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60-499: Through narration , Benjy Stone recalls the week (in his "favorite year" of 1954) when he met his idol: film actor Alan Swann, known for appearing in swashbuckler films during the 1930s and 1940s . During television's early days, Benjy works as a junior comedy writer for a variety show called Comedy Cavalcade starring Stan "King" Kaiser that is broadcast live from the NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza . Swann, well past his prime,

120-461: A Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture for his performance as aged vaudevillian Willy Clark's ( Walter Matthau ) comedically long-suffering nephew, confidant and talent agent, Ben Clark, in Herbert Ross ' The Sunshine Boys (1975), based on Neil Simon 's 1972 hit stage play of the same name. After directing for television, his first film as a director

180-399: A story to an audience . Narration is conveyed by a narrator : a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot : the series of events. Narration is a required element of all written stories ( novels , short stories , poems , memoirs , etc.), presenting the story in its entirety. It

240-704: A Gentlemen ' s 11th weekend and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ' s 18th). In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Janet Maslin called My Favorite Year "a funny and good-natured comedy" and wrote that director Richard Benjamin "works in a steady, affable style that is occasionally inspired, always snappy and never less than amusing." On their movie review television program movie critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave praise to My Favorite Year. Siskel called it "A wonderful little film full of big laughs and great nostalgia for TV's golden age" while Ebert, in agreement added, " It

300-417: A close relationship between the narrator and reader, by referring to the viewpoint character with first person pronouns like I and me (as well as we and us , whenever the narrator is part of a larger group). The second-person point of view is a point of view similar to first-person in its possibilities of unreliability. The narrator recounts their own experience but adds distance (often ironic) through

360-467: A first- and a third-person narrative mode. The ten books of the Pendragon adventure series, by D. J. MacHale , switch back and forth between a first-person perspective (handwritten journal entries) of the main character along his journey as well as a disembodied third-person perspective focused on his friends back home. In Indigenous American communities, narratives and storytelling are often told by

420-526: A moderate hit with Mermaids (1990) starring Cher and Winona Ryder . Made in America (1993) with Whoopi Goldberg and Ted Danson was also successful. Milk Money (1994) with Melanie Griffith and Ed Harris was less so. He also directed Mrs. Winterbourne (1996). In the 1990s, Benjamin returned to acting with appearances on shows including The Ray Bradbury Theater , Love & War , Ink , Mad About You , and Titus , as well as

480-455: A number of elders in the community. In this way, the stories are never static because they are shaped by the relationship between narrator and audience. Thus, each individual story may have countless variations. Narrators often incorporate minor changes in the story in order to tailor the story to different audiences. The use of multiple narratives in a story is not simply a stylistic choice, but rather an interpretive one that offers insight into

540-626: A script by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim , and in Westworld (1973), directed by Michael Crichton and co-starring Yul Brynner . The Los Angeles Times stated that by this stage, his image was of "a whining, petulant bore by doing too good a job of acting in a series of sleazy roles." He decided to steer away from such roles by turning down a part in The Towering Inferno (which Richard Chamberlain ended up playing). Benjamin supported Walter Matthau and George Burns in

600-504: A small role. He produced and directed a TV adaptation of Simon's The Goodbye Girl (2004) with Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton . In 2006, Benjamin directed the award-winning cable television drama A Little Thing Called Murder , starring Australian Judy Davis . It was based on the true story of Sante and Kenny Kimes , mother and son grifters and killers. His later acting appearances on television include Ray Donovan and Childrens Hospital . He most recently played Dr. Green in

660-442: A small-scale movie that’s full to the brim with funny people." On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 97% rating based on 30 reviews. The site's consensus states: " My Favorite Year is a joyful ode to the early days of television, carried with a deft touch and Peter O'Toole's uproariously funny performance." On Metacritic it has a score of 62% based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Lainie Kazan

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720-547: A wonderful script to act in and a mediocre script to direct, I'll act. And the same principle applies the other way around. It's the material that counts." He focused on directing, though, for the next decade. Benjamin's second feature as director was Racing with the Moon (1984) from a script by Steve Kloves starring Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage . He was then called in at short notice to replace Blake Edwards on City Heat (1984) with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds , which

780-560: Is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known films, including Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Catch-22 (1970), Portnoy's Complaint (1972), Westworld , The Last of Sheila (both 1973) and Saturday the 14th (1981). In 1968, Benjamin was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on the CBS sitcom He & She (starring opposite his wife Paula Prentiss ), which aired from 1967-1968. In 1976, Benjamin received

