Mike Flanagan's The Fall of the House of Usher is the perfect story to house the technique of non-linear storytelling.
The Big Picture Since Pulp Fiction pushed non-linear narratives into mainstream media in the '90s, the technique seems to have fallen out of favor, largely due to its status of being gimmicky at times. The Fall of the House of Usher, however, was the perfect story to house this technique. Director Mike Flanagan employs a three-pronged approach to the narrative's timeline, weaving each period seamlessly around each other to create a cohesive tale drenched in suspense.
As such, by operating on three different timelines, the series perfectly evokes a sense of confusion and distrust in us. Played hauntingly by Bruce Greenwood in the framing narrative, Roderick Usher is racked by grotesque hallucinations of his disfigured children. As he recounts the misfortune and sin that plague his history, the show slips into different timelines, presenting events as told by him.
Not only would the storyline suffer in a chronological telling of the story, but the complexity of the characters would ring hollow. Watching events in different timelines play out side-by-side increases how dynamic the characters themselves are, instead of having a rush of character development in one section of the story. This is particularly true with Roderick's character.
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