Brief summary of Narrative Theories
Narratology or narrative theory is the study of the way stories are structured. All media products tell stories in some way – some are more obviously telling stories such as TV dramas or the stories in newspapers. Others are less obvious, such as the stories used in advertising products or on the front page of a magazine.
Narrative styles
Linear (chronological)
Non-linear
Cyclical (Circular)
Todorov studied classic fairy tales and stories.
Through his study, he discovered that narratives moved forward in chronological order with one action following after another. In other words, they have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Todorov also suggested that the characters in the narrative would be changed in some way through the course of the story and that this would be evident by the resolution.
Non-linear narratives and cyclical narratives have a structure that is not straightforward.
A non-linear narrative is a narrative technique in which the storyline is told out of chronological order. This is used in the film Brick in which the film opened with (spoiler!!) the protagonist finding the dead body of her ex-girlfriend. The movie was then brought back to the present and progressed to how Brendan (protagonist) ended up finding her ex-girlfriend's dead body under a tunnel.
Meanwhile, a cyclical narrative may begin at the end of the story and work its way back to the origins of the narrative. Circular narratives are often only understood clearly by the audience at the end of a film.
Non-traditional narrative techniques are an inventive way to shake things up for the audience. Rather than telling what happened in the proper order, mixing up plot elements generates a little bit of initial confusion (hopefully not too much!) and curiosity that makes the audience hooked on finishing the movie.
Levi Strauss, a French anthropologist in the 1900s, studied myths of tribal cultures and examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs, and myths of cultures. This study is what the theory of what we now call "binary opposites".
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In the movie "Black Swan", the characters of the Swan Queen (Odette) and the Black Swan (Odile)represent a pair of binary opposites.
| The Black swan represents evil and deception while the Swan Queen represents good and purity. |
Derrida responded to Levi-Strauss by saying structuralism has been founded upon the 'logic' of binary oppositions, such as mind/body, rational/emotional, freedom/determinism, man/woman, nature/culture, and one term is always given a more privileged position than its opposite, in a way typical of ideologies.
He came up with 'deconstruction" which is a strategy of critical questioning directed towards exposing unquestionable metaphysical assumptions and internal contradictions in philosophical and literary language. Deconstruction often involves a way of reading that concerns itself with decentering—with unmasking the problematic nature of all centers. It rejects the word “analysis” or “interpretation” as well as any assumption of texts.
“That is what deconstruction is made of: not the mixture but the tension between memory, fidelity, the preservation of something that has been given to us, and, at the same time, heterogeneity, something absolutely new, and a break.”
‒ Jacques Derrida.
Barthes identifies five different kinds of semiotic elements that are common to all texts. He gathers these signifiers into five codes: Hermeneutic, Proairetic, Semantic, Symbolic, and Cultural.
Vladimir Propp was a folklorist researcher interested in the relationship between characters and narrative. Propp argued that stories are character-driven and that plots develop from the decisions and actions of characters and how they function in a story.
According to him. characters could be classified into certain roles that progress a story.
Movie Analysis - Dune (2021)
Title: Dune
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Production: Legendary Pictures
Year of Release: 2021
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem
The film opens with an establishing, ultrawide shot of the desert planet "Arrakis". The establishing shot and the usage of deep focus highlights how the place is foreign and unknown to colonizers. The utilization of a bird's eye view shot of the spacecraft helps show scaling. A scene shot in over the shoulder shot of Harokonnen implies that he is powerful compared to the other people (troops) below his view. The film uses slow zooming repeatedly and this creates a feeling of unease and tension, furthermore, it also helps with scaling. Several theories can be observed in the opening such as the building of Enigma (Barthes) with how they presented the establishing shot and Levis-Strauss' theory of binary opposites. This is implied through the symbolic codes on the clothes of Harkonnen and Fremen (good-evil).
Overall, they did a really good job with Mise en Scene. An example is with their acting, they used expressive eye gazes n the scene wherein Paul and his mom were having breakfast. They also added reverse-counter shots to emphasize that even though Paul is younger, he has the capacity to control people around him. The costume and set were all Ancient architecture styles, this was used to show how Arrakis and Caladan are different from Earth's modern era. A heavy symbolic code is implied on spices. Spices are only available in Planet Arrakis, and because it is the most valuable thing in their universe, colonizers take great interest in taking over Arrakis.
The opening of Dune starts with the voice of (Zendaya) Chani narrating. The voice narration gives a feeling of connection with the audience because it leaves an impact as it triggers emotion with how she narrates the story of Arrakis and the Freman. Upon the introduction of Paul's character, the diegetic sound of the rain is heard. This was used to imply that despite Caladan being different from the non-fictional world, they still share some similarities. In the breakfast scene of Paul and his mom, a wind chi,e sound is heard, giving an eerie and tensed feeling in the scene. Voice delay and layering is also used to illustrate and highlight Paul'ssupernatural power of mind control--in comparison to his normal voice which is raspy and husky when he's not using his power.
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