2. Tzvetan Todorov
Classical Hollywood Narrative, commonly known as CHS, is the narrative structure that Tzvetan Todorov to understand the
structure of the film in the use of realistic structure. This linguistic influence was created in 1960, He suggested that a plot
or story should always start with equilibrium where there is peace and harmony where the main protagonist lives or where
other residents live without disruption. This is then influenced by an opposing force where the disruption is caused by some
sort of event which then sets a chain of events which concludes to the series of actions that is caused within the film. This is
then causes a disequilibrium due to the factor of the opposition of the force of evil moving into the area of where the main
protagonist is. This will give leads to the protagonist to investigate about the problem, throughout this time the protagonist
will find leads that clue to the final investigation and solve the plot. After the plot has been solved it is common that the plot
will feature a new equilibrium or an established equilibrium, this is most common for films as they set a “Happy Ending” but
in some cases of films they will set an establishing equilibrium to lead on to a sequel of the film. Looking at the CHN people
are reliant to understand this media text due to they follow it to understand the storyline of the plot, although some films
don’t follow the CHN the general idea of the CHN allows people to follow and understand the plot of the film, they can
identify which part of the plot they are at during the film by basing their knowledge on the CHN. For example, Halloween
doesn’t follow the CHN but has clear aspects of presenting them throughout the film which is easily indicated to the
audience, Halloween’s plot starts out with Mike Myers killing his sister and then latter the years him escaping prison to then
start his murder around the area. After he had stalked Laurie and killed off some of her friends through the progression of
the film she finally finds out the death of her friends. This then leads to the final fight and then the “Disappearance” of Mike
Myers to the sequel of Halloween 2. This typical movie follows the un-conventional CHN where it starts off as a
disequilibrium and follows it through the film. This sets no Equilibrium or New Equilibrium in the film as there was nothing to
show that the town was peaceful as Mike Myers first appearance was when Laurie puts the keys through the doors of the
eminence of Mike Myers old house. This follows to the ending where it shows Mike Myers disappearance after he was shot a
numerous of times by his doctor, this shows there is no New equilibrium as we know as the audience that he disappears
and reappears throughout the film. His final disappearance of the film shows the audience that he is still alive or we assume
this, as there are pre-sequels to the film.
3. Vladimir Propp was a Russian Critic whom looked at characters types to form a structural composure of what roles they would
play within the film. Propp evidently came up with a solution by looking at 100s of folk tales to identify character types in which
31 narrative functions revolve around. Propp identified 8 character types with the research he concluded giving the audience a
clear view of what the characters were doing and what roles they played within the film, the 8 character types are:
■ The Hero - The saviour and main protagonist, they will normally feature the most screen time
■ The Villain – The bad guy who creates evil
■ The Donor – An assistant of the hero who may give them an object or some form of magical property being to help the
Hero to succeed
■ The Helper – The helper aids the hero through the journey
■ The Princess – The Hero’s beloved or reward for the hero once saved from the villains schemes
■ The Father – The one who normally rewards the Hero
■ The Dispatcher – A guide to help the Hero beyond to his destiny
■ The False Hero – A double agent who sabotages the Hero’s pursuit rather than aiding him
Evidently these character types show a clear understanding in media text as they show the roles of the characters that act
within the film. This guides the audience to understand who the good is and the bad which most plots are based around. This
gives a more meaningful understanding of roles that the audience can identify by using Propps theory. Propp’s theory can be
adapted to almost every genre type film as it indicates different roles of each character, although many genres can avoid having
some of these character roles as they might wish not to include them or have no need for these types of character types to
understand the plot. This is a factor of the story plot as people will now understand what the plot is about, without character
types a film would be hard to understand and not be distinguished by its focus to know what is happening. For example if there
was no character types we wouldn’t know who would be the protagonist and therefore it gives the audience a question to
answer why are we following a person if they are not important in the film. Many films indicate Propp’s theory by giving them
the most screen time, many actors may star in films but they might also get some general public to fill in spaces, such as War
films are normally filled with soldiers, maybe at least 5-8 of these soldiers will be followed through the journey of the film but
we won’t see or cast any other of the thousands of actors who will participate in the main film scenes. By giving the actors the
most screen time it helps the audience to understand the characters role and their true form such as their personality and
composure towards the situation they are in.
