Films usually have a linear structure as in they start at ’00:00′ and run for a set length of time. This means they have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Todorov said that a good story should have an equilibrium, disruption and a new equilibrium.

Propp suggests that stories use stock characters

Claude Levi-Strauss, Binary oppositions. This suggests that narratives are structured around binary oppositions e.g. good vs bad, human vs alien, young vs old.

Flashback, Parallel narrative, An enigma code (puzzle, something to resolve), Light and shade

Narrative are organised around a particular theme and space

Narratives are usually LINEAR and SEQUENTIAL

This means that they normally have a beginning, middle and end.

1. Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure):

A really good way to think about NARRATIVE STRUCTURE is to recognise that most stories can be easily broken down into a BEGINNING / MIDDLE / END. The Bulgarian structuralist theorist Tztevan Todorov presents this idea as:

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• New equilibrium

2. Vladimir Propp (Character Types and Function)

Vladimir Propp is a good starting point for thinking about narrative structures, as his work (based around an analysis of fairy tales) suggests that stories use STOCK CHARACTERS to structure stories.

You do not need to recognise all of these characters, but it is a good way to understand the way in which CHARACTERS FUNCTION TO PROVIDE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE:

1. Hero
2. Helper
3. Princess
4. Villain
5. Victim
6. Dispatcher
7. Father
8. False Hero

3. Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions)

Levi-Strauss examined the nature of myths and legends in ancient and primitive cultures, from this analysis he suggested that myths were used to deal with the contradictions in experience, to explain the apparently inexplicable, and to justify the inevitable

4. Seymour Chatman: Satellites & Kernels

• Kernels: key moments in the plot / narrative structure
• Satellites: embellishments, developments, aesthetics

This theory allows students to break down a narrative into 2 distinct elements. Those elements which are absolutely essential to the story / plot / narrative development, which are known as KERNELS and those moments that could be removed and the overall logic would not be disturbed, known as SATELLITES.

5. Roland Barthes: Proairetic and Hermenuetic Codes

• Proairetic code: action, movement, causation
• Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development

Although the words proairetic and hermenuetic may seem very complex, it is easy for students to grasp in that moving image products are either based around ‘doing’ / ‘action’ or ‘talking’ / ‘reflection’. Look at this sequence from Buster Scruggs (Dir J Coen E Coen 2018), which is basically divided into ‘some talking’ (hermenuetic codes) which leads into ‘some doing’!

narrative recap:

• todorov (beginning middle end)
• vladimir propp (character types and function): stock characters, the hero, the villain, the dispatcher, operates in “spheres of action” hero goes after villain
• claude levi-strauss (binary oppositions): narratives are structured w/ oppositions
• *symour chatman: satellites and kernels (main bits and sub-bits that arent as necessary – appear around it)

time – how the progression of time works in the narrative (linear, nonlinear). Beginning, middle, end etc

space – the type of location wherein the music video is in. This usually changes. It is common for music videos to incorporate shots from a different area in space and possibly time

theme – music videos run from a solid theme which normally affects the mood of the video.

linear – the progression of time that follows a strict beginning-middle-end structure. For example, if you have a linear music video, the music video will go beginning-middle-end

sequential – the progression of a story that follows a ‘one after the other’ event sequence

story – the lowdown of what the music video is about

plot – how the story is organised

memento works using a reverse-organised (nonlinear) plot, where the ending is the beginning and the beginning is the end. this works within the story, revolving around the fact that the main character experiences short term memory loss

roland barthes:

• proairetic code: action, movement, causation
• hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development

levi-strauss: binary oppositions: truth and lies (facts and fiction) (this is shown in the plot with the main character’s friend pretending to be supportive compared with the dramatic irony of them being the murderer as well as the main character getting defensive when someone tries to help them, assuming there is something wrong)

function of story: to provide a meta-narrative

flashback – a scene shown in an earlier part of the linear structure that is re-shown

flash-forward – a scene shown in a later part of the linear structure that is shown before it happens

parallel narrative – where two or more narratives run at the same point in the structure

enigma code: a puzzle, something to resolve

light/shade – you need humour to balance negativity within narrative

elision – joining things together

elipsis – leaving things out

THINKING ABOUT NARRATIVE STRUCTURE

• The film begins with Leonard shooting Teddy – the climax of his quest for vengeance. The main question facing Leonard is ‘Who killed his wife?’ and ‘How can he find him to take revenge?’ These questions seem to be answered in the first five minutes – so what enigmas are created for the audience as the plot moves (backwards in time)?