840-623: Is based on that of Sid Caesar ("Kaiser" is the German equivalent of the Roman title Caesar). Selma Diamond , another former Your Show of Shows writer (who inspired Rose Marie 's character on The Dick Van Dyke Show ), appears in the film as a wardrobe mistress. The character of Herb, one of Kaiser's writers who whispers rather than speaks, is based on Neil Simon , another of Caesar's staff writers, who, according to Carl Reiner , whispered ideas to colleagues rather than trying to shout to be heard above

900-418: Is booked as a guest star and arrives at the studio drunk. Kaiser nearly removes Swann from the show until Benjy intervenes, promising to keep Swann sober during the week preceding his scheduled appearance. With help from Swann's chauffeur Alfie, Benjy continuously monitors Swann. They learn much about each other, finding out that they each have family whom they want to remain out of the spotlight. Benjy's mother

960-448: Is married to Filipino former bantamweight boxer Rookie Carroca, and Benjy has many other relatives who embarrass him. Swann's young daughter Tess has been raised entirely by her mother, one of his many ex-wives. He rarely visits but secretly keeps tabs on her, unable to muster the courage to reconnect with her. During the week of rehearsals, Kaiser is threatened by gangster Karl Rojeck, a corrupt union boss who objects to being parodied on

1020-454: Is optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action. The narrative mode , which is sometimes also used as synonym for narrative technique , encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration: Thus, narration includes both who tells

1080-491: Is the same as their present. Past tense can be used regardless of whether the setting is in the reader's past, present, or future. In narratives using present tense, the events of the plot are depicted as occurring in the narrator's current moment of time. A recent example of novels narrated in the present tense are those of the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins . Present tense can also be used to narrate events in

1140-544: Is when the narrator conveys the thoughts, feelings and opinions of one or more characters. Objective point of view employs a narrator who tells a story without describing any character's thoughts, opinions, or feelings; instead, it gives an objective , unbiased point of view. While the tendency for novels (or other narrative works) is to adopt a single point of view throughout the entire novel, some authors have utilized other points of view that, for example, alternate between different first-person narrators or alternate between

1200-454: The A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin . The Home and the World , written in 1916 by Rabindranath Tagore , is another example of a book with three different point-of-view characters. In The Heroes of Olympus series, written by Rick Riordan , the point of view alternates between characters at intervals. The Harry Potter series focuses on the protagonist for much of

1260-580: The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer commissary. Brooks told him that Gorilla at Large (which starred Mitchell and Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft ) was his favorite film and asked him if he wanted to play a Jimmy Hoffa -type character in a film that he was producing at MGM. Mitchell accepted and was cast in My Favorite Year as Karl "Boss" Rojeck. My Favorite Year opened in theaters on October 1, 1982, to $ 2,400,696 (#3, behind An Officer and

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1320-427: The "Boss Hijack" sketch gets under way, Rojeck's men appear backstage and attack Kaiser. The fight spills onto the stage during the broadcast, and the audience believes it's part of the sketch. Swann and Benjy observe the melee from the balcony. Swann, dressed for a musketeer skit, grabs a rope and swings onto the stage and into action. He and Kaiser defeat the thugs together before the unwitting audience. Benjy narrates

1380-524: The 14th (1981). They also began hosting corporate videos. Benjamin's work on the Where's Poppa? pilot saw him offered the job as director on My Favorite Year (1982) starring Peter O'Toole . The film was warmly received, earning O'Toole an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and launched Benjamin as a director. Benjamin and Prentiss returned to acting with the TV movie Packin' It In (1983). He said, "If I get

1440-731: The Shrew and guest-starred on shows such as The New Breed and Dr. Kildare . Benjamin's early break came when cast in the touring company of Barefoot in the Park in 1964. He later toured in The Odd Couple with Dan Dailey . In 1966, he directed Barefoot in the Park on stage in London. Simon was pleased with Benjamin's work and cast him in his new play The Star-Spangled Girl (1966–67) directed by George Axelrod . Benjamin appeared alongside Anthony Perkins and Connie Stevens , and

1500-430: The ambitious but short-lived television series Quark . The same year he appeared in a TV film Fame , written by Arthur Miller . Benjamin played a frustrated fiancé of a woman who falls for the vampire Count Dracula in the surprise box-office smash Love at First Bite (1979) starring George Hamilton and Susan Saint James . Benjamin has hosted Saturday Night Live twice, once by himself on April 7, 1979 and

