Narrative - The prestige

Narrative

A narrative is a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.  It is usually some kind of retelling in words or possibly mime of something that has occurred. The narrative however is not the story itself but ratchet the telling of the story. 

8 character types

1. The hero
2. The villain
3. The donor
4. The dispatcher
5. The false hero
6. The helper
7. The father

Class Notes - The Prestige

-Today we learnt about the theories of narrative.

• Top hats - this old fashion accessory tells us that the film was set around early 1900s
• There is a parallel action as two different stories are being told at the same time.  The first is an old man teaching a girl a magic trick whereas the other includes a magician performing a trick in front of the audience. 
• The story contains enigma as it has an interesting story so the viewers want to carry on watching, this is shown when the magician is close to drowning and the function of the little girl in the story.  However if you have too much enigma the audience is left confused.

Barthes theory 

Almost anything is possible therefore there can be a variety of meanings, also texts can either  be open or closed.

Prestige has action/symbols/enigma

• Lightening which could symbolise frightened/mixed emotions/surprised.
• When the bird is taken out of the cage, this could represent a parallel to the other narrative now it is free.
• Two men are arguing backstage highlights more action.

Aristotle theory (Greek philoopher)
One of the most basic theories is that every production has a beginning, middle and an end.


Todorov theory.
This is has 5 stages: 

• Begins with a equilibrium (a state of normality). 
• Equilibrium is then disrupted. 
• Main character then realises it has been disrupted 
• The protaganist then tries to restore the equilibrium back to ordinary.
• The final stage is that a equilibrium is restored however it is different to equilibrium at the start. 

Prestige 

• The whole narrative contains disruption with lots of chaos
• Contains an argument and man becomes trapped

Levi-Strauss theory
This theory uses binary opposites.  For example two completely different character paired together.
Prestige

• Calm narrative vs stressful narrative
• The bird is caged then freed
• Old man vs young girl (elderly vs youth)
• Wisdom vs innocence

UP movie clip - married life

• Opposites shown red vs blue hand prints
• Opposite genders 
• Equilibrium is disrupted when they cannot go on holiday, then couldn't have children