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=                          Hyperlink_cinema                          =
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                            Introduction
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Hyperlink cinema is a style of filmmaking characterized by complex or
multilinear narrative structures with multiple characters under one
unifying theme. In spite of the name, these films are not actual
hypermedia and do not have actual hyperlinks, but are multilinear in a
more metaphorical sense.


                              History
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The term was coined by author Alissa Quart, who used the term in her
review of the film 'Happy Endings' (2005) for the film journal 'Film
Comment' in 2005. Film critic Roger Ebert popularized the term when
reviewing the film 'Syriana' in 2005.

In describing 'Happy Endings', Quart considers captions acting as
footnotes and split screen as elements of hyperlink cinema and notes
the influence of the World Wide Web and multitasking. Playing with
time and characters' personal history, plot twists, interwoven
storylines between multiple characters, jumping between the beginning
and end (flashback and flashforward) are also elements. 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 director Alejandro González Iñárritu's films
'Amores perros' (2000), '21 Grams' (2003), and 'Babel' (2006).

Quart suggests that director Robert Altman created the structure for
the genre and demonstrated its usefulness for combining interlocking
stories in his films 'Nashville' (1975) and 'Short Cuts' (1993).
However, his work was predated by several films, including Satyajit
Ray's 'Kanchenjunga' (1962), Federico Fellini's 'Amarcord' (1973), and
Ritwik Ghatak's 'Titash Ekti Nadir Naam' (1973), all of which use a
narrative structure based on multiple characters.

Quart also mentions the television series '24' and discusses Alan
Rudolph's film 'Welcome to L.A.' (1976) as an early prototype. 'Crash'
(2004) is an example of the genre, as are Steven Soderbergh's
'Traffic' (2000), Fernando Meirelles's 'City of God' (2002), Stephen
Gaghan's 'Syriana' (2005) and Rodrigo Garcia's 'Nine Lives' (2005).

The style is also used in video games. French video game company
Quantic Dream has produced games, such as 'Heavy Rain' and 'Detroit:
Become Human', with hyperlink cinema style storytelling, and the style
has also influenced role-playing games such as 'Suikoden III' (2001)
and 'Octopath Traveler' (2018).


                              Analysis
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The hyperlink cinema narrative and story structure can be compared to
social science's spatial analysis. As described by Edward Soja and
Costis 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." English critic John 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."

An academic analysis of hyperlink cinema appeared in the journal
'Critical Studies in Media Communication', and referred to the films
as Global Network Films. Narine's study examines the films 'Traffic'
(2000), 'Amores perros' (2000), '21 Grams' (2003), 'Beyond Borders'
(2003), 'Crash' (2004; released 2005), 'Syriana' (2005), 'Babel'
(2006) and others, citing network theorist Manuel Castells and
philosophers Michel Foucault and Slavoj Žižek. The study suggests that
the films are network narratives that map the network society and the
new connections citizens experience in the age of globalization.

Alberto Toscano and Jeff Kinkle have argued that one popular form of
hyperlink cinema constitutes a contemporary form of it-narrative, an
18th- and 19th-century genre of fiction written from the imagined
perspective of objects as they move between owners and social
environments. 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."


Films
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*'Grand Hotel' (1932)
*'Dinner at Eight' (1933)
*'The Rules of the Game' (1939)
*'Kanchenjunga' (1962)
*'Is Paris Burning?' (1966)
*'Amarcord' (1973)
*'Titash Ekti Nadir Naam' (1973)
*'The Phantom of Liberty' (1974)
*'Zavallilar' (1974)
*'Nashville' (1975)
*'Welcome to L.A.' (1976)
*'Ganadevata' (1978)
* 'La colmena' (1982)
* 'Yol' (1982)
*'Hannah and Her Sisters' (1986)
*'Do the Right Thing' (1989)
*'Mystery Train' (1989)
*'Grand Canyon' (1991)
*'Slacker' (1991)
*'Dazed and Confused' (1993)
*'Short Cuts' (1993)
*'Three Colours: Red' (1993)
*'Before the Rain' (1994)
*'Exotica' (1994)
*'Pulp Fiction' (1994)
*'Gummo' (1997)
*'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' (1998)
*'The Opposite of Sex' (1998)
*'Happiness' (1998)
*'Playing by Heart' (1998)
*'Run Lola Run' (1998)
*'Go' (1999)
*'Magnolia' (1999)
*'Code Unknown' (2000)
*'Timecode' (2000)
*'Amores perros' (2000)
*'Snatch' (2000)
*'Traffic' (2000)
*'Lantana' (2001)
*'Thirteen Conversations About One Thing' (2001)
*'City of God' (2002)
*'11:14' (2003)
*'Elephant' (2003)
*'Love Actually' (2003)
*'21 Grams' (2003)
*'Cape of Good Hope' (2004)
*'Crash' (2004)
*'Happy Endings' (2005)
*'Syriana' (2005)
*'Nine Lives' (2005)
*'Sin City' (2005)
*'Inland Empire' (2006)
*'Look Both Ways' (2006)
*'Babel' (2006)
*'The Edge of Heaven' (2007)
*'Rendition' (2007)
*'You, the Living' (2007)
*'The Air I Breathe' (2008)
*'Gomorrah' (2008)
*'Vantage Point' (2008)
*'Ajami' (2009)
*'Powder Blue' (2009)
*'Watchmen' (2009)
*'Hereafter' (2010)
*'Answers to Nothing' (2011)
* '  Traffic' (2011)
*'Contagion' (2011)
*'Cloud Atlas' (2012)
*'Disconnect' (2012)
*'The Big Short' (2015)
*'Masaan' (2015)
*'Dunkirk' (2017)
*'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (2022)
*'Bullet Train' (2022)
*'Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidhargal' (2022)
*'Chow Chow Bath' (2024)
*'That Christmas' (2024)


Video games
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* 'Suikoden III' (2001)
*'Indigo Prophecy' (2005)
*'Heavy Rain' (2010)
*'Resident Evil 6' (2012)
*'Until Dawn' (2015)
*'Octopath Traveler' (2018)
*'Detroit: Become Human' (2018)


Directors associated with hyperlink cinema
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*Paul Thomas Anderson
*Satyajit Ray
*Alejandro González Iñárritu
*Quentin Tarantino
*Tarun Majumdar
*Garry Marshall
*Robert Altman
*The Wachowskis
*Tom Tykwer
*Steven Soderbergh
*Richard Linklater
*Paul Haggis


                              See also
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* Anthology film
* Composite film
* Ensemble cast
* Nonlinear (arts)


                           External links
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* [http://www.kottke.org/06/02/syriana Jason Kottke's explanation of
the origin of the term]


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