1. Understanding Movies Thirteenth Edition Louis Giannetti
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Chapter Eight
Story
Narratives are composed in order to reward, modify, frustrate, or defeat the perceiver’s search for coherence –David Bordwell, Film Scholar
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3. Story: Mimesis and Diegesis
Show and Tell
Cinema combines two main types of story- telling:
Mimesis: (showing) the province of the live theater, plays acted out tell themselves
Diegesis: (telling) the literary way; epics, novels, novellas, and short fiction convey stories through language
Descriptions of these two categories of fictional narratives can be traced back to Aristotle’s The Poetics
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4. Narratology is a field of scholarly study.
Story: Narratology
Narratology is a field of scholarly study.
Narratology (the study of different narrative structures) examines
How stories work
How spectators make sense of narrative elements (or pieces) and fit them together to make a coherent whole
Aesthetic conventions of stories
Various types (genres) of stories along with their symbolic implications
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5. Narratology differentiates between a story and its plot structure
Story: Narratology
Narratology differentiates between a story and its plot structure
Narratologists consider a narrative’s story to be its content and the plot to be its form.
These two elements may be discussed in a variety of terminology, all meaning basically the same thing:
story versus discourse (favored by most American scholars)
histoire versus discours
mythos versus logos
fabula versus syuzhet
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Story: Narratology
“[Plot is] the design and intention of narrative, what shapes a story and gives it a certain direction or intention of meaning.” —Peter Brooks
What exactly do narratologists mean by “story” and “plot”?
Story: the general subject matter, the raw materials of a dramatic action in chronological sequence (or what happens)
Plot: the storyteller’s method of superimposing a structural pattern over the story; involves the implied author’s point of view as well as the structuring of the scenes into a pattern (or how events happen)
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7. Never passive, film audiences subtract, accept, or reject.
Story: The Spectator
Never passive, film audiences subtract, accept, or reject.
Spectators:
Absorb auditory and visual stimuli at a rapid rate
Process multiple language systems simultaneously: photographic, spatial, kinetic, vocal, histrionic, musical, etc.
Place story and plot above all else, especially in America
Have expectations about what and how things should happen in a story
Either adapt to the author’s vision or reject it
Are participants, not passive observers
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8. Story: The Classical Paradigm
Most screenplays are structured in units or “acts”—three acts,
as outlined in Syd Field’s model.
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9. Story: The Classical Paradigm
Classical narratives follow a structure derived from Aristotle’s The Poetics.
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10. Story: The Classical Paradigm
Frank Daniel’s eight-sequence structure
Act 1
1. Introduction of the main characters, ending with a point of attack, which introduces the problem to the hero.
2. The narrative tension coalesces as the hero’s logical attempts to solve the problem meet with failure, or until he or she is forced, reluctantly, to confront the problem head on.
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11. Story: The Classical Paradigm
Frank Daniel’s eight-sequence structure
Act 2
3. The protagonist gets to work, recruiting allies, as he/she gears up for a confrontation with the antagonist.
4. The hero moves toward a direct confrontation with the antagonist, which ends in the hero’s initial defeat at the story’s midpoint. The hero licks his wounds.
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12. Story: The Classical Paradigm
Frank Daniel’s eight-sequence structure
Act 2
5. The tension rises. A major twist, a reversal or betrayal, occurs, calling into question everything before it.
6. The hero sinks to an emotional low point, frustrated at his failures, feeling defeated.
This is the point of maximum tension.
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13. Story: The Classical Paradigm
Frank Daniel’s eight-sequence structure
Act 3
7. The hero girds himself for a final battle with the villain. This ends with the climax, the direct confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist. One wins, the other loses.
8. The aftermath or denouement: The hero resolves the problem for good, bringing closure to the story. .
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14. Story: The Classical Paradigm
Critically acclaimed Monster’s Ball (2001) failed to meet the expectations of movie goers use to endings which provide clear resolution and a sense of closure. As often happens in life, important things were left unsaid between the two main characters.
The Classical Paradigm:
Is a set of conventions, considered the “norm” particularly in American cinema
Is a narrative structure based on the dramatic conflict between protagonist and antagonist
Builds intensity to a dramatic conflict in which one force must “win” and one must “lose” the climax
Ends with a clear sense of closure, resolution
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15. Story: Classical Narratives
In Classical Film Narratives:
Viewer’s can usually detect a shaping hand in the story’s events, that of a discreet storyteller
Boring gaps in the narrative are edited out
The story has a central conflict
The storyline drives the events toward resolution of that central conflict
The classical paradigm is generally followed
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16. Story: Realistic Narratives
In Realistic Film Narratives:
The implied author is virtually invisible
Events tend to “speak for themselves,” as in plays
The story unfolds naturally, usually in chronological order
The plots are often loose, “slice of life” structures, with no clear beginning, middle, or end, and often without a clearly discernable central conflict
Are generally told in an anti-sentimental style
Structures are often borrowed from cycles of nature—may be circular, cyclical, or episodic
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17. Story: Formalist Narratives
In Formalist Film Narratives:
“Authors” tend to be manipulative
Events are often scrambled, in non-linear order
May be restructured to heighten or maximize a thematic idea
Are frequently told from a subjective perspective
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18. Story: Nonfictional Narratives
There are three broad categories of films: fiction, documentary, and avant-garde.
