NARRATIVE & FILM THEORYAnna De Azevedo -13 C

Is a sequence of events, known correctly as the plot

Is the way those events are put together to be presented to an audience.

STORY

NARRATIVE

NARRATIVE• Is the way those events are put together to be presented to an

audience.• That describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events

• Work of Speech• Literature Pictures• Motion Pictures• Theatre• Television• Song• Writing• Film• Photography

Different Types of Narrative in Films

Tzvetan Todorov• Tzvetan Todorov is a philosopher and

cultural critic and the author of over 20 books. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, he has lived in France since 1963.

(1991) (2000)

• Two of his famous work:

Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and New Equilibrium

Equilibrium

Disequilibrium

New Equilibrium

Sense of a balance

Sense of unbalance

Sense of a new balance

• The fictional environment begins with a state of equilibrium • It then suffers some disruption (disequilibrium)• New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative

Equilibrium Disequilibrium New Equilibrium

Sam Witwicky living as usual.

Evil Decepticon, starts the attack with his evil power.

The evil decepticon gets kill by the heroic Autobot.

Transformers

Spider ManEquilibrium Disequilibrium New Equilibrium

Peter Parker living his normal high school life

While he is in the genetics lab gets bitten by a mutant spider making him have super powers.

Norman is defeated the city is back to normal.

Claude Levi-Strauss• Claude Lévi-Strauss born in 28.11.1908 and

died 30.10.2009. He was a French anthropologist and ethnologist.

• French anthropologist whose analysis of kinship and myth gave rise to structuralism as an intellectual force.

• A conflict between two qualities or terms• A binary opposition is a pair of opposites• In structuralism, a binary opposition is seen as a

fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language.

Binary Opposition

ADULT CHILD

LOVE HATE

RICH POOR

HUMAN ALIEN

MASCULINE FEMININE

TITANIC

A long shot of the two principle characters dancing on the ‘Poor’ part

A two shot of the ‘Rich’ people on diner table

A boy and girl from differing social backgrounds meet during the ill-fated maiden voyage of RMS Titanic.

The Notebook

A mid shot of the two principle characters kissing next to the simple car. The ‘Poor’ part

A two shot of the ‘Rich’ people dancing

A poor and passionate young man falls in love with a rich young woman and gives her a sense of freedom. They soon are separated by their social differences.

Vladimir Propp• Vladimir Propp was a Russian and Soviet

formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.

• Breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units, or narratives, Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures.

A Russian folk tales

• The villain (struggles against the hero)• The donor (prepares the hero or gives the hero

some magical object)• The (magical) helper (helps the hero in the

quest)• The princess (person the hero marries, often

sought for during the narrative)• Her father• The dispatcher (character who makes the lack

known and sends the hero off)• The hero or victim/seeker hero, reacts to the

donor, weds the princess

Character Film Theory

Erving Goffman• Erving Goffman was a Canadian-born sociologist and writer.• Goffman was born in 1922 in Mannville, Alberta, Canada to

parents Max Goffman, and his wife, Ann.

• Goffman's greatest contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction in the form of dramaturgical perspective that began with his 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.