real characters of Karaoke. Furthermore, each hallucination is announced by a suspenseful piano tune. So, aesthetic features and narrative information confirm that the mentioned conversation was not real but hallucinated by Daniel and therefore can be called pseudo-diegetic narration (Genette, 1980, p. 236).

So in Potter’s Karaoke mise en abyme is occasionally combined with pseudo-diegetic narration; they both fulfil two main narrative functions in Karaoke: stimulating curiosity and involving the viewer. On the one hand, both devices are used to raise curiosity about the reason for Daniel’s hallucinations. In general, hallucinations are motivated by a character taking drugs as in Trainspotting (1996) (Verstraten, 2008, p. 111), suffering from schizophrenia as in Images (1972) or great psychical pain as in Odd Man Out (1947). Daniel explicitly fills in this temporary, expositional gap (Sternberg, 1978, p. 50-51) when he finds out why he has accidently based his Karaoke script on the real Sandra, Peter and Arthur ‘Pig’ Mailion: namely cryptomnesia (someone believes that his idea – based on an actual forgotten memory – is new and original).

5. Sidney Lumet introduced subliminal cutting in The Pawnbroker (1964) to gradually reveal the traumatic memories of a holocaust survivor who had suppressed his childhood abuse for more than twenty years. The flashbacks of The Pawnbroker are exposed through flash cuttings and the intrusive character of the memory is dramatized by the progressive speeding up of the fragments (Lumet, 1995, p. 158-161). But in Karaoke the flashes retain the same length.


On the other hand, Potter enhances the direct involvement of the viewer (Smith, 1997, p. 412-417) through internal focalisation6 (distorted lenses and oblique camera positions) and reaction shots (extreme close-ups of Daniel’s painful facial expression) that accentuate his suffering. So the viewer receives not only access to what a character perceives, but also to his response.

Furthermore, Potter stimulates the indirect involvement of the viewer through alignment; this concept refers to the range and depth of access to characters (Smith, 1995, p. 142-186). Potter offers a deep insight into Daniel’s memories, hallucinations and feelings. Besides this, he introduces serious dramatic elements into Daniel’s life: he has lost his fiancée and his twin brother, and has recently learned that he has terminal cancer.

Daniel’s Karaoke script and the rushes of Karaoke

The events of Karaoke are interrupted ten times to show the rushes of the Karaoke script (mise en abyme). These images are often filtered through Daniel’s internal focalization: in one occasion he recalls the strangulation mentioned in his script through flash cuttings (flashes shorter than the usual 24 frames per second). These flashes are preceded by a start marker (a close-up of Daniel), but are not followed by a symmetrical end marker.

On top of this, a new sequence often starts with the rushes of the Karaoke story, it transforms from external focalization (unfiltered shots) into internal focalization (the crewmembers watching the rushes in the cutting room). This means that this event was represented as intradiegetic, while they are in fact metadiegetic; it concerns also pseudo-diegetic narration.

Again, mise en abyme is combined with pseudo-diegetic narration, but they fulfil a slightly different main function in this context: creating suspense and alienating the viewer.

On the one hand, the Karaoke story creates suspense about the “outcome of the future confrontation” (Sternberg, 1978, p. 65): the viewer is anticipating if the real Sandra will be strangled like the Sandra of the script. At the end of Karaoke this enigma is being answered: Daniel not only rewrites his script but also his will, in the benefit of Sandra; he even takes revenge on Arthur – by killing him – before Sandra takes the law in her own hands.

On the other hand, both devices confuse the viewer about what is happening in Potter’s Karaoke (intradiegetic), as well as in Daniel’s Karaoke (metadiegetic) or Daniel’s mind (metadiegetic). The average viewer will find it hard to distinguish all these narrative levels. Potter is using this alienating effect to estrange the audience and forces them to question the reliability of several contradictory events. For this purpose, Brecht believed that an emotional distance should be maintained: “Only then the audience can effectively critique and evaluate the struggle between the characters and understand the

6. Genette consider focalization as the ratio of narrative information between the narrator and the character (Genette, 1988, p. 64). However, we consider focalization always as a perception of an extradiegetic narrator (external focalization); but this narrator can expose himself to the perception of an intradiegetic character (internal focalization) (Ball, 2009, p. 145-153). Focalization is a form of subjectified content: each act of perception implies an act of interpretation by a narrator (Verstraten, 2008, p. 121). So each text contains a narrating and a focalising instance, even if he doesn’t expose himself (Verstraten, 2008, p. 16).


social realities of the narrative” (Brecht, 1964, p. 91-99). So the viewer pays more attention to the narrative itself, as a story that is being told.

