G235: Critical Perspectives in
Media
Theoretical Evaluation of
Production - Question 1(b)
Narrative
Aims/Objectives
To identify what narrative is
• To introduce the key narrative
theorists.
• To have a basic understanding of how to
evaluate your coursework against key
narrative theory.
Narrative
In media terms, narrative is the /organisation given to a series of facts. The
human mind needs narrative to make sense of things. We connect events and
make interpretations based on those connections. In everything we seek a
beginning, a middle and an end. We understand and construct meaning using our
experience of reality and of previous texts. Each text becomes part of the
previous and the next through its relationship with the audience.
Successful stories require actions which change the lives of the characters in the
story. They also contain some sort of resolution, where that change is registered,
and which creates a new equilibrium for the characters involved.
When unpacking a narrative in order to find its meaning there are a series of
codes and conventions that need to be considered. When we look at a narrative
we examine the conventions of:
1.Genre
2.Character
3.Form
4.Time
We use knowledge of these conventions to help us interpret the text. In
particular, time is something we understand as a convention- narratives
within films do not take place in real time but they tend to telescope out and
what i mean by that is the slow motion shot which replays a winning goal or
event or they they telescope in in which for example Forrest Gump manage
to condense a whole lifetime of a character into a 2 hour film. Therefore we
consider “the time of the thing told and how long it takes to tell the story”
Christian Metz.
A narrative consists of a Fabula ( the chronological order in which events occurred)
and a Syuzhet (the order in which they are related or experienced)
Fabula
The fabula of a text is the raw order in which events occurred, while sujet is defined
as the way in which these events are depicted and reshaped in their emplotment.
Since Aristotle (350 BCE, 1450b25) narrative plots are supposed to have a
beginning, middle, and end. For example: the film Citizen Kane starts with the
death of the main character, and then tells his life through flashbacks interspersed
with a journalist's present-time investigation of Kane's life. This is often achieved in
film and novels via flashbacks or flash-forwards.
Its only because we are used to reading narratives from a very early age and are
able to compare texts with others that we understand these conventions. A narrative
in its most basic sense is a series of events, but in order to construct meaning from
the narrative those events must be linked somehow.
Bathes Codes
Roland Barthez describes text as:
‘a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible;
we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively
declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read,
they are indeterminable.. the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural
text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language”
What he is basically saying is that a text is like a tangled ball of threads which needs
unravelling so we can separate out the colours. Once we start to unravel a text, we
encounter an absolute plurality (large number) of potential meanings. We can start by
looking at a narrative in one way, from one viewpoint, bringing to bear one set of
previous experience, and create one meaning for that text. You can continue by
unravelling the narrative from a different angle by pulling a different thread if you like
and create a entirely different meaning, and so on. An infinite number of times. If you
wanted to.
Narrative
• Tim O’Sullivan (1998) argues that all
media texts tell us some kind of story.
•Media texts offer a way of telling stories
about ourselves – not usually our own
personal stories, but the story of us as a
culture or set of cultures.
• Narrative theory sets out to show that what
we experience when we ‘read’ a story is to
understand a particular set of constructions,
or conventions, and that it is important to
be aware of how these constructions are put
together.
3 important words…
Narrative: The structure of a story.
Diegesis: The fictional space and time implied by
the narrative – the world in which the story takes
place.
Verisimilitude: Literally – the quality of
appearing to be real or true. For a story to
engage us it must appear to be real to us as
we watch it (the diegetic effect). The story
must therefore have verisimilitude –
following the rules of continuity, temporal
and spacial coherence.
The Structure Of The Classic Narrative
According to Pam Cook (1985), the standard Hollywood
narrative structure should have:
1.Linearity of cause and effect within an
overall trajectory of enigma resolution.
basically it means that stories should have a beginning, a middle and an end (linearity), in
which something happens (cause and effect), causing a series of problems (enigmas)
which to be solved (resolution).
2. A high degree of narrative closure.
3. A fictional world that contains
verisimilitude especially governed
by spatial and temporal coherence.
Continuity editing is the predominant style of editing in narrative cinema and
television. The purpose of continuity editing is to smooth over the inherent
discontinuity of the editing process and to establish a logical coherence between
shots. In most films, logical coherence is achieved by cutting to continuity, which
emphasizes smooth transition of time and space.
Tzvetan Todorov (1977)
Bulgarian structural linguist.
He was interested in the way language is
ordered to infer particular meanings and has
been very influential in the field of narrative
theory.
Tzvetan Todorov
1. Stage 1: A point of stable equilibrium, where
everything is satisfied, calm and normal.
2. Stage 2: This stability is disrupted by some kind of
force, which creates a state of disequilibrium.
3. Stage 3: Recognition that a disruption has taken
place.
4. Stage 4: It is only possible to re-create equilibrium
through action directed against the disruption.
5. Stage 5: Restoration of a new state of equilibrium.
The consequences of the reaction is to change the
world of the narrative and/or the characters so that
the final state of equilibrium in not the same as the
initial state.
Roland Barthes (1977)
Establishment of plot
or theme. This is then
followed by the development
of the problem, an enigma,
an increase in tension.
Finally comes the resolution
of the plot.
Such narratives can be unambiguous and
linear.
According to Kate Domaille (2001) every story
ever told can be fitted into one of eight
narrative types. Each of these narrative types
has a source, an original story upon which the
others are based. These stories are as follows:
1. Cinderella:
The dream comes
true, e.g. Pretty
Woman.
2. Achilles: The fatal flaw
that leads to the destruction
of the previously flawless,
or almost flawless, person,
e.g. Superman, Fatal Attraction.
