narrative

Narrative 

How stories are told.

• We like to put things into narratives to understand them.

But what does count as a narrative?
does a day, a month, a year.
On a whole, yes, we live days as they are stories, putting them into a vague storyline. They have the necessary beginning, middle and end.

Unfortunately, things aren't that simple or straightforward.


We need to know what causes what, to make sense of the world.
Humans need straightforward facts and need events told to us in chronological order.

FILMS AND NARRATIVES

Narratives are the way that stories are told.

Here's a story about a cowboy, living in the kid's bedroom. Everyone respects him. He's the primary toy! Everything and everyone revolves around him.. (obviously to us this is toy story)... however, this is just the story's premise... not the narrative.

Narratives are shown to us in film by scenes.

Toy Story COULD have been from Buzz's perspective. Everyone has a different narrative, everyone has a different, and equally as important, perspective of events, especially in real life. The story is more like a common, shared memory.

We LOVE causality. We like to think that ONE THING causes the other, and so on forever but

Life is a series of events.... not a story.
we love chronological order, why they happen.


Religion shows this as well. They like to define why bad things happen to bad people.
'crops didn't grow this year because...'


The VOICE for the narrative can vary- who's perspective is on screen, being shown.

IN ATTACK THE BLOCK it is from Sam's perspective as we are shown Moses from her perspective. When she gets mugged by HIM, we don't like him and make an assumption... but as she realises, later on, we grow to understand and like him, along with her.

NARRATIVE PLOT

everything audibly or visibly present - it is selective.
plot- plot, what we see and understand,
story, we know what he's doing.

PLOT IS REALLY WHAT WE SEE.
Story is EVERYTHING,  even things we don't get to see as the audience.


Aristotle

• 'All narratives have a beginning, a middle and an end.'

Tsvetan Todorov -

• Bulgarian French literary critic.
• He said all could be broken down into 5 stages

equilibrium - normality, calm before everything just goes wrong and all bad ah no!

disruption - the story changes WHAAA, Something goes wrong, a death, event, situation

recognition - we know what's gone wrong and need to fix it RIGHT NOW

Attempt to repair - where they try and fix the situation restoration of a new equilibrium, where a new, or previous normality is restored. This does not have to be a good end, it can also be utterly awful for the characters, group, or just WHOLE society.


Restoration of the new equilibrium: IN ATTACK THE BLOCK, the new equilibrium is that Moses has reformed himself, he's changed, different people in the housing estate can talk not one another. These didn't happen before.





Vladmimir Propp 

• wasn't studying film exactly
• he was looking at Russian folk and fairytales.
• he studied them all tho look for commonalities between them
• He said there were 7 character functions.
• Interactions between characters (how they talk to each other)
• They are called functions to him.

Villian
donor
helper
princess
dispatcher
hero
false hero

in modern narratives, princesses do not need to be rescued, or female as we are more woke.

ATTACK THE BLOCK is an
unusual film as it doesn't have the clear cut role types
For example, is there a helper?

Villian - The aliens 
donor - Rob
helper - Sam
princess - ?? The entire tower block?
dispatcher - Rob?
hero - Moses
false hero - ??

Clause Levi-Strauss

people see in binary opposites.

good = bad

fast = slow

hero = villain

peace = war

black = white

man = nature

empowered = victim

without these, there isn't conflict and isn't a narrative.

In attack the block 

human vs alien
police vs youths
strong vs weak
hurting vs healing
old vs young
lower class vs society 

all the classes are against each other basically
action vs inaction