Metalepsis in Cold Lazarus

In Cold Lazarus a group of scientists succeed to evoke the memories of Daniel’s cryogenically frozen head in 2368. Daniel’s memories – represented through fifteen flashback projections spread across the four episodes – contain three time periods: his childhood (1940s), his college life (1950s), but also repetitions of Karaoke and his interrupted death experience, two months later (1994). Due to the differences in Daniel’s age and clothes, the viewer can easily distinguish the time lines. But Potter transgresses the boundaries in projection 5, 9 and 13; these three examples of metalepsis will be compared here.

In the fifth projection one narrative level interrupts another: the old Daniel appears in his childhood memory; first wearing his own clothes, but later on wearing the young Daniel’s clothes (Figure 2). This metalepsis stimulates the spectator’s curiosity: what caused this strange appearance? The answer is given by the scientists: they conclude that Daniel’s memory may be disrupted by some kind of trauma. The rest of the projection confirms this interpretation and shows Daniel’s childhood trauma that has been haunting him for ages. During Daniel’s confrontation with his abuser, the young Daniel appears suddenly, but the memory is restored only briefly. This childhood trauma is accentuated by reaction shots of the scientists and of Daniel’s head, which seems to respond to this memory.

Figure 2: Projection 5 reveals Daniel’s childhood trauma through metalepsis.


In the fifteenth projection the metalepsis starts on the auditory track. The dialogue between Daniel and Sandra starts as a repetition of Karaoke (1994). But suddenly, new text lines reveal Daniel’s second trauma (1950s): Daniel’s twin brother Chris has accidentally killed Daniel’s fiancée Beth. Potter (1994, p. 367-368) described the metalepsis in his script (the text lines which were added to Daniel’s memory from Karaoke are underlined):

DANIEL: I said I put words into people’s mouths. Well, now I want to, I can’t get them out of my own. My brother, oh, it’s years, years – they let him come home for a trial week when he passed this degree in – this degree in physics, cryophysics – are you getting any of this? Can you understand me at all?

SANDRA: Hey. Steady on Romeo.

DANIEL: He drove straight at her. Says – says he didn’t know she was there. But that’s what he said about the first one. The boy. Straight at her! And he is me. I am him. I feel it – him – I feel in my bones I’m not fit to – fit to – I should be put away! Put away!

In this way, the metaleptic memory reveals why Daniel never married his fiancée Beth (an enigma introduced in Karaoke). Later on, when Daniel collapses in the karaoke bar (1994), the metalepsis continues on the visual track (Figure 3): characters from the 40s (his seven-year old twin Chris, his father and choir members from chapel, all witnesses who saw Daniel collapsing after his childhood trauma), but also characters from 1994 (Sandra, Arthur and other bystanders) all run to him. The music in the karaoke bar is replaced by a song from chapel. We can conclude that Daniel’s two major traumas (the characters and the music from the 40s and the text lines from the 50s) have penetrated his memories from 1994. This metalepsis is intensified by internal focalisation (distorted lenses and oblique camera positions) and reaction shots (extreme close-ups of Daniel’s painful facial expression) to accentuate his suffering (Van Aken, 2011).

In the ninth projection, Daniel remembers his first meeting with Sandra in the restaurant (Figure 4): after a few seconds, he recalls the Sandra from the rushes of his script – which are recorded in the same restaurant – and a few seconds later, his deceased fiancée Beth. So a character of 1950 is entering the restaurant in 1994. This metaleptic memory functions here to provide explanatory summaries of Daniel’s motives: the resemblance between Sandra and Beth explains why Daniel has killed Arthur – in the benefit of Sandra (Van Aken, 2011).


Figure 3: Projection 15: Metalepsis starts on the auditory track and expands to the visual track: char-acters from Daniel’s memory of the 1940s are entering a memory of 1994.

Figure 4: Projection 9: Metalepsis explains Daniel’s motives for helping Sandra (a): she looks like the girl from his script (b) who is slightly inspired on his deceased fiancée Beth (c).


All three examples of metalepsis in Cold Lazarus are horizontal: characters from one memory interfere into a memory from another timeline. But at the end, when a projection of Daniel (metadiegetic) is looking at and writing to Fyodor (intradiegetic): “Let me go”, it is called a rhetorical metalepsis (Figure 5). This forth metalepsis – and reaction shots of Daniel’s crying head (intradiegetic) – stimulate the viewer’s direct involvement: Potter dramatizes the torturing of Daniel’s head and the shameless exploitation of Daniel’s memories by a media mogul, David Siltz. By emphasizing that Daniel is the prisoner of his own mind and that he is forced to watch his most tragic memories over and over again, Potter creates suspense: will Daniel ever be freed, since he cannot free himself? (Van Aken, 2011). This enigma is answered at the end, when Fyodor liberates Daniel’s head and Daniel continues his tunnel experience that was interrupted by the scientists.

