#19 Narrative Theories

The Narrative Theory for MOST films...

 

The narrative theory is almost an outline of how you are going to bit each part into your film. It's a little bit like when you write a poem, in the format of "A,B, AA, BB" when you are wanting to rhyme your sentences. However, here for a film, it goes in 5 stages.

 

 1. A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be.)

2. A disruption of that order by an event.

3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred.

4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.

5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium

I researched and found this site called Todorov's Theory, which helped me a lot find out what the narrative theory for a film was.

 

Todorov in 1969 produced a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to any film. He believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern. They all went through stages called the equilibrium, disequilibrium, acknowledgement, solving and again equilibrium, which are all showed above!

 

A film that follow these steps perfectly is Die Hard.

1. John McClane (Bruce Willis) is coming home to his family for Christmas and all is calm. (The equilibrium)

2. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his team of terrorists take over the nakatomi building which is hosting a Christmas part of which McClane and his wife are attending.

3. (2 points of recognition) McClane isn't in the room when the terrorists storm in so is able to move up the building when he hears screaming. People outside of the building realise there's a disruption when a police man's car is shot at from the building.

4. The police try sending in a SWAT team in which fails. The situation is solved by John McClane throwing Gruber out of a high floor window which kills him.

5. The equilibrium is restored when the police got McClane, his wife and the other hostages out of the building, and the McClanes leave in a police car.

However, you can't apply this rule to all films, as it just doesn't fit in with the ideas. An example of this is Fight Club.

1. The movies starts with Edward Norton (who in this movie has no name so I will call him Edward) trying to cure his insomnia.

2. He discovers that when he cries at these support groups he is able to sleep. (Attempt to repair)

3. After some arguing Edward agrees to hit him and punches him in the ear. After Tyler punches Edward in the stomach and they start to fight. Afterwards they go back to Tylers house, which is in terrible shape. Time goes on and they start to have other people fighting with them in the parking lot, until eventually they get to go into the basement of the bar to fight after it's closed and it is then called fight club. (Recognition of disruption)

4. Tyler goes into his boss's office and tries to blackmail saying he won't tell any of the company's secrets if he pays him. (attempt to repair the damage of disruption)

5. Tyler eventually tells Edward that fight club has evolved into Project Mayhem. (new equilibrium)