• Conceptional, theoretical idea that helps us to understand the times we are now
• Characterized by new technology
• Fragmentary set of interrelationships
• References its self – self-referential
• He’s self-referential
• He is fragmentary
• Often characterized by parody and pastiche
• Pastiche Imitates work of a previous artist
• Parody – irony/mocks/ridicules
• Characterized by intertextuality – surfaces signs, gesture, play, self-referential – preoccupation with visual style – lacks dept and deeper meaning
• Worry there is no/dis-concern meta-narrative (overall big structure) – deeper meaning/big questions
• Bricolage – involves rearrangement and juxtapose of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning.
• Post Modernism – how do we know anything – fiction from reality? – How do we distinguish
• Live in a consumerist, materialistic world – all for a big company
• Rearrangement for previously seen things – Memento
• Surfaces and styles become the most important in Post-modern world – feeding consumerist world.

•  RE-IMAGINING, PASTICHE, PARODY, COPY, BRICOLAGE

• helps us understand the times we are currently in
• REFERENTIAL – references itself all the time – seeing the same thing over and over (the movie – the main character refers to himself constantly, through his tattoos)

pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist ( movie is a pastiche)

parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony

Intertextuality: surface signs, gestures & play

• movie has preoccupation with visual style
• as things are surface signs, gestures & play, theres a worry theres no meter-narrative (the big question/ overall big structure)

BRICOLAGE – ‘involves the rearrangment and juxtaposition of previously unconnected signs to produce new codes of meaning’ – Barker & Jane – momento – shows us scenes we have scene before

postmodernism suggests – ‘no longer able to distinguish fiction from reality’. whats real whats not? – momento – suggests notes are unreliable (post modernism) unsure on whats real)

feeds comsumerous culture – post modernism: surfaces and style become the most important defining features.

Narrative Theory – Revisited

Todorov – Tripartite Narrative Structure – beginning/middle/end. It has an equilibrium (beginning) then disruption (middle) then a new equilibrium (end).

Freytag – Freytag’s Pyramid – exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement.

Propp – Stock characters – that perform stock functions – hero, helper, princess, villain, victim, dispatcher, father, and false hero.

Claude Levi -Strauss – Binary Oppositions – e.g. good vs bad, rich vs poor, educated vs stupid, old vs young.

Seymour Chatman – Satellites and Kernels – kernels are moments elements that are essential to the narrative development. Satellites are moments that could be removed and the overall logic would not be disturbed. Think about the way satellites orbit something bigger like a planet. Satellites can therefore be thought as useful to develop character, emotion, location, time and so on, but NOT ESSENTIAL. In this way they are really useful creative elements but not essential to the story.

When watching the film I will be looking at the narrative structure through Todorov’s Theory.

The beginning of the film is not like a typical narrative structure as the key event happened before and we are trying to find out what happened before he lost his memory. However, like many other narratives the start is still used to set the scene and introduce us to the main characters.

Seymour Chatman – Satellites and Kernels. Kernal = memory lose – otherwise the plot wouldn’t make sense. Satellite – his Jaguar – could be any car.

• Proairetic code: action, movement, causation
• Hermenuetic code: reflection, dialogue, character or thematic development
• Enigma Code: the way in which intrigue and ideas are raised – which encourage an audience to want more information (Create puzzles and questions).
• Elision or Ellipse: are when you drop rid of something, something is missing (e.g. a flight takes 8 hours in a film it takes 20 seconds)
• Flash-forward: when we jump forward in time
• Flashback: when we jump back in time
• Foreshawdowing: a warning or indication of a future event.
• Parallel/Simulations Narratives: Are when two different people’s narratives are shown.
• Non-Sequitars: is when a something happens in the film that gets them nowhere / is pointless.

Postmodernism can be understood as a philosophy that is characterised by concepts such as RE-IMAGINING, PASTICHE, PARODY, COPY, BRICOLAGE. It’s an approach towards understanding, knowledge, life, being, art, technology, culture, sociology, philosophy, politics and history that is REFERENTIAL – in that it often refers to and often copies other things in order to understand itself.

new expressions of identity and being – often found in popular culture and/or modern technology, are actually new iterations (versions) of previous expressions of popular culture. It is therefore possible to understand postmodernism as a complicated and fragmentary set of inter-relationships, a practice of re-imagining, pastiche, bricolage and self-referentiality, which may be understood alongside another key expression / concept: intersectionality

Postmodernism can therefore be understood as deliberate, intended, self-conscious play, signs about signs, notes to notes? Often (and again unlike other creative movements such as modernism or structuralism) this may be frivolous, trite, casual, surface, throw-away. It may even be ironic, joking, or literally, ‘just playing’. However, it is always a deliberate copy (of the old). Therefore, the old has been re-worked into something new,

It’s an approach towards understanding, knowledge, life, being, art, technology, culture, sociology, philosophy, politics and history that is REFERENTIAL – in that it often refers to and often copies other things in order to understand itself. New expressions of identity and being are actually new iterations (versions) of previous expressions of popular culture. It is therefore possible to understand postmodernism as a complicated and fragmentary set of inter-relationships, a practice of re-imagining, pastiche, bricolage and self-referentiality. 

The difference between a pastiche and parody: A pastiche is a work of art, drama, literature, music, or architecture that imitates the work of a previous artist, a parody is a work or performance that imitates another work or performance with ridicule or irony

Narrative theory can be applied to moving image texts but in many ways, narrative theory transcends a specific media form. Film and television holds a very great significance that links with our day-to-day lives and even our ambitions and dreams.

