William Faulkner's Cinematic Features In Light In August

As the impact of the film on literature in the twentieth century becomes one of the most significant developments in literary history, the tag "cinematic" was coined as a critical term in the 1920s. With the advent of film, the burgeoning new art of film and the ancient art of novel has formed a bilateral interaction between each other. On the one hand, the novel has provided the film with multiple cultural resources which are of wide range from conception to art forms. On the other hand, the fast development of the film has stimulated the novel to constantly renew itself, which has caused the novel's inner change in style. This has made "cinematic" narration a trend in modern novel writing.As a radical experimenter in the forms and the writing skills of fiction, William Faulkner had spent his entire life on his innovation. In the voluminous novel Light in August, he has tried his best in writing differently. In Light in August, Montage is not only what made up this highly psychological novel; it is, in effect, Faulkner's major way of thinking. It includes the fast cutting of space time, the establishment of the conflicts between two opposite story lines and the transitional occasion that connect the past with the present. The purport of films is to make people see what the creator wants to show. Faulkner has provided the reader with a sense of involvement by putting the main character in the position of being watched and by creating a visual description that resembles the mental condition of the character. At the same time, the switch of long shot, close shot and close up and the switch of viewpoint as it is in a film have made this novel quite cinematic, too. The contribution of the cinematic techniques to his novel writing can be seen by making an analogy between the narrative function of the film and that of the novel. Every coin has two sides, although proper use of cinematic techniques can help the authors to achieve their themes in a more meaningful way, the frequent and abundant use of cinematic techniques will make the works uncompleted. After all, a novel is always a novel; it is not a film script. On the one hand, the success of Faulkner lies in that he can transmute the cinematic techniques into any novel effectively; on the other hand, he carefully maintains some features that only pertain to novel. In the ocean of arts, no one is like an isolated island. The borrowing and cross-over among different art categories are the power to stimulate the development and innovation of art. Only when the authors hold proper limits between boundaries can the trans-boundary creation be positive to their works.