Puzzled Hollywood and the Return of Complex Films

Complex forms of film narration, almost two decades after their popularization in the mid-1990s, make now a come-back through Hollywood productions. This chapter discusses the return of complex films and studies their storytelling modes from the scope of a broader epistemological paradigm shift towards the complexity of systems. The author suggests that this different perspective lets us address complex films not as deviant and alternative narratives, but as complex systems in their own right. Certain processes of complexity such as self-reference and pattern formation are highlighted as principles of organization of the complex filmic forms, and at the same time as new directions for film analysis and criticism