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Key Terms

Story; information placed in coherent time and space.
The story can be all things in the film both seen and inferred both the diegetic and non diegetic world of the film.
Plot; story with motivations, the plot is much more likely to refer solely to events on screen.
Narrative; way in which the events of the story are placed together (the structure)

Read the interview with Kenneth Lonergan. What is he suggesting is the important non diegetic elements of the story in Manchester by the Sea?

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Narrative codes

Character
Who are the main characters and what are they doing?
Narrative should be both driven by the actions of characters and provide the motivation for the characters.

Settings

Action

Change

verisimilitude

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Time / space

We normally expect narrative to have logical a structure it should have a;
Chronological order (follows event as they happen) and a
Temporal order (the events flow in a sequence across a set timeline)
Although not all films follow this pattern.

Flash backs and flash forwards can be used to move through the timeline.

Parallel events can exist in real time or can suggest real time and may elude to other story space (plot)

Changes to the temporal frequency can be used –short cutting of information for the audience

Looking at the films we have studied for this course how many would you say follow a chronological (linear) order and how many are non-chronological (non linear)?

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Narrative functions

All stories could be constructed from a set of thirty one narrative functions, suggesting a finite set of story building blocks.
It wasn’t necessary to use all of them in a story but there were certain rules for example the narrative functions always follow a certain order.
Narratives don’t always include all the functions but they will all include some of them in this order;
Preparation
Complication
Transference
Struggle
Return
Recognition

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Main theories of narrative originate in the debates between formalism and structuralism .
Main theorists we will look at are;
Levi-Straus and Barthes both French structuralists.
Propp, Shklovsky and Todordov who broadly sit within the Russian formalist tradition.

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Formalism

Seeks to evaluate and analyse the inherent features of a text. Formalists will interpret a texts based on its mode of address, discourse and structure.
They reject cultural, societal or even authorship as contributing to the meaning of a text.

Structuralism

Claims that anything produced as artefact of our culture can only be fully understood by their relationship to larger overarching systems and structures.
Structuralism seek to decode the meaning in texts and looks to find wider underlining meaning.

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Barthes added to Levi-Straus’s theory by including an ideological dimension.
Meanings are constructed by the dominant ideology or intended reading of the text.
The resolution of the narrative places the audience on one side of this ideological dimension.
Your reading of the text is where you stand in relation to this discourse.

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Narrative and narration

In both films we have studied for this unit there are similarities and differences in the way the narrative is constructed.

Trainspotting differs in three respects from This is England

Trainspotting is an adaption of a novel. The novel itself is a series of episodic incidents threaded together around the characters.
Trainspotting has a narrator in Renton.
Trainspotting is essentially linear but repeats its opening sequence again in the middle.

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The characters in Trainspotting do not control the world in which they live.
Maybe as a metaphor for drug addition that situations seem beyond their control as they drift from one to another.
Renton comes across as opportunistic responding to events, his narration providing the audience with context.
What does drive the narrative along is the tensions between the characters, in particular Renton’s continued alienation from the others and his internal crisis.

Logical narrative structures tend to favour cause and effect relationships.
Parallelism tends to look more at similarities and differences between characters. This form of narrative is more prevalent in Trainspotting.
Can you think of examples of parallelism and what technique is used to illustrate this?

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In away the narrative of Trainspotting follows the narrative of the book as it is also episodic.
This makes it difficult to gage any sense of chorology (as is case with the novel)
The film opens with three of the characters running from security guards, a scene that is repeated again later in the film.
There is what we can describe as a ‘tipping point’ in the film a moment of disruption after which more negative events occur e.g. Renton over doses, Tommy contracts HIV.

Given the life style of the characters in Trainspotting why would a chronology not matter?

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What is Ideology

An ideology is a system of ideas and ideals, these ideas or ideals may reflect the belief systems of social groups or even individuals and or constitute….
A powerful bodies of ideas that shape social /political/ economic systems which some argue have the ability to impose themselves as dominant forms of discourse.

A dominant ideology is a body of ideas that is shared across an entire society

According to Marxists this dominate ideology always reflect s the values of whichever group is the dominant social class in any society in any historical period.

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What is Ideology

‘The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.’

Karl Marx

‘The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda’

Chomsky and Herman.

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You must read and annotate the sections on social and political context in your handbooks and have completed in order to understand this section .

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Thatcherism

Thatcherism is a term that refers to the style of UK government from 1979 until 1990.
Although it could be argued that it was partly based around a cult of personality. It shouldn’t be confused with individuals or a style of political leadership.
It can be seen as being highly ideological in its approach and its appeal.

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