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processes, even those such as The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man which are not ostensibly
categorizable as detective fiction.
With regard to causality, Bordwell notes that film-makers can condition the ability of
viewers to formulate hypotheses and narrative expectations by using a suppressive narrative,
or by using stories characterized by a persistence of causal gaps. He terms 'retardation' the
principle by which a narrative delays 'the revelation of some information', (Bordwell, 1995:
54-56). Bordwell categorizes narrative expositions into different types: preliminary
expositions can occur at the beginning of films, Bordwell citing Hitchcock's Rear Window
(1954) as an example; delayed expositions, which occur later in films; or concentrated
expositions may be deployed within a detailed self-contained summary at a certain point in
the film, (Bordwell, 1995: 56). Each exposition triggers 'different inferential activities on the
part of the spectator'; for example, a delayed exposition arouses curiosity about prior events
and can lead spectators to suspend their hypotheses about the prior and future developments
of events (Bordwell, 1995: 56). This occurs in The Spider's Stratagem and Last Tango in
Paris, given the lack of biographical information about the protagonists for viewers to digest.
Bordwell examines how suppressive narratives can be obtained by manipulating time,
space, and narrative logic, and in particular how the manipulation of time plays a crucial role
in this process, He indicates the use of flashback, flash-forward, dilatation and reduction -
either via compression or ellipsis as devices that are used to manipulate and re-arrange the
fabula (Bordwell, 1995: 77). In tandem with other cognitive film research, for example
scholarship such as Grodal's which also considers the emotional implications of different
narrative structures, further light can be shed on the viewing experience elicited by films such
as Bertolucci's The Conformist with their proliferation of flashbacks, an effect which reduces
the future goal-orientation of the narrative and also conditions the viewer's
affective/cognitive engagement with the developing action. As an example of time
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