Narrative structures can vary. Many films follow a linear structure, that starts with a beginning, follows to a middle and finishes with an end. However, some films follow a different narrative structure such as non-linear, which means the film jumps around to different time zones.

Memento = non linear due to the fact it is unclear as to what part is the beginning and what part is the end.

Elision and ellipsis = not played in real time. Films often included flashbacks and flash-forwards to break the linear sequence.

Narrative strands are even able to be flagged up as something that will be fully explained later on in a film, this is known as foreshadowing.

Dramatic irony is also a narrative feature in many films. This occurs when the audience are made aware of something that the characters do not know.

Roland Barthes theory: Proairetic sand hermenuetic codes

Proairetic: action, movement, causation

Hermenuetic: reflection, dialogue, character,

Enigma code: the way in which intrigue and ideas are raised – which encourage an audience to want more information.

“Leonard Shelby, an insurance investigator, suffers from anterograde amnesia and uses notes and tattoos to hunt for the man he thinks killed his wife, which is the last thing he remembers.” – Google’s summary of Memento.

Memento is told in reverse, we find out the conclusion to the plot at the very beginning of the film (Todorov’s traditional Narrative structure has been reversed, fragmentary). It touches on topics such as:

• There is no cohesive identity, no ‘real you’; we are different people in each individual situation, virtual and actual. Our identities are in constant flux.
• There is no ‘truth’ in history (personal or national), memory cannot be relied upon as evidence for knowledge;
• People who claim to know the ‘truth’ can’t be trusted;
• Fiction and fact depend on each other to the point that they can’t be divided – in the end they can’t be separated;
• Knowledge doesn’t ‘add up’ cohesively to ‘truth’; there are too many contradictory elements.

These topics can be translated into codes, specifically Roland Barthes Proairetic and Hermeneutic codes.

Christopher Nolan’s inspiration for Memento was based on a semi-postmodernism novel, Waterland written by Graham Swift, “an examination of the end of History, the trajectory of the promise of the Enlightenment. It is set in the 80’s, but looks backwards through history, centering around 1943 providing three different plots” – Jessica on Goodreads.com. Therefore the film is intertexualised from this book.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/148639.Waterland

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.

When looking at moving image products, it is therefore possible to look for patterns, codes, conventions that share a common features. In other words, narrative theories look at recognisable and familiar structures, that help us to understand both how narratives are constructed and what they might mean.

Narratives are organised around a particular theme and space and are based in an idea of time

they start at ’00:00′ and run for a set length. This means that they normally have a beginning, middle and end. “A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end” Aristotle Poetics (c.335BC).

Vladimir Propp (character types and function)

suggests that stories use STOCK CHARACTERS to structure stories. That is not to say that all characters are the same, but rather to suggest that all stories draw on familiar characters performing similar functions to provide familiar narrative structures.

CHARACTERS FUNCTION TO PROVIDE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE:

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

Definitions:

Elision – he omission of a sound or syllable when speaking (as in I’m, let’s ).

Elipsis – the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.

Simultaneous narrative – Narrative art is art that tells a story, either as a moment in an ongoing story or as a sequence of events unfolding over time. Some of the earliest evidence of human art suggests that people told stories with pictures.

Parallel narrative – denotes a story structure in which the writer includes two or more separate narratives linked by a common character, event, or theme. Parallel stories enrich a work and have been used by playwrights and novelists for centuries.

Dramatic Irony – the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

Foreshadowing – be a warning or indication of (a future event)

Non-sequiturs – A non sequitur is a conclusion or reply that doesn’t follow logically from the previous statement. … Non sequiturs are often used for comedic effect in movies, novels, and TV shows. When someone says a non sequitur, it usually means the person was off in her own thoughts and not listening to the other person.

Light & shade – Light is the positive moments within the film such as humor which lighten the tone or mood of the movie. Shade is the darker moments within the film.

Propp

CHARACTERS FUNCTION TO PROVIDE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE:

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

Narrative Functions

1. PREPARATION
2. COMPLICATION
3. TRANSFERENCE
4. STRUGGLE
5. RETURN
6. RECOGNITION

Todorov

Most stories can be easily broken down into a BEGINNING / MIDDLE / END. :

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• New equilibrium

Levi – Strauss

NARRATIVES (=myths) are STRUCTURED around BINARY OPPOSITIONS eg: good v evil; human v alien; young v old etc etc.

Chatman

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

Barthes

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

Memento

• non linear narrative
• no clear beginning, middle or end.
• staggered narrative
• clear kernels and satellites

Key Words / Ideas

• not real time / live – Elision or Ellipsis
• Flashbacks
• Flash forwards
• Simultaneous
• Parallel
• Foreshadowing
• Dramatic Irony
• Non – sequitars
• Light & Shade
• Proairetic
• Hermenuetic

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

stories use STOCK CHARACTERS to structure stories.

NARRATIVES (=myths) are STRUCTURED around BINARY OPPOSITIONS eg: good v evil; human v alien; young v old etc etc.

Kernels = Important to be in the narrative for it to make sense

Satellites = moments in the narrative that could be removed and wouldn’t cause too much disruption

Todrov = beginning middle and end

Roland Barthes: Proairetic and Hermenuetic Codes

Not in real time

elision and ellipsis – when you drop something out eg. a chunk of time because otherwise if the film was in real time it would be very boring

Flashbacks and Flashforwards

Parallel or simultaneous narrative

Keep the audience active to fill in the gaps – create puzzles or enigmas (encourage the audience to want more information)

Dramatic Irony – the audience know something that the characters don’t

Foreshadowing

Non-sequitars – aspects of the story that is irrelevant and doesn’t go anywhere eventually (adds interest)

Light and Shade – lighter/slightly comical scenes to break up the dark