1. ASSIGNMENT
7:NARRATIVE AND
FILM THEORY
Maria younes

2. Narratives
• Narrative is the organisation given to a series of facts. They have a beginning a middle and an end. But in
order to understand the narrative the events must be linked.
• Narrative Conventions:
• We examine the conventions of:
• Genre
• Character
• Form
• Time
• Narratives do not take place in real time however for example It can be a slow motion effect or “an 80
year life can be in a 2 hour film”.

3. •Narrative structure:
• This is which the order and manner is presented to a reader, listener or viewer.
There is a three-act structure
• The setup: (The beginning) This is the primary level where all the characters
stories are introduced.
• The conflict: (The middle) This is when the characters go through big changes as
the result of the problem which refers back to when the problem was introduced
in the beginning.
• The resolution: (The ending) This is when the problem should be confronted by
the character and all the story coming together which then leads to the ending
of the film.
…

4. Different types of narrative structure
• Chronological or linear structure: This is when two stories are
beside each other. Or two different people telling the same story.
• Multi narrative: A story within a story, within a story and so on.
• Dual Narrative: Where the story is written in the time sequence that
it took place.
• Flashbacks: Where the story has more than one voice telling the
story.
• Fragmented narrative: When the narrative moves back in time.
• Metafictive: Where the story is all over the place. Bits from different
tenses are used and we have to work out what happened by
ourselves.
• http://teachit.co.uk/attachments/5023.pdf

5. …
• Deconstructing narratives
• This is the chronological order in which the events occur. The narrator
always:
• Reveal the events which make up the story
• Mediate those events for the audience
• Evaluate those events for the audience
• Locating the Narrative
• Every story has a location, which may be physical and geographical or it may
be mythic.
• http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevkeyconcepts/alevelkeycon.php
?pageID=narrative

6. Tvzetan Todorov
• He was born march 1st 1939 and is a Franco-Bulgarian Philosopher.
He lives in France and writes books about literary theory, thought
history and culture theory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov

7. Todorovs’ Theory
• The fictional environment begins with a state of equilibrium.
• It then suffers some disruption which is known as disequilibrium.
• New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.
There are 5 stages the narrative goes through:
• A state of equilibrium (all is as it should be)
• A disruption of that order by an event
• A recognition that the disorder has occurred
• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption
• Todorov argues that narrative involves a transformation. The characters
or the situations are transformed through the progress of the disruption.
• http://www.adamranson.plus.com/TODOROV.HTM

8. Romeo and Juliet- Equilibrium
• Such as in Romeo and Juliet. The beginning is when they meet and we both know what their
situation is because we see that they are from two different family gangs. The middle is
when they are trying to be together without their family getting in the way and that is when
their problems start. And the ending is when Romeo and Juliet confront their problems and
they both kill themselves . However in result of their death the two enemies become one.

9. Claude Levi-strauss
• He was born 28 November 1908 and died 30 October 2009.
• He was a French anthropologist and ethnologist.
• He studied law and philosophy.
Theory
• He said that a narrative can only end in conflict. Binary Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/stillness) or conceptual
(love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack.
• http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevkeyconcepts/alevelkeycon.php?pageID=narrative

10. The boy in the striped pyjamas
• In the film the story starts of bad as they have to move to the other side of the country for
their dad to start his new job in killing the Jewish. In the middle of the film we see the killing
of the Jewish however the little German boy makes friends with a Jewish boy not knowing
what the conflict between them was. At the end it ends in conflict because the little German
boy gets killed along with the little Jewish boy because they though he too was German.
The Jewish camp however kept on running and did not stop.

11. Vladimir Propp
• Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was Russian he was born April 1895 and died 22 august 1970. He was a soviet
formalist scholar. He analysed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest
irreducible narrative elements.
• Theory:
• He discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. There was the :
• hero
• the villain
• the donor,
• the dispatcher
• the false hero
• the helper
• and the princess with her father.
• He said that there were only 31 things they could do, and once you have identified their character you
can easily know what it is they are going to do. Because each character has a sphere of action.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp

12. The Lord of the Rings