Narrative Analysis

A narrative is any account that connects events, it refers to any constructed story, or the way a story is ‘built’. Narrative can be found everywhere in everyday life as we are always exposed to stories through speech, writing, film, visual arts, theatre and that’s just a few examples. It seems that understanding narrative, or the understanding that narrative gives us, is a fundamental part of being human. There are many theorists that look into the way that narrative works and is applied to the world of cinema.

One of these theorists is Tzvetan Todorov who argued that the same basic structure of narrative can be found in the majority of stories out there. He believed that stories always begin with an equilibrium, which is a state of balance, this is followed by the disruption of the equilibrium by an outsider/intruder which is often recognised by the central characters. This is then followed by an attempt to solve the problem which, when solved, leads to a new equilibrium i.e. a new state of balance.

A simple way to look at this is that the stories have a beginning, middle and an end. However, Todorov went beyond just the simple explanation of narrative and went further to identify the five stages of stories. Starting off with the equilibrium, in the horror genre, it is usually represented by a middle class family, group of friends or a heterosexual couple. The beginning of the narrative often shows the characters leading a normal live which lets the audience gains an insight into their personalities and the relationships between them. In the horror film “Halloween”, the equilibrium is introduced through Laurie and her group of friends, which are shown walking back home from a day at school. By showing the characters in their everyday lives, the audience get a chance to build a relationship with them and emphasise with them when the equilibrium is disturbed. In our film trailer, the equilibrium is shown through the group of friends walking down the street having a laugh, and driving around in car. This shows them in their everyday lives, being careless and generally behaving like normal teenagers. Their lives seem relatively normal and their state of balance is shown.
The next part of Todorovs theory is the disruption stage of narrative. This involves a series of unexpected events that affect the normal lives of the central characters. In horror film, this disruption is often caused by some sort of a “monster”. This is presented in our own film trailer in the form of the little girl, Eve. She disrupts the normal lives of the teenagers and sets in motion a series of events that eventually lead to the resolution of the narrative.

The recognition is the phase of the narrative where the main characters, or the hero of the story, recognise the disruption. It is also the part where the hero, who in horror films is very often portrayed as the final girl, comes to terms with the fact that they will ultimately have to confront, and or, defeat the monster. There is not as much mention of this in our film trailer as we didn’t want to give any parts of the story away too much, which could have resulted with a loss of interest to go and watch our film.

The fourth stage of Todorov’s narrative theory is the state of repair. This is the part in the narrative where the hero would try to solve the issue of the disruption which often ends up in a tense confrontation with the monster after which the disruption is repaired. Resolution is brought about after the capture or death of the monster.

The new equilibrium, which is the last stage of Todorov’s theory, is often similar to the opening equilibrium but different in that all the loved ones have effectively died during the course of the disruption and nothing can really be the same. It is common in horrors for the new equilibrium to be unsettling if the film ended with the monster getting away which would predict the safety of the surviving characters to be short lived.

The last two stages could not be added to our film trailer as they would have effectively given away the story line.

 Another theorist that looks at narrative is Vladimir Propp. While studying Russian fairy tales he recognised a series of recurring functions and narrative strands. He suggested that in many fairy tales, the same character types recurred over and over again e.g. the hero, the friends, the monster, the benefactor etc. This also applied to story elements like the hero leaves home and ultimately defeats the monster.

Even nowadays, these structures can be seen in many film narratives especially when it comes to adventure or fantasy films. However, it is important to remember that not all of these functions are present in every narrative but the majority can be identified.

The hero leaves home function can be seen in our narrative as it is represented with the group of friends leaving their homes and walking around the town, ultimately ending up in the woods. The hero meets the benefactor stage is also included in our narrative when the group stumble upon an older man who warns them of the evil in the woods. Because our film is not a fantasy which is the genre most affective at including all aspects of the functions, we missed out quite a bit like the hero is given a task to complete or the hero gets a magical gift as that would be inappropriate to include in our film genre. We did however include the function of the hero being tested, interrogated, attacked etc. as our hero had to see all her friends dying in front of her.

 Claude Levi-Strauss is another theorist that looks at narrative, but takes a different approach to the previous two theorists looked at. After studying hundreds of myths and legends from around the world, he observed that we make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary opposites everywhere. In short, he studied the narrative structure in terms of binary opposition. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts e.g. Good and Evil as we know that the concept of good is a total opposite of the concept of evil. Levi-Straus was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot but he looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. This is included in many story lines and narratives, including our own film trailer. It is obvious that in any horror films there is an aspect of good vs. evil. In our trailer the good is represented through Nora, the final girl, who needs to destroy the evil that is killing her friends and the evil is represented through Eve who wants to destroy the group of friends. You could also say that Eve is a binary opposite of her own self as she started off being just a normal child and after her disappearance she turned evil so she became a total opposite to what she started off being. There are other aspects of binary opposites evident in our narrative like the difference between Crystal and Nora. Crystal is a strong, confident, sexually alluring character in our film which is represented through the way she’s dressed and acts and Nora is a total opposite of that. She is quiet and an outsider, not really fitting in with the rest of the group. She’s a total opposite of Crystal’s character.

 A further theory that looks at narrative comes from Pam Cook who is a film critic. She came up with four defining features of what she called the ‘institutional mode of representation’ or also known as the classic Hollywood Narrative. She suggested that American cinemas dominance of the industry has resulted in a ‘way’ of telling stories with film that we all accept as THE ‘way’ to tell stories. Cook made four key points into defining the features of films:

1)      A linear narrative cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution.

In simpler terms, this means a story witch will cause something to happen, and that will cause something else to happen and this pattern will go on and on. The events will, in the end, be solved and the puzzle of the cause and effect will be resolved. This is similar to Todorov’s theory as it basically states that in each narrative something will happen to disturb the main characters lives and that the problem will have to be resolved.

