Abstract

This article gives a comprehensive theoretical account of deception in multimodal film narrative in the light of the pragmatics of film discourse, the cognitive philosophy of film, multimodal analysis, studies of fictional narrative and – last but not least – the philosophy of lying and deception. Critically addressing the extant literature, a range or pertinent notions and issues are examined: multimodality, film narration and the status of the cinematic narrator, the pragmatics of film construction, the fictional world and its truth, the recipient’s film engagement and make believing, as well as narrative unreliability. Previous accounts of deceptive films are revisited and three main types of film deception are proposed with regard to the two levels of communication on which it materialises, the characters’ level and the recipient’s level, as well as the intradiegetic and/or the extradiegetic narrator involved. This discussion is illustrated with multimodally transcribed examples of deception extracted from the American television series House. In the course of the analysis, attention is paid to how specific types of deception detailed in the philosophy of language are deployed through multimodal means in the three types of film deception. Finally, inspired by the discussion of Hitchcock’s controversial lying flashback scene in Stage Fright, as well as films relying on tacit intradiegetic, unreliable narrators an attempt is made to answer the thorny question of when the extradiegetic narrator can perform lies addressed by the collective sender to the recipient, and not just only other forms of deception, as is commonly maintained.