Narrative

What is meant by narrative in film/television?

What have key theorists suggested is important when considering narrative?

Bordwell and Thompson define narrative as a chain of events I a cause-effect relationship occurring in time.

Elements of narrative:

Diegesis- 

• The internal world created by the story that the characters themselves experience and encounter 

Story and Plot- 

• Story- all events referenced both explicitly and inferred (including backstory as well as those projected beyond the action)
• Plot- the events directly incorporated into the action of the text and order in which they are presented 

Narrative range- 

• Unrestricted narration- A narrative which has no limits to the information that is presented i.e a news bulletin.
• Restricted narration- Only offers minimal information regarding the narrative i.e thrillers

Narrative Depth- 

• Subjective character identification- the viewer is given unique access to what a range of characters see and do. 
• Objective character identification- the viewer is given unique access to a character's point of view such as seeing things from the character's mind, dreams, fantasies or memories.

Theories:

Propp- Character is a function of narrative he called them 'spheres of action' or function. He broke all characters down into seven types:

• The hero- not always the protagonist. 
• The villain
• The donor- gives the hero something
• The helper
• The princess (the victim)
• The dispatcher- can be seen as a father figure 
• The false hero

Representation

Representation

Representation- (re)presentation because it is basically how things are presented to people for example the news on the telly and the way characters are seen within films or television. It depends on who is presenting the information as different news stations will present different information in different ways to make the audience see things how they want them to.

For us as ,media students, we concentrate on who has produced a text, what the text is saying and how it is saying it. 

David Chandler (2006)- "Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of reality such as people, places, objects, events and cultural identities". 

Walter Lippman- Character typing- using shortcuts in the construction of characters to make meaning. such as:

• Archetypes- A familiar character that has emerged from hundreds of years of story telling (Hero, Villain, Trickster)
• Stereotypes- A very shallow representation of a type of person or social group, based on behaviours or appearance. 
• A genre type- a character that is common in a genre (e.g tired old detective in thrillers) 

Objectification (of women):

Women are seen in films as something for the male character to either save or have sex with, without building up their characters to just keep the as a blank character almost like an object.

Male gaze 3 perspectives:

• Producer
• Audience 
• Male characters

Tim O'Sullivan et al (1998)- refers to a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality. Notion of ideology entails widely held ideas 

Richard Dyer (1983) asked questions:

• What sense of the world is it making?
• What does it imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
• Who is it speaking to? For whom? to whom? 
• What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?