Although stylistically at opposite ends of the spectrum, documentary and avant-garde films both reject conventional storytelling methods
Most documentaries strive for a randomness that suggests the reality of life in accordance with their themes of real people, places, and events
The realistic documentary is best illustrated by the cinéma verité or “direct cinema” movement of the 1960s
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19. Story: Nonfictional Narratives
New Documentary Technology in the 1960s
1. A lightweight 16mm handheld camera
2. Flexible zoom lenses
3. New fast film
A portable tape recorder, allowing a technician to record sound directly in automatic synchronization
This equipment was so easy to use that only two people—one at the camera, the other with the sound system—were required
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20. Story: Nonfictional Narratives
Avant-garde
Avant-garde Films
Defy generalizations about narrative structure
Can be highly variable and subjective
May be “personal” or “poetic” (terms used by Maya Deren) or may opt for total abstraction and meanings known only to the filmmaker or a small in-group
May seek only to evoke emotions, through visual and/or aural means
Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993) is an excellent example of a nonfictional narrative. For seventy-nine minutes the only visual is a solid blue screen; the film’s soundtrack consists of music, voices, and sound effects—varied and seemingly random.
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Story: Genre and Myth
Genre films are specific types of films: war, gangster, fantasy, etc.
Each type of genre movie has its own set of conventions and character types, though a few films defy easy categorization
Genres are distinguished by a characteristic set of conventions in style, subject matter, and values
Genre films are typically aimed at specific audiences:
There are coming-of age films for teenagers
Action-adventure films are primarily aimed at men
Romances or the woman’s picture at women; these are often referred to derogatively as “chick flicks”
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Story: Genre and Myth
It is not unusual to find a mother and her thirteen-year-old daughter enjoying the same vampire genre film, for instance the Twilight movies.
No particular genre movie is inherently good or bad
How the director, screenwriter, and others develop and present the conventions and a number of other factors determine whether the film is noticeably superior to others of its genre or easily forgotten ten minutes after the film ends
New Zealand born screenwriter Richard Curtis has penned some romantic comedies with memorable characters and a few twists on the usual conventions with films like Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Love Actually (2003), and The Girl in the Café (2005). Multiple, interwoven story lines, excellent performances by mostly British actors, a broader focus and complexity in themes help to give the stories dimensions beyond the typical genre fare.
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23. Primitive Classical Revisionist Parodic
Story: Genre Cycles
Can you define the cycles? Can you pick a genre and give examples that fit each category?
Primitive
Classical
Revisionist
Parodic
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Story: Genre and Myth
The stylized conventions and archetypal story patterns of genres encourage viewers to participate ritualistically in the basic beliefs, fears, and anxieties of their age. —Giannetti
Genre films are successful for a reason:
Psychologist/psychiatrist Carl Jung developed the theory of the collective unconscious, a basic belief that all human experience is founded in archetypal patterns and symbols, or mythological pre-established conventions
So powerful, according to Jung, are these archetypes that they are ancient and communal, spanning all of human time and culture
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25. Genre films are successful for a reason
Story: Genre and Myth
Genre films are successful for a reason
Humankind’s need to explain and establish its place in the universe, to define its fears, hopes, and needs, is reflected in its stories or myths
Commonalities are found in the mythologies of each and every culture
Popular culture, because it speaks to the “everyman” in society is the best place to find today’s reflection of ancient archetypes
Today, not only in books, but even more so in gaming and movies, the expression of the universal, collective unconscious thrives
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26. Story: Genre and Myth—Archetypes
George Lucas wrote Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) after reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces; Campbell expands on Jung’s theories of the universal archetypes.
Heroes refuse or accept (sometimes first refuse and later accept) a call to adventure
They embark on a journey quest filled with challenges, obstacles, and impossible odds
Their resolve is tested
They may succumb to a “dark night of the soul” and seemingly give up the fight
Ultimately, they face and defeat the Shadow; the damsel in distress is saved; the world or universe is rescued from dark forces, good triumphs over evil
The journey quest functions on both an individual and a universal level within a story. In one sense, Luke Skywalker is leading the Rebel Alliance to defeat the forces of Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire. On a universal level, Luke’s is one mask of the Hero archetype, and Darth Vader, the Emperor, and the Empire all share the mask of the Shadow archetype.
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End Show
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