Narrative

Watching non-native speaking TV / Films is a very interesting exercise for Media Students – as it makes us understand the extent to which moving image language is not just about the dialogue. With that in mind, think about all of the elements that are recognisable or familiar and all the elements that are unfamiliar, different, difficult, unrecognisable? Can these elements be organised into categories? Can these categories be placed into a theoretical approach?

Complete a table (for example similar to the one below) to allow you to re-cap on your knowledge about narrative theories:

> Stock characters: Propp

> Key themes that set up a binary narrative: Levi-Strauss

> Key narrative moments (ie struture) – Todorov, Freytag, Chatman

CATEGORY	FAMILIARITIES: from your chosen CSP’s	DIFFERENCES: from your chosen CSP’s	THEORY
CHARACTERS	In the Missing & Witnesses the main detectives have a ‘natural’ instinct and ethics for law and order / good and bad	In the Missing & Witnesses the main detective is not the typical ‘male hero’ Missing French, old, retired, limping. In Witnesses young, bold, female, French, immigrant, single mother	PROPP, presents the idea of STOCK CHARACTERS, inc ‘hero’, ‘false hero’, ‘princess’ (Witnesses), ‘father figure’, ‘despatcher’ (Missing)
NARRATIVE			CHATMAN / FREYTAG /TODOROV
THEMES			LEVI-STRAUSS the use of key themes to structure stories and characters around familiar themes: family, community, law and order, justice. Often set up as binary oppostions: right/wrong urban/rural, young/old, good/bad
REPRESENTATION			PIERCE / BARTHES / SAUSSURE: SEMIOTICS radical and reactionary representations of police, family, law and order, through a range of signs (visual, graphic, audio, narrative, thematic etc)
TECHNICAL CODES / LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc)			
			

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