This point can be identified within our film narrative with Eve’s presence and her disturbance of the main characters normal lives. When the friends trample on the flowers laid out in Eve’s memory it triggered Eve’s want for revenge, which then caused her to go after the group off friends, killing them off one by one. Like Cook described, this is then solved with the final girl getting away and surviving Eve’s rage creating a new equilibrium.

 2) A fictional world generated by spatial and temporal verisimilitude i.e. the space within the narrative, which is essentially a made up world, and the way time works within that world is believable.

This is evident in our film trailer as the characters in our film are still teenagers but when they are in the woods, alone, at night, there is no sign of their parents making any attempts at contacting them or trying to find them, which is not what is likely to happen in the real world. However, in the world of our narrative, that is the norm and it has to be presented in a believable way so that the audience are not left there to ask questions about why their parents are not getting involved. Keeping this in mind, in our planning stages, as a group we collectively decided not to include any mention of any of the characters parents. Because they are not seen or mentioned, the audience would not even think about them as a part of the narrative.

3)      A centrality to the narrative agency of psychologically rounded characters.

At the centre of the story there will be characters that we believe in. Psychologically human characters that are real people with real, normal lives.

This reality encircles all the five characters in our narrative as they are not superheroes or monsters etc. they’re just a group of teenagers, who until Eve came along to disturb their normality, had pretty normal lives.

 4)      A high degree of narrative closure. The film will end and all questions will be answered.

This has been slightly challenged in our film narrative as we end the film not knowing what exactly happens to Eve. At the end we know that four out of five of the fiends are dead, that Nora gets away from the woods and ultimately Eve, but the audience don’t know what exactly happens to Eve. She isn’t shown dead or injured and there is no indication that she disappears again. The audience are left wanting to find out more which is a good opportunity for a sequel or a way to keep the audience guessing or at the edge of their seats even after the movie finishes.

 The last theorist that we looked at in terms of narrative is Ronald Barthes. Although he was initially a structuralist thinker, as times changed including thought and philosophy about language and culture and existence progressed, Barthes changed his ideas, especially in relation to the narrative theory of films. He published an essay on a French novel called S/Z in which he identified a number of codes which he proposed are linked together in the production of all kinds of stories. He concluded that all stories use the same five codes and all genre signifiers can be grouped under them to create a narrative. The codes are:

1)      Action Code:

This depicts the events which take place in the narrative- who, where, when, why etc. of the story. The action code is basically the cause and effect of the narrative, the sequence of events.

We have applied this to our narrative as we have the group of friends who lead a pretty normal, teenage life, just having fun and being careless (Who). We have the ‘Where’ as we start of on the town street and in the car and then have the action take place in the woods when Eve starts to take her revenge. The ‘When’ is established as being at night because horror films are usually taking place either in a dark building/room etc. or just generally at nigh time to create suspense which is what we aim to create. The ‘Why’ is answered when the friend’s car breaks down and they are forced to look for help in the woods which gives an explanation as to why they are there.  

2)      Semantic Code

This refers to characterisation. The actions in the narrative are explained by the characters viewpoints on the events. Every film is told from a characters point of view and through that the audience are put in that characters shoes and are able to emphasise with them. The semantic code can change within the narrative as more than one character tells the story each time.

Our film starts of being told from Eve’s mom’s point of view. She is the one who is the central character at first and experiences her disappearance. The story telling then turns to the group of friends, in particular Nora. As she is the final girl, the narrative will be told from her point of view. Although the narrative will mainly be told from her point of view, some part will be shown from Eve’s. We will achieve this by creating some shots that show the group of friends being watched from behind trees or cars etc. This will indicate that the group is being watched by Eve as she is the monster in the film.

 3)      Enigma Code

This involves the setting up of a mystery, its development and resolution. At the centre of each story there will be a mystery which would essentially develop and will end up getting solved at the end. There are often a number of puzzles that need to be solved within a narrative.

 In our narrative the enigma code is Eve. She is the mysterious little girl who appears out of nowhere and causes unusual things to start happening. The trailer doesn’t show what happens to her apart from the mention of her disappearance but the reason for her killing the characters in the group of friends will remain unknown. As more and more characters start to die off, the mystery of the little girl grows.

 4)      Referential code

The referential code involves explaining or informing. Mise en scene is an example of a referential code and it explains all the ways all the technical codes work together to help the audience understand the story line e.g. lighting, costumes, camera work etc.

 In terms of setting and lighting in our trailer, we will probably have to work during the late hours of the day with little light to create suspense through the use of the dark woods. Because we are working on a very small budget we can’t afford special lights and equipment for filming so we are going to have to use the natural light when shooting our scenes and play around with filters in the editing process.

The trailer will mostly be filmed with hand held cameras especially for chase scenes to emphasise the tension and to add suspense. The actors will also wear costumes appropriate to their character e.g. Crystal is a promiscuous, sexually active character so she will wear short skirts or tight fitted clothes to emphasise the fact that she is sexually promiscuous and the final girl Nora will wear more down to earth and plain clothing to emphasise the fact that she is a shy and unconfident character.

 5)      Symbolic Code

This involved the reading of the connotation of signs which transform them into symbolic representations e.g. a character can symbolise bravery.

The character, being subject to the referential code, will then begin to symbolise something. This depends on what we, as the audience, interpret from the referential code about the characters personality.

 There are examples of this in our trailer, especially when it comes to the two female characters. When Nora is the only one who escapes Eve, she is looked upon as the final girl, as brave and strong for being able to survive while all the other group members are dead. Tracy, on the other hand symbolises promiscuity among teenagers and how that can have its consequences and that’s the way she will be looked at by the audience.