Vladimir Propp
4. In the film Halloween 1987 we subject 3 of Propp’s character types, Halloween isn’t a
typical structured film, although the character types are easily identified. These character
types are:
■ The Hero – Laurie Strode
■ The Villain – Michael Myers
■ The Helper – Dr Loomis
Laurie Strode our main protagonist in Halloween is the girl who gets the most screen time
out of all the characters, this is easily identified as we see her throughout the film, even
when our villain Michael Myers is following her. Michael is our Villain and this is identified by
his imagery of his murders throughout the film, he also intends to only target Laurie
throughout the film and therefore it is easily seen when he follows and attempts to murder
her presenting the evil aspects through the film. Dr. Loomis is the helper as he comes to aid
Laurie in the final moments before she was about to be murdered and therefore aids the
hero for her survival.
Vladimir Propp
5. Claude Levi-StraussClaude Levi-Strauss looked at binary oppositions in terms of narrative structure. These are oppositions that stand within each
other’s way that creates Good and Evil throughout the film for the audience to see. The concept of Good and Evil is very clear, an
example would be if there was a fight scene there would be 2 options that the protagonist would take. The Good protagonist or
Hero would rather solve a fight without any disputes and rather would talk and discuss the problems that are dealt with at hand,
they will only use reasonable force as a last option. An example of this is in The Crazies, when David tries to talk to Rory who is
corrupted. David has a gun with him but he doesn’t just pull it out and shoot Rory, instead he approaches him with caution
asking Rory to put the gun down. As Rory is unresponsive this puts David in an uneasy position and gets his hand ready on his
gun. This then turns into Rory corruption to aim and David and latter falls as David shoots Rory in the safety of Ogden Marsh
and his own Life. The Evil however would rather use violence to proceed, there is no option but to stand up and shed blood for
someone who is Evil, they will show no emotion and therefore destroy the opposition that stands before them even if they were
to be a close ally. This may be used with brute force or even straight clean death to not cause a fuss for the Evil or villain
character so they can proceed on to whatever they plan. An example of this would be the Hunters in The Crazies. These people
although they aren’t the main villains they eventually become a threat to David and Judy near the end of the film. Instead of
talking and trying to restore Ogden Marsh they kill the innocent who still isn’t corrupted by the evil that spreads. They show no
mercy and they even celebrate over the death of the person they recently kill and escape in a truck to only find out their
corruption finally took over them. The Binary Oppositions help understand media text by presenting the model roles of the film.
This signifies who is the good and the bad and it ties in with the Hero and Villain. This helps the audience understand the
arrangement of themes within the film and doesn’t focus on the order of events for the plot. Binary Oppositions also point out
key points throughout the film which counter each other whether it is a natural thing that doesn’t affect the film but rather the
scenery or it’s an event changer which will affect the plot and maybe even some characters within the film. Through this we can
signify a series of binary oppositions which create a narrative such as:
■ Good/Evil
■ Earth/Space
■ Humans/Aliens
■ Past/Present
■ Normal/Strange
■ Known/Unknown
6. Throughout Halloween there are some binary oppositions that help the audience to understand the plot and the characters
within the film. These 5 examples were:
■ Good Vs Evil
Laurie Strode our main protagonist Vs Michael Myers our Villain and killer.
■ Light Vs Dark
In the daylight of Halloween Michael stalked the girls but he never committed a murder within the daylight hours, in comparison
when the film showed it was in Night Time hours Michael then started to commit the crimes and slowly kill off the characters 1
by 1.
