Narrative Theory

What Is A Narrative?

Narrative Structures:- Narrative

- Performance- Abstract

Inferred Events(what we don’t see)

Text(What we see)

Non-diegetic material

Bordwell & Thompson (1997)

Story (what happens/ the events)

Plot (how what happens is presented to the audience)

Story + Plot = Narrative

TIM O’SULLIVAN (1998)

• Argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story

• Through careful use of mediation, media tects 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

KATE DOMAILLE (2001)

• Each story can be held in 1 of 8 narrative types

Archilles – the fatal flaw that leads to destruction of the previously flawless person e.g. superman

Candide – the indomitable hero who cannot be put down e.g. James Bond

Cinderella – the dream comes true e.g. Pretty Woman

Circe – the chase/ the innocent and the victim e.g. the terminator

Faust – selling your soul to the devil may bring riches but eventually your souls belongs to him e.g. The Little Mermaid

Orpheus - the loss of something personal, the gift that is taken away, the tragedy of loss or the journey that follows the loss e.g. The Sixth Sense

Romeo & Juliet – love story e.g. Titanic

Tristan & Iseult – love triangle e.g. Casablanca

PAM COOK (1985)

The structure of the classic narrative system –• Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory

of enigma and resolution • A high degree of narrative closure• A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially

governed by spatial and temporal coherenceEquilibrium (balance) Protagonist

Antagonist

Take on narrative role – they have conflict of desires

Disruption of equilibrium (changes the story)

Quest

Resolution

Re-equilibrium

TODOROV – explores this idea too

CLAUDE LEVI STAUSS (1958)

• 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

• 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

• Use of contrast is shown within the mise-en-scene.

MICHAEL SHORE

Music videos are:• Recycled styles• Surface without substance• Simulated experience • Intro overload• Image and style scavengers• Ambivalence • Decadence • Immediate gratification • Vanity and the moment

ANDREW GOODWIN

• Argues that in music videos –“narrative relations are highly complex”

• Meaning can be created from the individual audio-viewer’s personal musical taste to sophisticated intertexuality that uses multidiscurvise phenomena (art form and knowledge) of western culture

• Many are dominated by advertising references, film pastiche and reinforce the post-modern ‘re-use’ tradition

• Our response to video depends on our knowledge of western culture.

SVEN CARLSSON

• Suggests music videos have performance, narrative, abstract

• The performer is not a performer anymore, he or she is a materialization of commercial exhibitionist

- Not longer about the music talent but about them as promotional products

• Therefore the video is about promoting the artist not the song.