1560-710: The audience a deliberate sense of disbelief in the story or a level of suspicion or mystery as to what information is meant to be true and what is meant to be false. Unreliable narrators are usually first-person narrators; a third-person narrator may also be unreliable. An example is J.D. Salinger 's The Catcher in the Rye , in which the novel's narrator Holden Caulfield is biased, emotional and juvenile, divulging or withholding certain information deliberately and at times probably quite unreliable. Richard Benjamin Richard Samuel Benjamin (born May 22, 1938)

1620-639: The audience but not necessarily to other characters. Examples include the multiple narrators' feelings in William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying , and the character Offred's often fragmented thoughts in Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid's Tale . Irish writer James Joyce exemplifies this style in his novel Ulysses . Unreliable narration involves the use of an untrustworthy narrator. This mode may be employed to give

1680-453: The characters' behaviors. Lanser concludes that this is "an extremely complex aspect of point of view, for it encompasses the broad question of the narrator's distance or affinity to each character and event…represented in the text". The ideological point of view is not only "the most basic aspect of point of view" but also the "least accessible to formalization, for its analysis relies to a degree, on intuitive understanding". This aspect of

1740-485: The development of a larger social identity and the impact that has on the overarching narrative, as explained by Lee Haring. Haring provides an example from the Arabic folktales of One Thousand and One Nights to illustrate how framing was used to loosely connect each story to the next, where each story was enclosed within the larger narrative. Additionally, Haring draws comparisons between Thousand and One Nights and

1800-570: The din of the noisy writers' room. Brooks acknowledges that most of the film's plot is fictional. He said that Flynn's appearance on Your Show of Shows was uneventful and that none of the writers had much interaction with Flynn, socialized with him or took him home to dinner. The film was based on an original script by Norman Steinberg. My Favorite Year was the first film directed by actor Richard Benjamin , who worked as an NBC page at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in 1956. Cameron Mitchell recalled that he met Mel Brooks when both were having lunch at

1860-588: The epilogue, relating that Swann, his confidence bolstered, visited his daughter the next day, enjoying a heartfelt reunion. The girl in the Old Gold cigarette box was played (uncredited) by Lana Clarkson , who was murdered years later by Phil Spector . Gloria Stuart appears in a non-speaking role as Mrs. Horn. Executive producer Mel Brooks was a writer for the Sid Caesar variety program Your Show of Shows early in his career. Swashbuckler Errol Flynn

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1920-568: The film adaptation of Neil Simon 's The Sunshine Boys (1975), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture . He starred with Prentiss in The Norman Conquests (1975–76) on Broadway, which went for 76 performances. The couple went to Australia to make No Room to Run (1978). In Hollywood, Benjamin supported Matthau and Glenda Jackson in House Calls (1978). In 1978, he starred in

1980-601: The film of Catch-22 (1970). He was top billed in Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970) from the team of Eleanor and Frank Perry, appearing alongside Carrie Snodgress and Frank Langella . He directed his wife off-Broadway in Arf/The Great Airplane Snatch (1969), which ran for five performances. Benjamin played the lead in The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971), directed by the producer and

2040-533: The films Deconstructing Harry (1997), Keeping Up with the Steins (2006), and Henry Poole Is Here (2008). In 1998, Benjamin and Prentiss performed Power Plays on stage. Benjamin did some directing for TV – The Pentagon Wars (1998), Tourist Trap (1999), The Sports Pages (2001), and Laughter on the 23rd Floor (2001) from the play by Neil Simon. Benjamin returned to features with The Shrink Is In (2001) and Marci X (2003), in which he also had

2100-511: The genre), are not true second-person narratives, because there is an implicit narrator (in the case of the novel) or writer (in the case of the series) addressing an audience. This device of the addressed reader is a near-ubiquitous feature of the game-related medium, regardless of the wide differences in target reading ages and role-playing game system complexity. Similarly, text-based interactive fiction , such as Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork , conventionally has descriptions that address

2160-769: The narration refers to all characters with third person pronouns like he or she and never first- or second-person pronouns. Omniscient point of view is presented by a narrator with an overarching perspective, seeing and knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, including what each of the characters is thinking and feeling. The inclusion of an omniscient narrator is typical in nineteenth-century fiction including works by Charles Dickens , Leo Tolstoy and George Eliot . Some works of fiction, especially novels, employ multiple points of view, with different points of view presented in discrete sections or chapters, including The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje , The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud and