Figure 5: Daniel communicates with Fyodor through rhetorical metalepsis.

Pseudo-diegetic narration as an ambiguous relation between Karaoke and Cold Lazarus

Potter never explicitly reveals the relationship between both series. He only provides some subtle hints in Karaoke. In episode 1, “Reality or nothing” – the name of a rebel group in Cold Lazarus – is written in a booth. In episode 3, Daniel is talking about writing a new script about a science fiction series. In episode 4, Daniel talks about taking his life back into his own hands and reads a book about cyberspace. On top of this, several hints are given in the DVD’s introduction to Cold Lazarus.

Why did Potter mention Daniel’s new script about a similar frozen head? Would it be merely an unfortunate coincidence? Or does Daniel – as Harrison suggested – decided “to have his head frozen cryogenically, with the expectation that future technology might restore him to health” (Gras & Cook, 2000, p. 221)? But it seems unlikely because Daniel never gave the impression he would like to live forever. Or could Cold Lazarus be Daniel’s new script that is represented as a pseudo-diegetic narration? This interpretation is confirmed by Potter:

Twice I had to resist the almost overwhelming temptation to break into the latter part of Cold Lazarus with a scene of Daniel Feeld actually writing it at his own cluttered desk in the time between his murder of ‘Pig’ Mailion and his own death, which would have meant he would


have to have written his own deathbed scene at the start of Cold Lazarus, something not too far removed from what I was actually doing myself (Potter, 1994, p. xiii).

Probably, not all spectators will recognise the subtle hints that indicate the relationship between the two series. It demands other ways of applying schemata. The following quote of Buckland about Lost Highway is also appropriated to the way viewers deal with Potter’s final series: “[it] prevents spectators from automatically applying schemata to it, since it goes beyond the commonsense, rational logic embedded in these schemata; instead, spectators become aware of the schemata’s conventions, and work hard to apply them in new and unforeseen ways” (Buckland, 2009, p. 57). Conclusion

Dennis Potter used not only mise en abyme but also pseudo-diegetic narration in Karaoke: first on the auditory track and later on the visual track. Probably, he wanted to stimulate both estrangement (by altering and fuzing narrative levels) and involvement of the viewer (by given access to Daniel’s internal focalization, feelings, hallucinations and memories and by raising curiosity about what has happened to Daniel).

Metalepsis unfurls itself within Cold Lazarus. According to Genette (1980, p. 235), metalepsis produces an effect of strangeness that is either comical or fantastic. However, Meizel (2009) concludes in her article that metalepsis fulfils contradictory functions. This is the case in Cold Lazarus: metalepsis produces an effect of strangeness that is even more dramatic than the effect of pseudo-diegetic narration: Potter dramatizes the torturing of Daniel’s self-consciousness frozen head by gradually speeding up metaleptic memories. Besides, these distorted memories achieve an explanatory function by filling in the gaps of Karaoke with additional character motives.

So Potter has introduced a metaleptic device in Cold Lazarus – and also mise en abyme and pseudo-diegetic narration in Karaoke – as a means to immerse as well as alienate the viewer. Both television series demonstrate what Bolter and Grusin (2000, p. 5) called a double logic of remediation: a combination of transparent immediacy (immersing the viewer in the memories of Daniel Field in such a manner that the medium disappears) and hypermediacy (foregrounding the act of telling or showing so that the viewer gets aware of the medium). The fascination for both opposite concepts can be seen as a historical evolution in a broader media field (Bolter and Grusin, 2000, p. 5).

But what changes in the cultural context encouraged the popularity of metalepsis in film and television drama? Technological innovations (VHS, DVD, video-on-demand) and digital distribution channels (YouTube, iTunes, Netflix) made it possible for viewers to watch metaleptic narratives over and over to formulate new schemata (Campora, 2009, p. 129) and share them in online communities. However, Potter’s final series is an exception to this trend; since the DVD was only released in 2010 – without appearing on VHS. So Potter’s use of hypermediated conventions was not meant for the digital generation – the breakthrough of the DVD happened years after the screenwriter’s death – which makes it even harder for the viewer at the time to reformulate schemata in new ways.

As a result, these innovations allow typical postmodernist techniques of disrupting aesthetic


illusion by metalepsis, mise en abyme and fragmented narrative structures (Huber, 2014, p. 33) that involve the spectator intensively. They have to take decisions about contradictory events, temporal distortions, permanent gaps, etc. Thus, the spectator becomes aware of the presence of an author: a narrating/writing character and the fictional universe he creates.

