Diegesis vs. Mimesis

Showing vs. Telling: An Ancient Distinction 🏛️

The concepts of mimesis and diegesis originate in ancient Greek philosophy, particularly in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, and represent the two foundational ways a story can be conveyed.

• Mimesis (Showing): This refers to the direct imitation or representation of an action. The story unfolds before the audience’s eyes as if it were happening in the present. In a play, for example, the actors show the audience the story through their actions and dialogue. This is the primary mode of most mainstream narrative cinema.
• Diegesis (Telling): This refers to the narration of a story by a storyteller. The audience is one step removed from the action and is explicitly being told about events by a narrator. A novelist writing ‘he walked across the room’ is a form of diegesis.

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The ‘Diegetic World’ in Film Analysis

While cinema is a predominantly mimetic medium (it shows us events), it also incorporates diegetic elements (like a voice-over narrator). However, in modern film theory, the term diegesis has evolved to take on a more specific and crucial meaning: it refers to the total world of the story itself.

The ‘diegetic world’ is the reality that the characters in the film inhabit. It includes all the characters, locations, events, and sounds that are part of their fictional reality. This leads to the most important analytical distinction derived from the term:

Type of Sound	Definition	Examples
Diegetic Sound	Sound that has a source within the story world. The characters can hear this sound.	Dialogue, footsteps, a car horn, music from a radio playing in the scene.
Non-Diegetic Sound	Sound that is outside of the story world and is for the audience’s benefit only. The characters cannot hear this sound.	The film’s musical score, a third-person narrator’s voice-over, sound effects added for dramatic emphasis.

Understanding the boundary between the diegetic and the non-diegetic is a fundamental skill in film analysis, as it reveals how filmmakers construct the story world and guide the audience’s emotional and intellectual response.