2220-526: The narrative itself. There is, for instance, a common distinction between first-person and third-person narrative, which Gérard Genette refers to as intradiegetic and extradiegetic narrative, respectively. The Russian semiotician Boris Uspenskij identifies five planes on which point of view is expressed in a narrative: spatial, temporal, psychological, phraseological and ideological. The American literary critic Susan Sniader Lanser also develops these categories. The psychological point of view focuses on

2280-538: The narrator's present. Often, these upcoming events are described such that the narrator has foreknowledge (or supposed foreknowledge) of their future, so many future-tense stories have a prophetic tone. Stream of consciousness gives the (typically first-person) narrator's perspective by attempting to replicate the thought processes—as opposed to simply the actions and spoken words—of the narrative character. Often, interior monologues and inner desires or motivations, as well as pieces of incomplete thoughts, are expressed to

2340-552: The oral storytelling observed in parts of rural Ireland , islands of the Southwest Indian Ocean and African cultures such as Madagascar . "I'll tell you what I'll do," said the smith. "I'll fix your sword for you tomorrow, if you tell me a story while I'm doing it." The speaker was an Irish storyteller in 1935, framing one story in another (O'Sullivan 75, 264). The moment recalls the Thousand and One Nights, where

2400-593: The original author of The Graduate , though it was not as successful. He acted in a comedy, The Steagle (1971), the directorial debut of designer Paul Sylbert , which was little seen. Another box-office flop was the film of Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1972), the sole directorial effort of Ernest Lehman . In 1972 Benjamin returned to Broadway with The Little Black Book , which only ran for nine performances. He then acted in two more successful films, as part of an all-star cast in The Last of Sheila (1973), from

2460-520: The other nearly a year later on April 5, 1980 with his wife Paula Prentiss . He was top billed in Scavenger Hunt (1979), an ensemble film. Benjamin had directed in theatre and was keen to do it in film. In 1979, Benjamin directed for the first time, creating a pilot for a sitcom spin-off of the film Where's Poppa? by Carl Reiner. "The pilot turned out really well," said Benjamin. "But I don't think ABC ever quite 'got' it. They never did put

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2520-432: The point of view focuses on the norms, values, beliefs and Weltanschauung (worldview) of the narrator or a character. The ideological point of view may be stated outright—what Lanser calls "explicit ideology"—or it may be embedded at "deep-structural" levels of the text and not easily identified. A first-person point of view reveals the story through an openly self-referential and participating narrator. First person creates

2580-400: The reader's past. This is known as " historical present ". This tense is more common in spontaneous conversational narratives than in written literature, though it is sometimes used in literature to give a sense of immediacy of the actions. Screenplay action is also written in the present tense. The future tense is the most rare, portraying the events of the plot as occurring some time after

2640-554: The second person. You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. Mohsin Hamid 's The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Gamebooks , including the American Choose Your Own Adventure and British Fighting Fantasy series (the two largest examples of

2700-576: The seven novels, but sometimes deviates to other characters, particularly in the opening chapters of later novels in the series, which switch from the view of the eponymous Harry to other characters (for example, the Muggle Prime Minister in Half-Blood Prince ). Examples of Limited or close third-person point of view, confined to one character's perspective, include J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace . Subjective point of view

2760-593: The show on the air... At least I could prove that I wasn't nuts, that I really had actually directed something." He directed one episode of the 1980 TV series Semi-Tough . Benjamin had supporting roles in The Last Married Couple in America (1980), How to Beat the High Co$ t of Living (1980), Witches' Brew (1980), and First Family (1980). He and Prentiss played the leads in Saturday

2820-463: The show ran for 261 performances. The success of the show led to Benjamin appearing in a television series with his wife Paula, He & She (1967–68). It ran for 26 episodes. Benjamin's first lead role in a film came with an adaptation of the Philip Roth novella, Goodbye, Columbus (1969) with Ali MacGraw . It was a critical and commercial hit. He followed it with a key support role in

2880-426: The show. Disruptive events, ambiguous between real sabotage and random accidents, are noted after Kaiser belligerently insists on performing the "Boss Hijack" sketch. Benjy clumsily and enthusiastically courts K.C. Downing, a pretty assistant to producer Leo Silver. Swann mentors Benjy, and Benjy is unable to prevent the drunken star from crashing a party at the home of K.C.'s affluent parents as they find themselves in