DAY 1 a. Speaking his lines in hospital b. Recalling the Karaoke script c. Editing the Karaoke story d. Reading his Karaoke script aloud e. Sandra speaks his lines in restaurant f. Recalling the girl from his Karaoke script g. Recalling a strangling of his Karaoke script h. Imagining Sandra’s strangling

Hallucination 1 / 2 / 3 (mise en abyme) Memory Karaoke (mise en abyme) Karaoke story (mise en abyme) Hallucination 4 (mise en abyme) Memory Karaoke (mise en abyme) Hallucination 5 (mise en abyme)

DAY 2 a. Editing the Karaoke story Karaoke story (mise en abyme)

DAY 3 a. Recalling the song “Any Stars” b. Talking about a new script c. Editing the Karaoke story d. Editing the Karaoke story

Auditory memory (1940s) Cold Lazarus (mise en abyme)Karaoke story (mise en abyme)

DAY 4 a. Editing the Karaoke story b. Talking about a new script c. Editing the Karaoke story d. Talking about a new script e. Recalling Sandra’s voice (interior monologue) f. Killing+“Arthur, you need a few stars in your crown”

Cold Lazarus (mise en abyme) Karaoke story (mise en abyme)Cold Lazarus (mise en abyme) Auditory memory (1994)Auditory memory (1940s)

Table 1: References to Daniel’s script, hallucinations and memories in Karaoke (1996).

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DAY 1 a. Daniel’s death b. Football game: Fulham FC–Leister City c. Daniel’s death + “no biography” d. Interrupted tunnel experience e. Daniel talks to doctor in hospital f. Kids teasing Daniel at school

Projection 1 (1994) Projection 2 (1974) Projection 3 (1994) (1994) Projection 4 (1994) (1940s)

DAY 2 a. Young Daniel in the woods (child trauma) b. Daniel talks to Sandra in hospital c. Kids teasing Daniel at school d. Images of the Iraqis war e. Daniel talks to Sandra in hospital

Projection 5 (1940s + Daniel 1994) Projection 6 (1994) (1940s) (1991) (1994)

DAY 3 a. Killing ‘Pig’ Mailion in karaoke bar b. Public memory: birth of prince William c. Daniel talks to Sandra in hospital d. Daniel falls in love with Beth e. Daniel seas Sandra in restaurant f. Daniel recalls the girl from his Karaoke script g. Daniel imagines Beth in restaurant h. Meeting Sandra’s mother i. Daniel & Beth talk about his twin brother

Projection 7 (1994) Projection 8 (1982) Projection 9 (1994) (1950s) (1994) (Karaoke script) (1994 + Beth 1950s) Projection 10 (1994) Projection 11 (1950s)

DAY 4 a. Sleeping with Beth b. Collapsing in karaoke bar (second trauma) c. Daniel’s independent memory: “no biography” d. Continuing the tunnel experience

Projection 12 (1950s) Projection 13 (1994 + 1940s + 1950s) Projection 14 (1994) Projection 15 (1994 + 2368)

Table 2: Daniel’s projected memories in Cold Lazarus (1996).

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Silvia Van Aken is a PhD Candidate in Social Sciences at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). She specialises in the topic: “The Labyrinth of the Mind: A stylistic-narrative analysis of Jaco Van Dormael’s mindfilms. Toto le héros (1991), Le huitième jour (1996), Mr. Nobody (2009)”. Besides, she is a lecturer at Media Arts & Design Faculty Campus C-Mine (LUCA School of Arts). She has presented her research at European Narratology Network Conference Ghent (2015), Summer School Narrative Theory in Action Aarhus (2012), Screenwriting Research Conference Brussels (2011), Theatre Academy Conference Helsinki (2009), etc.

E-mail: [email protected]


Renaat Vandekerkhof is an affiliated researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). He obtained a PhD in Social Sciences at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (2014), his research topic concerns: “From discourse to counter-discourse: A thematic and stylistic analysis of four British working-class films (1995-2000). Trainspotting (1996), Brassed Off (1996), The Full Monty (1997), Billy Elliot (2000)”. He has written articles for Tijdschrift voor sociologie | Sociologos (2014), Cinemagie (2012, 2013) and presented his research at Iamhist Conference Leicester (2003).

E-mail: [email protected]

We would like to thank Jan Baetens for his comments on an early draft of this article, and Channel 4 for their permission to publish pictures of Cold Lazarus.

Metaleptic and Pseudo-diegetic Narration in Dennis Potter’s Karaoke / Cold Lazarus (1996)

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