NARRATIVE
SMST 101 The Moving Image
Lecture 7
Sunday, 3 May 2009

Sunday, 3 May 2009

Sunday, 3 May 2009

Sunday, 3 May 2009

Sunday, 3 May 2009

ANTICIPATION IS ITSELF PART
OF THE NARRATIVE FORM
• As viewers we are actively involved in making sense of films
• Film makers use and play on this
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• At their core, stories are all the same
Sunday, 3 May 2009

Hero/Heroine
Problem Hero/Heroine’s Return to
(disruption) quest normality
Agent of Change
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• Narrative = a chain of events in cause-effect
relationship occurring in time.
• Events in a narrative must relate causally and occur
in time.
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NARRATIVE
• Plot - what happens
• Theme - what the story is about
• Narration - how the story is told
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STORY PLOT
• all elements of a • all
the events visibly and
narrative - both those audibly presented in
explicitly presented and the film
that which the viewer
• theorder of events in
infers
the film
• chronological
• mayor may not be
chronological
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THE VIEWER VIEWS THE PLOT
TO MAKE THE STORY
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1. crime conceived
2. crime planned
3. crime committed
STORY
4. crime discovered
5. detective investigates
PLOT
6. detective reveals 1, 2, 3
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Sunday, 3 May 2009

Sunday, 3 May 2009

Film TV
Audienceʼs full attention and interest Often distracted - doing other things
Audience present from beginning Audience comes and goes - less
formal
Everything in film is new and totally Prior knowledge about characters,
unfamiliar and confusing settings, expectations
No expectations, everything must be
carefully explained if narrative is to
make sense
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FILM MAKERS EXPECT THEIR
AUDIENCE TO BE CURIOUS
AND EXPECTANT, ANXIOUS
TO FIND OUT THE
SOLUTIONS TO THE
PROBLEMS THE CHARACTERS
FACE
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Sunday, 3 May 2009

RANGE OF INFORMATION
Unrestricted Restricted
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DEPTH OF INFORMATION
• Objectivity
• Subjectivity
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MOTIVATION
• Narrative is a human construct
• We expect that any one element in a film will have some
logical justification for being there
• the Justification (why) for this being there is the motivation
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CAUSE AND EFFECT
• characters cause events within the narrative to occur. their
character traits are carefully developed in order to ensure that
there will be adequate material to stimulate the narrative.
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PARALLELISM
• running two stories or motifs side by side for the purpose of
comparision
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Mandella
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CONFLICT
• Inner
• Relational
• Societal
• Situational
• Cosmic
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CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD
CINEMA
• Individual characters are seen as causal agents
• Actions result from primarily psychological causes
• Protagonist has desire - encounters conflict from antagonist -
change results
• Time is subordinated to cause and effect chain
• Motivation of all elements will strive to be as clear and
complete as possible
Sunday, 3 May 2009