Research: Narrative Theory - Mrs.Begum

Research: Narrative Theory - Mrs.Begum

What is narrative and why is it important to audiences

 Narrative is the outline to the storyline that in being told in a film or a book.

Creating meaning in texts: what four elements allows the audience to find meaning

 The four elements that allow the audience to find meaning are:

• Connotation -  "an idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning." In film this would that an objects actual/ main meaning or reason this is usually shown in the props used within the film for example in thriller ( image below: 'Hannibal') a knife is a conventional weapon, the connotation of the knife would be kitchen use, for example cutting food which is what viewers would usually use it for.

• Denotation -  The Denotation however expands the idea of the objects primary use and channels it to what it could be used as specific to the genre of that film like in the picture above we see the man looking like he's using the knife more as a weapon, this point is also backed up because of the blood stains on his white shirt.

• Characters - The characters are the most important factor to help the audience find meaning, this is because the audience will be more engaged with them more than anything because they are the main focus in any story.

• structure - The narrative has to have a structure to the film otherwise the audience will very quickly lose interest in the film the most basic structure you could have in a story is beginning middle and end some directors however cleverly mix this up to engage the audience even more. An example of the would be 'inception' the film starts showing a scene at the end and then goes back to the beginning capturing the viewers attention and making them want to watch the film to the very end to actually find out how the last scene came to be. 

However this is a hard technique to pull off and not all directors are as successful, one film that wasn't so good with this was 'Momento' the narrative itself was clever and a good reason to skip back and fourth and replay scenes but the poor structure lead to alot of peopkle losing interest before an actual point in the storyline was made it was also very hard to keep up with at times and nobody would enjoy trying to catch up on something while the film is getting further into the storyline.

Propp (characters): who was he and what did he say? Refer to examples Propp's characters is a theory about charaters in genres that would also apply to thriller (because it is a genre). His theory is that characters within narratives tend to be the same due to the genre being the same meaning that they would go through the same/ similar trials and tribulations. An example of this could be the fairytale genre if we compare two films together 'Disney's Sleeping Beauty' and 'DreamWork's Shrek' 2 different stories with different Prducers and directors however they are in the same genre and therefore have certain characters that play the same roles.

Todorov ( eq=diseq=new eq): who was he and what did he say? Refer to examples 
Todorov's theory was about structure. He believed that every narrative had a start a middle and end. Each stage has a different scenario he called them:
 
Equilibrium (the beginning) - Normal/ Peaceful stage
When everything is at peace and our protagonist has no rival to face.


Disequilibrium (the middle) - Phase of disruption/ a problem
The problem arises and the protagonist finds out what he has to face, the peace has been disturbed.




New equilibrium - (the ending) - A solution has been found and new peace is found
The protagonist finds the strength to over throw the antagonist and win the battle of good vs. evil (final stand off). Once this has happens a solution is found for a new peace or peace is once again restored. 

These pieces of structure can be changed around and varied at the directors own risk to engage the audience. (see structure sub-heading). 

Aristotle (themes and emotions):who was he and what did he say? Refer to examples

Aristotle believed that narrative had a different structure which was more based on theme and the audiences emotions towards a character to get the best out of the narrative. here is a graph of his structure within narrative (bottom). This creates good narrative because we actually get the time to get to know the theme of the narrative and connect emotionally with our protagonist to gain more enjoyment out of the movie or story.

 

Barthes (semiotics):  who was he and what did he say? Refer to examples

What narrative structure do thrillers tend to take and why?

Thrillers happen to take a mixture in structure when it comes to the narrative because thriller is meant to make you feel a mixture of emotions so for example for a thriller to be remotely interesting you must have similar character roles to other classic thrillers but make it your own (Propp's Theory) you must also have a basic structure within the narrative for the story to be thrilling/ eq-diseq-new eq (Todorov's Theory) and you must attach the viewer to the character emotionally so that the audience if anything was to happen to the character would be more engaged and amped up in a action scene involving the protagonist because they don't want anything to happen to them. This could also make them prone to any jumps and scares in the scene because they don't want the character to die and in a sense they care about the character (Aristotle).  

Conclusion: what narrative theory/ies will you use in your thriller and why?
Because my thriller is only to minutes and that doesn't give me a lot of time to mix any theories together, I would go for Aristotle's theory and use it on an opening character to create affect on the audience because for example I could attach emotion/ empathy towards one character and they would be able to play a pivotal role in the rest of the film. Through empathy and then tragedy you could make them the protagonist, antagonist, the victim or even a misunderstood hero. It would also give me enough time to strike/thrill the audience with such little time because they care for the character.