Munchhausen Narrative Framing Blog Make Up

The way in which Munchhausen was put together as a film as a whole was both fascinating and mildly disconcerting at times. Although the jist of the progression of the story was readily understood, this film certainly does not adhere to any classical hollywood standards of continuity. Specific areas of relative discontinuity include the awkward jump from munchhausen's first meeting with the prince to his first meeting with Cagliostro, in which we are aware that Munchhausen has been asked to travel to St. Petersburg but are given no specific indication that it has happened yet until he is already on the road, and the overall progression of time in the film. We go from event to event without really understanding how much time has passed in between other than the visible aging of Christian which itself becomes muddled once Munchhausen reaches the moon. These convolutions of the linear narrative, although disconcerting may serve an additonal purpose as well however and that is that we are seeing the passage of time the way Munchhausen sees it. When Christian is dying on the moon Munchhausen would most likely be saying to himself how it seemed like only yesterday that Christian was a young man showing his new rifle to the Baron's father. In other words, our concept of time and events watching the film is inconsistent and peculiar because Munchhausen is telling us the story and his concept of time is skewed.