LO3 Narrative Theory

The difference between story and narrative.

Story is what happens through out the film and what dilemma they go through.

Narrative is the type of film and how its plotted.

What narrative theories can you name?

Story = a sequence of events - the plot.

Narrative = the techniques used to tell the story. How the story is structured.

XMEN: Days of Future Past.

The plot: The film starts in a dystopian future where a group of X-MEN are trying to survive attacks from the robot assassins called Sentinels, which are designed to kill mutants. In order to secure the future and survival of mutants, they send Wolverine back in time to go and make sure that the Sentinels are never invented.

KEY THEORY 1: Tim O' Sullivan et al. (1998) Through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves (as a culture) - these are ideologies. "All media texts tell us some kind of story."

Wider meanings, ideologies that the story X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST tells the audience.

Extinction is wrong (Sentinels sent to kill all mutants), segregation is wrong (brings up the topic of separating Mankind from Mutants, almost compares it to the holocaust), and you shouldn't fear difference (the reason the humans in the film want to kill all the mutants, is because they are worried about what they are capable of doing due to their abilities). Also shows the corruption in things that seem like they are there for your protection. (Almost a dig at the American government).

KEY THEORY 2: Pam Cook (1985) The standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:
"Linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution".
A high degree of narrative closure.
A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence.

How X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST presents an enigma that is resolved.
The X-MEN franchise constantly deals with what its like to feel different to everyone else, and its never quite resolved fully

KEY THEORY 3: Tzvetan Todorov 1977
Stage 1: A point of stable equilibrium.
Stage 2: This stability is disrupted by some kind of force, which creates a state of disequilibrium.
Stage 3: Action directed against the distrubtin.
Stage 4: Restoration to new equilibrium.

Does X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST follow this type of narrative?

KEY THEORY 4: Claude Levi-Strauss (1958)
Binary Opposites.

XMEN: DOFP:
Man vs Mutants
Technology vs Mutants
Good vs Bad

KEY THEORY 5:
fairy tale one research

KEY THEROY 6: Roland Barthes (1977) Narrative codes:
Enigma codes work to keep up setting problems or puzzles for the audience
Action codes work inform the audience in terms of what is happening in the next shot/scene

GENRE ANALYSIS