Several enigmas are created during the plot. for example, it begins to be more and more obvious that the man he kills is the wrong man, furthermore other characters are questioned as the audience learns more and more about them and an enigma is created due to their actions each flashback.

• How are these enigmas answered? Are the answers stable (i.e. are the undermined by what we discover later)?

Although some enigmas can be answered, a lot also can’t

• If you had to plot this narrative – what shape would it take? Think about direction and shape ie Freytag’s pyramid. Can you draw out a schematic representation (ie a drawing) of this narrative structure?
• What are the key ‘KERNELS‘ in this narrative structure? What ‘SATELLITES‘ particularly stand out for you?

NARRATIVE, CHARACTER, TRUTH

• What is the significance of the story of Sammy Jenkins to Leonard? How ‘true’ is this story? What does this tell us about the relationship between facts, memories and fiction?

the story of sammy Jenkins mirrors Leonard’s own story, working as a ‘parallel’ to his own life. Later it is revealed in the subjective lens that it wasn’t sammy Jenkins that killed his own wife accidentally due to his condition but Leonard. This relates to facts and fiction as it is unsure if this is true or not, creating an enigma

• By the end of the film, do we feel like Leonard got the right man by shooting Teddy? List arguments for and against this view. How satisfying is the end of the film? What questions do you have left?

• ‘Structuralism has been very powerful in its influence on narrative theory. Its main virtue is that it is most interested in those things that narratives have in common, rather than in the distinctive characteristics of specific narratives.’

• According to Thompson (1990) ‘in studying narrative structure, we can seek to identify the specific narrative devices which operate within a particular narrative, and to elucidate their role in telling a story . . . it can be illuminating to focus on a particular set of narratives . . . and to seek to identify the basic patterns and roles which are common to them.’ (288)

Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure): Beginning, Middle and End.- Memento has no clear beginning, middle or end.

Vladimir Propp (Character Types and Function): Fairytails have similar characters.

Claude Levi-Strauss (Binary Oppositions):

This structural approach could also be referenced to Freytag’s Pyramid exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement as illustrated below.

Elision and Ellipsis- Not played in real time

Flashbacks and Flash forwards

Parallel or simultaneous narratives- Time can run simultaneously.

Dramatic Irony- Knowing something important that the characters don’t.

Postcolonialism is the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. Post-colonial theory looks at issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony (Western colonizers controlling the colonized).

Overall, post colonialism operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating ‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘. (Said, 1978:238). Or as Paul Gilroy puts it, ‘a civilising mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive’ (2004:8)

Orientalism is a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous. this term was coined by Edward Said in 1978.

the orient as ‘the other’. Jacques Lacan – mirror stage in child development. To link this to postcolonialism would be to suggest that the West uses the East / the Orient / the ‘Other’, to identify and construct itself. How it sees itself as the ‘West’ as opposed to . . . in other words, it acts as The Other, a mirror by which a reflection of the self can be measured out and examined.

Louis Althusser: Ideological state apparatus (ISA) and the notion of interpellation. it is a theoretical concept developed by French philosopher Louis Althusser which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society – education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc serve to structure the ideological perspectives of society, which in turn form our individual subject identity.

Frantz Fanon was a French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique, whose works are influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism. He has written a book titled The Wretched of the Earth which is a criticism of post colonialism.

As an early critical thinker of postcolonialism, Frantz Fanon took an active role, proposing the first step required for ‘colonialised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and an identity. The second, is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued. (Barry, 2017:195). In the chapter ‘On National Culture’ (pp;168-178) Fanon presents three phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’:

1. Assimilation of colonial culture corresponding to the ‘mother country’ Chinua Achebe talks of the colonial writer as a ‘somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.’ (1988:46)
2. Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
3. Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’.

Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony. Hegemony is the leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others. Gramsci suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. In other words, Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others, usually in line with the dominant ideas, the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests. 

Paul Gilroy is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’ (2004:13) His theme of double consciousness, derived from W.E.B Dubois, involves ‘Black Atlantic’ striving to be both European and Black through their relationship to the land of their birth and their ethnic political constituency follow this wiki link for more on this point.