2940-613: The son of Samuel Roger Benjamin (1910–1997), a garment industry worker. Benjamin's uncle was vaudeville comedian Joe Browning . His family was Jewish . He attended the High School of Performing Arts and graduated from Northwestern University , where he was involved in many plays and studied in the Northwestern theater school. While there, he met future wife Paula Prentiss . Benjamin appeared on stage in The Taming of

3000-520: The story and how the story is told (for example, by using stream of consciousness or unreliable narration ). The narrator may be anonymous and unspecified, or a character appearing and participating within their own story (whether fictitious or factual), or the author themself as a character. The narrator may merely relate the story to the audience without being involved in the plot and may have varied awareness of characters' thoughts and distant events. Some stories have multiple narrators to illustrate

3060-536: The story of "The Envier and the Envied" is enclosed in the larger story told by the Second Kalandar (Burton 1: 113-39), and many stories are enclosed in others." In narrative past tense, the events of the plot occur before the narrator's present. This is by far the most common tense in which stories are expressed. This could be in the narrator's distant past or their immediate past, which for practical purposes

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3120-417: The storylines of various characters at various times, creating a story with a complex perspective. An ongoing debate has persisted regarding the nature of narrative point of view. A variety of different theoretical approaches have sought to define point of view in terms of person, perspective, voice, consciousness and focus. Narrative perspective is the position and character of the storyteller, in relation to

3180-540: The use of the second-person pronoun you . This is not a direct address to any given reader even if it purports to be, such as in the metafictional If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino . Other notable examples of second-person include the novel Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney , the short fiction of Lorrie Moore and Junot Díaz , the short story The Egg by Andy Weir and Second Thoughts by Michel Butor . Sections of N. K. Jemisin 's The Fifth Season and its sequels are also narrated in

3240-427: The user, telling the character what they are seeing and doing. This practice is also encountered occasionally in text-based segments of graphical games, such as those from Spiderweb Software , which make ample use of pop-up text boxes with character and location descriptions. Most of Charles Stross 's novel Halting State is written in second person as an allusion to this style. In the third-person narrative mode,

3300-410: The wrong apartment. The night of the show, Swann suffers a panic attack after Benjy informs him that the program is broadcast live, not filmed as Swann had expected. Swann gets drunk and flees the studio. Benjy angrily confronts him, telling Swann that he always believed that he was the swashbuckling hero whom he had watched on the silver screen and that deep down, Swann possesses those qualities. As

3360-441: Was a critical and commercial disappointment. Benjamin directed a comedy for Steven Spielberg 's company, The Money Pit (1986) with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long . He then directed a thriller Little Nikita (1988) with Sidney Poitier and River Phoenix , and a comedy with Dan Aykroyd , My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988). Benjamin did another comedy, Downtown (1990), with Anthony Edwards and Forest Whitaker . He had

3420-518: Was a guest on one episode, and his appearance inspired Dennis Palumbo's mostly fictional screenplay. The character of Swann was based on Flynn, and Benjy Stone is based on both Brooks and Woody Allen , who also wrote for Caesar. According to Brooks, the character Rookie Carroca was based on a Filipino sailor in the U.S. Navy who was his neighbor in Brooklyn. The name of the King Kaiser character

3480-431: Was directed by Richard Benjamin, and it was directed well. It was a very, very funny movie. The physical comedy in this movie is just as good as the verbal comedy. It's good from beginning to end." Michael Sragow of Rolling Stone had praise for the movie's director Richard Benjamin, and its cast, saying, "Director Richard Benjamin gets the most out of the script and the actors in almost every instance; it’s refreshing to see

3540-465: Was the 1982 comedy My Favorite Year , starring Peter O'Toole , who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. His other films as a director include City Heat (1984), The Money Pit (1986), My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), Mermaids (1990), Made in America (1993), Milk Money (1994), Mrs. Winterbourne (1996), and Marci X (2003). Benjamin was born in New York City,

3600-401: Was the only member of the cast to reprise her film role for the 1992 Broadway musical version of My Favorite Year , in which Alan Swann was portrayed by Tim Curry and Alice Miller by Andrea Martin . All three were nominated for Tony Awards for their performances, with Martin winning her category. Narration Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey

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