When we talk about narrative theories, it is not an understatement to say that all pieces of film are made keeping those theories in made. Mostly because the vast amount of theories available to consult and mostly because of the usefulness and impact created when a film-maker consults these theories.
A small example would be the 'Chekov's Gun theory', Chekhov's Gun is the term for any first inconsequential detail that later on in the plot proves to be crucial. According to the Chekhov's Gun storytelling rule, if the viewer is drawn to a particular aspect in great detail, it should somehow be relevant to the larger plot since, hypothetically, if the writer hadn't included it, it wouldn't be significant.
This was a small example, however there are many numerous other examples along with many other theorists which will be mentioned in this blog
Tzvetan Todorov was a Bulgarian-French literary theorist and intellectual historian whose interests in several publications included
everything from science fiction and fantasy to the ethical ramifications of colonialism, fanaticism, and the Holocaust.
Todorov recognised that tales have underlying structures. He maintained that all narratives start in a state of "equilibrium," or when all the forces are balanced. A issue interferes with this and creates "disequilibrium." After that, other things happen until a "new equilibrium" is reached.
Nowadays, a lot of movies just go for the problem and the disequilibrium without bothering to build up the usual world to be disrupted by a crisis . There will always be a sense of the past in the movie, though, and the characters will always have something to go back to if they can only solve the issue.
This could be applied to Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould's Genre-defining blockbuster tv show 'Breaking Bad'. At the start of the show, the protagonist, Walter white is seemingly leading a very normal and cliche life of a high school chemistry teacher, this changes due to his cancer diagnosis, in this case, the cancer has caused disequilibrium.
However many would argue that the show never got an ending which could be considered as an ending which reinstated equilibrium in the world of breaking bad , but Walter White dying peacefully after committing several crimes and after ruining several relationships was almost as if he atoned for his sins by not even trying to survive in the end.
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Soviet folklorist and academic who examined the fundamental construction of Russian folk stories to determine its most basic irreducible structural components.
When Propp examined folk stories, he discovered certain structural similarities. Functions that advance the plot and 7 character roles were discovered by him.
The functions included plot points with the likes of
The hero suffering a loss (eg, death of love interest)
The villain being punished
The hero discovering the villain's weakness etc
The seven character parts may possibly be action roles as they differ from the kinds of roles that are listed in the cast. In a movie or play, one character may take on a variety of personas or actions. As follows:
The villain
The hero
The donor
The helper
The princess
Her father
The false hero
Propp's theory may seem definite and accurate however it can be considered as reductionist and something that is only applicable on folklore and plays.
Another theorist was Roland Barthes. According to Roland Barthes, who split the action of a narrative into five basic codes that are present in all storytelling, including music
narrative videos, he felt that texts might be open-ended or close-ended. Roland Barthes possessed rigid categorical codes. He laid massive emphasis on the usage of enigma codes.
All writings share five different types of semiotic components, according to Barthes. These signifiers are collected by him into five different codes: hermeneutic, proairetic, semantic, symbolic, and cultural.
A notion of "binary opposites" was put out by French anthropologist Levi Strauss in the 1900s. According to this idea, most media narratives, including those in novels and movies, have key characters who are in opposition to one another. These polar contrasts serve to establish contrast, advance the story, and deepen the storyline.
For example, in a superhero film this may be good vs. evil, in a horror film this could be human vs. supernatural, the possibilities are endless.
Binary opposites have the drawback of frequently fostering unfavourable prejudices. Gender stereotypes may portray a guy as "powerful" and a woman as the "damsel in distress" if the binary opposite was, for instance, a man and a woman. He defined a binary opposite as the precise opposite of a term. Black and white are two examples of binary opposites. Strauss also came to the conclusion that all words are only representations of artificial notions, therefore each binary opposition is merely a potrait of society's beliefs.
"Language is a type of human reason, which has its own underlying logic of which man knows nothing," declared Levi Strauss himself once. All humans, according to Strauss, are capable of distinguishing between binary pairings.
The three main stages of the archetypal heroic journey, according to Joseph Campbell,
are departure,
initiation,
and return.
There are several sub-levels within these three stages. This hypothesis may be thought of as being rather simple.
To truly depict an epic adventure, a novel need not cover all of the stages or present them in a precise chronological order. Again, this theory can be considered as genre and narrative specific as it only entertains stories involving a journey or a hero and villian.
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