■ Known Vs Unknown
The known and unknown can be differed on opinion, The Known are those who show their face, for example Laurie and Dr
Loomis, throughout the film we see facial expressions and fear but Michael Myers face we never see throughout the film as his
older self, he covers his face with a mask to not reveal his identity and although we see Laurie knock off Michaels mask we
never truly see the killers eyes or face.
■ Past Vs Present
Although there is not much significance in the time change, we first see Michael Myers as a young child and commit the crime of
killing his sister, this then leads onto 15 years latter to Michaels escape. With this time lapse we see Michael as a young child in
comparison to his former and older self in years to come. This doesn’t change much of the past and present as Myer’s ideal is to
still kill.
■ Normal Vs Strange
Throughout the film and how it is edited we always see Laurie walking or running throughout the film, we follow her every
footsteps and constantly keep an eye on her. Unlike Michael, although he is our killer is seems that he randomly “Teleports”
throughout the film for example when Laurie looks out the window she sees Michael but then next minute he vanishes, this is
shown throughout the film to create suspense but we never see the main character which is Laurie suddenly appear and
disappear. Another prime example would be when Dr Loomis shoots Myer’s and then looks of the balcony to reveal he is
missing, we as the audience know that several times he had just vanished out of thin air and therefore assume he is not dead
because of this.
Claude Levi-Strauss
7. Bordwell And ThompsonBordwell and Thompson quoted “A Chain Of Events In A Cause-Effect Relationship, Occurring In Time And Space” This critically
means whilst we see the narrative onscreen beholding the audiences eyes, in the time and space we don’t see key parts like time
lapses and other ideals of characters not being shown there is something happening within that space. This creates a new situation
for the audience to think about and arises to their attention there might be more behind the story between the gaps that are
presented that the audience see’s but doesn’t really think about it. Some films will hint or even show what happens between the
time gap, but others may expect the audience to perceive and clue out what happened in the time and space. This is a key media
text as this gives the audience more insight and understanding of the plot or even characters that weren’t shown to us when we
follow the main protagonist, an example would be for The Crazies. Explained by Russel if the audience heard clearly, he tried to
escape Ogden Marsh when the epidemic started to rise out and we latter see him on the bus explaining to David. Arise to this we
later see in the film the car Russel tried to escape in to get out of Ogden Marsh but failed and then was taken in a school bus to the
high school to be checked if they were virally contaminated. This breaks the laws of time and physics and the director manipulates
the audience thinking it’s a natural thing and between the time lapse and the next scene happens we don’t think about anything
apart from what will happen next in the movie. These methods allow the create pictures in the audience minds as they try to piece
the puzzles of what they don’t see in the film. There are many ways to visualise this time and space proportion, by indicating things
that happen to cause another event to happen and also events that we know about but don’t see. For example:
2 Events In The Film That Cause Another Event To Happen
■ Halloween - We see Michael Myer’s escape the mental institution as he steals Dr Loomis’s car and drives off to where he
previously lived. We next see him during when Laurie puts keys towards to Myer’s old house in a POV of Michael looking
through the door and seeing Laurie, This tells the audience that we know from Myer’s POV, Laurie is going to be his main
target.
■ The Crazies – At the start of The Crazies, we see Ogden Marsh of fire, this is near the final stages and later on in the film we
finally see the town get bombed by a nuclear bomb. Although this isn’t a clear cause of event it still leads onto the warhead to
destroy the remanence of the town which we never see again.
■ 2 Events In The Film We Know Happened But Which We Don’t See
■ Halloween – We are told that a man robbed a local store, in which we assume it is Michael Myer’s as the description of Annie’s
Father the local Sheriff tells us that all that was stolen was a mask and a knife which was presumed to be as a Halloween joke
and nothing to serious for the Sheriff to handle.
■ The Crazies – We are told about the plane crash before David and Russel investigates the lake and finds the aeroplane. We are
not shown how the plane crash landed or what happened in the plane all we know is that one landed in the water and when
David and Russel go to investigate they find the dead pilot and a clear indication of what was the contamination of Rory.
