Research: Narrative Theory - Miss Begum

This lesson was to help us understand theory and apply them to thriller films. From this I was able to include these ideas into my opening.




The audience is able to construct meaning from text using these four elements:

Characters: Antagonist, Protagonist, Damsel in distress etc. 

                                                    Silence Of The Lambs

Characters can create meaning as the audience can assume the role of the character by appearance by observing the mise en scene elements used, mainly including costume; hair and makeup. This then helps them presume the plot of the story. The image above is of Hannibal Lecter, he is a well known character in the thriller world. Nonetheless, if he wasn't  well known character, viewers are able to connotate that he is an antagonist and is dangerous due to the use of iconography (mask) on his face, this also helps the audience realize that he causes danger because of his mouth as the mask is cut out specifically to trap his mouth and teeth.

Connotations and Denotations: Connotation is what the audience infers from the text and denotations are what it actually is. This helps construct meaning in text as it presents to the audience the story board and gets them thinking and searching for connotations to understand the narrative better.
                           
                                                         The Conjuring

The connotation of this image taken from the movie The Conjuring is that she has spotted something and is shining a light at it in fear to take a better look. Nevertheless her facial expression gives away her anxiety and shows the audience how much she is actually scared. However the denotation for this image is that she is holding a match because it is dark.





Genre: Building assumptions based on common representations, i.e. Thriller movies usually include intimidating non-diegetic sound which helps the audience infer the genre of the movie.  ANother example is that a genre like comedy or romance allows the audience to think about meanings.

Structure: The structure is how the movie is displayed or put together to make sense, i.e. every movie has a start, middle and end. This helps the narrative as it doesn't confuse the audience and the audience is able to look back and refer to bits of the film that explains the rest of it.

There are 4 main theorists:

1. Propp:

Propp was mainly interested in narrative folk tales. He believed that folk tales were about the same basic struggles, therefor had the same characters. Characters have a narrative structure for the text.

Propp has identified:

-  The Hero - protagonist in a thriller

-  The Villain - the antagonist in a thriller

-  The Donor - the ghost or supernatural type character

-  The Dispatcher - the ghost or supernatural type character

-  The Helper - can be in thriller/crime or thriller/action sub-genre where someone helps

-  The Princess - the victim or love interest in thrillers
-  The Anti-hero - someone like Blade who will have no choice but to kill
-  The Father - usually an older character to create mystery

All these characters he argued, have their own motives and are likely to cause events and take sides as conflict is central in these stories. Propps theory has been applied to films, nut can sometimes be difficult to apply. However it often applies well to crime thrillers.

2.Todorov

Todorov saw narratives structured around a basic structure,                                                  

Equilibrium à Disequilibrium à New Equilibrium

Equilibrium means balance which is how characters are presented and appear at the beginning of a film.

Disequilibrium is the disruption caused (main event) and causes everything to be unbalanced which needs to be resolved

New Equilibrium is when everything is eventually sorted out, balanced and back to normal


Thriller example: Seven
Equilibrium: when people are starting to be killed randomly
Dis-equilibrium: the detectives are after the killer and he starts to become known to everyone and his killings get more and more brutal
New-Equilibrium: the last sin/murder to be committed involves the protagonist. He has a big choice to be made.

3.Barthes

Barthes said narrative can be defined by using the following things

Symbolic- Connotations = red means love, danger or passion

Semic- Denotations = just the colour red

Cultural understanding- Events being recognized as being part of our culture, like with Halloween, there are cultural understandings of fear and murder on that night.


4. Aristotle:
He discusses how to get a good response from the audience, this needs to be done by creating the right emotion from them. Evoking emotions from the audience causes maximum impact. Typical emotions caused in thriller films are fear, nervousness and uncertainty.


Overall, from this theory research I want to include ideas of all theorists. I want to include conventional characters that the audience will understand, and I also want a clear start, middle and end. I want my choice of iconography to provide certain meanings for people and also include elements of cultural understanding so my audience will have expectations and assumptions. Finally, I definitely want to cause emotion from my audience so I will aim to include fear and anxiety to have the maximum effect from viewers.