Narrative Conventions and Structures

Narrative Conventions

When unpacking a narrative to find out its meaning, there are a series of codes and conventions that need to be considered. When we look at a narrative, we examine the conventions of genre, character, form and time, and use knowledge of these conventions to help us to interpret the text. 

Time is something we understand as a convention- narratives don't take place in real time but may telescope out (the slow motion shot which replays winning a goal) or in (an 80 year old life can be condensed into a 2 hour biopic). Therefore, we consider "the time of the thing told and the time of the telling" - Christian Metz. 

Very few screen stories take place in real time. There are many devices used to manipulate time, including;

• flashbacks
• dream sequences
• repitition
• different characters' POV
• flash forwards
• real time interludes
• pre-figuring of events that have not taken place yet

Temporal Order

The plot doesn't always show events in chronological order, as previously noted. For instance, flashbacks are commonly used to show us what has happened in the past. The narrative can also be presented in parallel terms; for example, we watch a scene where a character is getting ready for a party, then we see another scene where a friend is doing the same. The time when this is happening is parallel to each other, as in, it is happening at the same time in real terms. As with all narrative choices, we have to look at why the filmmaker has chosen to present events in this fashion and the effect it has upon us as an audience.

Temporal Duration

There are 3 distinctions of time within a film:

1. Screen duration: the time the film takes to show
2. Plot duration: the length of time the plot covers
3. Story duration: the length of time the story covers 

Temporal Frequency

The plot of a film may show us an event which happens once in the film but we know it has happened many times in the story - a short cutting of information for the viewer. Eg, in Gladiator, we see the hero fight four battles before his triumph, and we assume that many more battles have taken place but we are only being shown the most important ones. Alternatively, but less frequently, a story event may be shown more than one time during the plot - we see an event occur from another angle which may lead us to view characters/events in a different light. An example of this is the tv series The Affair.

Space is also very important in the film because location is usually a key part of the film. Narrative shapes material in terms of space and time; it defines where things take place and when they take place. The location may be physical and geographical (eg a war zone) or it may be mythic (eg the Wild West). The plot sometimes leads us to infer other story space which we may never see (eg we know a character has gone off on holiday but we never see this 'space'). Screen space selects portions of the plot space to show us, and the decisions that are made in terms of film space need to be examined in conjunction with close study of the visual elements of film language.

(Other codes and conventions have been mentioned in more detail in previous posts)

Narrative Structures

There are many ways of breaking down narrative structure, and a lot of work has been done by literary theorists to develop ways of deconstructing these narratives; these literary theorists and their methods have been previously mentioned (Todorov, Propp and Levi-Strauss).

When deconstructing a narrative we have to separate the plot and the story. Think of a feature film and jot down...

• the strict chronological order in which events occur
• the order in which each of the main character finds out about these events
• shows story
• shows plot construction

Identifying the narrator who is telling the story is also a vital question to be asked when analysing any media text. Stories may be related in the first or third person. POVs may change, but the narrator will always;

• reveal the events which make up the story
• mediate those events for the audience
• evaluate those events for the audience

The narrator also tends to position the audience into a particular relationship with the characters on the screen.

Cause and Effect

The director can create a mood or atmosphere by choosing certain shots in a certain order to build a picture in our minds. We automatically link what is happening in one shot with what happens in those either side of it, as this is what happens in real life, ie showing us a window frame and then a shot of a house, we presume the house is what you see out of that window. In this way we are interacting with the film.

Some directors have exploited this idea to extremes, such as Lev Kuleshov, a Russian filmmaker in the 1920's. He experimented by showing people shots of an actor between shots of different objects - food, a dead woman, and a child. The audience interpreted the actor's expressions (although it never changed) as being hungry, sad and affectionate. This is because our brains try to make continuative sense of what we see. This placing together of images is called montage.