3. Candide:
indomitable hero
who cannot be put
down, e.g. Indiana
Jones, James Bond,
Rocky etc.
4. Circe: The Chase,
the spider and the fly,
the innocent and the
victim e.g. The
Terminator.
5. Faust: Selling your
soul to the devil may bring
riches but eventually your
soul belongs to him, e.g.
Devil’s Advocate,and
Wall Street.
6. Orpheus:
The loss of something personal, the gift
that is taken away, the tragedy of loss or
the journey which follows the loss, e.g.
The Sixth Sense, Born On the Fourth Of July.
7. Romeo And Juliet:
The love story, e.g.
Titanic.
8.Tristan and Iseult: The love triangle. Man
loves woman…unfortunately one or both of
them are already spoken for, or a third party
intervenes, e.g. Casablanca and Eclipse.
The Russian theorist Vladimir Propp (1928)
studied the narrative structure of Russian
Folk Tales.
Propp concluded that regardless of the
individual differences in terms of plot,
characters and settings, such narratives
would share common structural features.
He also concluded that all the characters could be
resolved into only seven character types in the 100 tales
he analyzed:
1. The villain — struggles against the hero.
2. The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some
magical object.
3. The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
4. The princess and her father — gives the task to the
hero,identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought
for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the
princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
5. The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and
sends the hero off.
6. The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds
the princess.
7. [False hero] — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to
marry the princess.
When brought together and broken down into
their constitute parts these myths can be used
to formulate a universal monomyth that is
essentially the condensed, basic hero narrative
that forms the basis for every myth and legend
in the world and is, therefore, common to all
cultures.
Both George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg
were heavily influenced by Campbell’s
theories and Star Wars conforms to
Campbell’s model of the Monomyth almost
exactly.
1. Ordinary World – the ordered world that the hero will choose (or
be forced) to abandon.
2. Call To Adventure – a problem or challenge arises.
3. Refusal Of The Call – fear or reluctance may strike the hero.
4. Meeting With The Mentor – the mentor is a key character.
5. Crossing The First Threshold – the hero commits to the
adventure.
6. Test, Allies, Enemies – the hero must learn the rules that will
govern his quest.
7. Approach To The Innermost Cave – the most dangerous
confrontation yet, perhaps the location of the treasure, or the object
of the quest.
8. Ordeal – the hero must face his fear or mortal enemy who will
seem more powerful. Mental or physical torture may occur.
9. Reward (Seizing The Sword) – the hero can celebrate the victory.
10.The Road Back – vengeful forces controlled by the villain are
unleashed.
11.Resurrection – perhaps a final confrontation with death.
12.Return With The Elixir – return to the ordinary world with some
wisdom, knowledge or something else gained from the adventure.
These structures are not unique to film but also
advertising and news stories.
In fact the structures presented are an integral
part of the majority of both western and
eastern cultures - details how narrative works
in society to inform the audience of events,
people, places through mediated ideologies
within them.
Narratives have a common
structure!
Jonathan Culler (2001) describes
narratology as comprising many strands
“implicitly united in the recognition that
narrative theory requires a distinction
between story, a sequence of actions or
events conceived as independent of their
manifestation in discourse, and
discourse, the discursive presentation or
narration of events.”
Structure is different to theme – narrative
presents the form in which the theme is
mediated/discussed.
Claude Lèvi-Strauss (1958) his ideas about
narrative amount to the fact that he believed all
stories operated to certain clear Binary
Opposites e.g. good vs. evil, black vs. white,
rich vs. poor etc.
The importance of these ideas is that essentially a
complicated world is reduced to a simple either/or
structure. Things are either right or wrong, good or
bad. There is no in between.
This structure has ideological implications, if, for
example, you want to show that the hero was not
wholly correct in what they did, and the villains
weren’t always bad. (Postmodernism?)
Levi-Strauss also looked deeper into the
way that narrative were arranged in terms
of themes within that were ultimately
always systematic oppositions.
The order of events can be called the
syntagmatic structure of a narrative, but
Levi-Strauss was more concerned with the
deeper of paradigmatic arrangement of
themes.
There is a choice of elements (paradigms)
and they are arranged/dealt with in a
particular way (syntagms).
Homework
“Media texts rely on cultural experiences in
order for audiences to easily make sense of
narratives”. Explain how you used conventional
and / or experimental narrative approaches in
one of your production pieces.
NB: Either your trailer or your magazine from AS
Format for writing essay
para 1 Intro: which of your projects are you going to write about? briefly
describe it
para 2: what are some of the key features of the concept you are being
asked to apply? maybe outline two of the theories/ideas of particular
writers briefly
para 3; start to apply the concept, making close reference to your
production to show how the concept is evident in it
para 4: try to show ways in which ideas work in relation to your
production and also ways in which those ideas might not apply/could be
challenged
para 5; conclusion
Again remember you only have 30 minutes and that you really need to
analyse the finished production, rather than tell the marker how you
made it
Theorists for narrative.
Tzetvan Todorov – Argues that narratives always have a structure of
Equilibrium/ Disequilibrium/ New equilibrium
Story versus plot
Claude Levi-Strauss – Argues that human cultural understanding is based
upon a system of binary oppposites (good/ bad; black/ white; male/ female…).
Narratologists have taken this theory and applied it to narrative, arguing that
binary opposition forms a fundamental way of understanding narrative.
Roland Barthes: Enigma code; Action code. Also, Open and Closed texts.
Vladimir Propp – argued that narratives always have certain character types
who perform certain actions. Characters are agents of action.
Pam Cook argues that the Hollywood narrative structure includes: “linearity of
cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution” and “a high
degree of narrative closure”