1.  I'd extend a comment of Jeremy Butler's and note that one way of
combining/balancing narrative (such as a linear story) and spectacle (a
set of images meant more for visual pleasure) is what might be called a
musical structure.  The story runs along then stops while the characters
sing and dance a bit and then picks back up until the next song.  It
would be a mistake to call the songs digressions or irrelevancies since
they supply more detailed examinations of feelings, motivations or what
have you.  Take out the songs and you generally have nothing of
interest.  This same structure is often used for horror films (stop to
gawk at the monster or the sfx involved in opening up the human body) or
action films (pause while Clint Eastwood or Chow Yun-Fat wastes some bad
guys) and reaches some kind of extreme in porn where the narrative
becomes a mere appendage to the digressions.  (And is it just my
imagination or do films that focus primarily on some sort of excitement
in viewing over narrative and characterization have a lower cultural
standing?)  Which leads to:
 
2.  There's no one way to see a film.  Part of the interest in a Star
Wars or Die Hard film is precisely its spectacle.  For Jurassic Park,
that's about all there is; the film is little more than a two-hour
computer advertisement but it's got that gawk factor pumped to the max
(deliberately ironic use of degraded advertising language, nudge nudge).
 Films that jettison narrative entirely get labelled avant-garde and
don't appear at your local (or even distant) multiplex but many
filmmakers find ways to enjoy spectacles while maintaining some kind of
narrative.  Witness von Sternberg's infamous (apocryphal?) comment that
he didn't care whether his films were projected upside down.  So it's
not a question of narrative *versus* spectacle any more than tacos
versus stirfryed eggplant.  Different things, different pleasures.
 
Lang Thompson
 
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