Narration and Narrative

The filmic techniques studied so far make up the micro (or small scale) properties of a film's structure. We can now examine the macro (or large scale) properties of a film's structure.

These macro structures fall into two main categories - narrative and narration. These structures will be defined and illustrated in relation to both classical and contemporary Hollywood films.

Finally, we will end with an analysis of the unusual narrative structure of Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino,1994).

The concept of 'narrative' refers to what happens or what is depicted in films (as well as novels), and 'narration' refers to how that narrative is presented to the film spectator (or reader of a novel).

So 'narrative' refers to actions, events and characters, whereas 'narration' describes a mechanism that controls how the spectator gains information about those actions, events and characters. First, a description of what is meant by narrative.

Narrative structure

A narrative does not consist of a random series of events, but a series of events related to one another in terms of cause and effect.

If a film is based on narrative logic, an event on screen will be caused by a previous event:

event B happens because of event A.

For example: A man in shot A points a gun in an off-screen direction and fires. In shot B another man is shown collapsing to the ground.

Because of the way the shots are edited together (shot B immediately following shot A), the spectator reads the event in shot A as the cause of the event in shot B.

The causal link between the two shots can be illustrated by reversing their order: shot B, of the man collapsing, followed by shot A, of another man firing a gun.

The logic of the two shots is incomprehensible to the extent that the spectator cannot understand the event of the man collapsing as being caused by the event of the man shooting the gun.

Scenes as well as shots are also linked together by a cause-effect narrative logic. We can see this by looking at the first three scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho (1960).

First, a partial synopsis of the film. Psycho begins by narrating the story of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). She is first shown in a seedy hotel room with her lover, Sam.

They talk about getting married, but Sam has no money. Sam goes to the airport and Marion returns to her workplace (a real estate office), where she works as a secretary.

Her boss asks her to deposit $40,000 into the bank. She leaves the office and then goes home, where she packs and drives out of town. One night she stops to rest at the Bates' motel....

Scene 1. The first scene, Marion and Sam in a seedy hotel room during lunch break, establishes a problem: Marion and Sam cannot be married because he has no money (he is not financially independent and so cannot support a wife).

Scene 2. The second scene, of Marion returning to work, develops the theme of marriage further. The spectator learns that Marion's boss, George Lowery (who deals in real estate) is lunching with a wealthy man, Tom Cassidy. Cassidy's daughter is to be married the following day, so he visits the office to buy a property as a wedding gift for his daughter. Cassidy hands over $40,000 in cash and Lowery asks Marion to take it to the bank. She asks Lowery if she can go home afterwards, since she has a headache and wants to sleep it off.

Scene 3. The third scene opens with Marion in her apartment. When she turns her back to the camera, the camera dollies in to an envelope on the bed and the spectator sees that it contains the $40,000. The camera then pans right to show a suitcase, which Marion is in the process of packing. In a matter of seconds, this scene (within the context of scenes 1 and 2), establishes Marion's motives: she is going to steal the money and leave town .

The cause-effect logic in these three scenes is very tightly constructed. One of the most fruitful ways to analyse cause-effect logic in narrative film is to imagine the scenes in a different order.

For example, if Psycho began with scene 3, a sense of mystery would be created, because we would not have sufficient information to understand Marion's motives.

Beginning the film with scene 3 is certainly plausible, but would it be logical? It would certainly raise many questions in the spectator’s mind: for example, whose money is this and what is this woman going to do with it?

However, in the actual film, scene 3 is an effect of the previous two scenes (just as shot B in the hypothetical example above is an effect of shot A).

A lack is established in scene 1 - Sam's and Marion's lack of money; a surplus is established in scene 2  Cassidy hands over $40,000 in cash.

Its surplus status is emphasised throughout the scene: Cassidy stresses that he only carries as much money as he can afford to lose, and that he is rich because he doesn't pay taxes. Scene 3 then neatly ties up the lack and surplus - Marion steals the money.

The film only presents information relevant to is cause-effect logic. After all, is it a coincidence that the $40,000 is presented in the scene immediately after Sam and Marion talk about their inability to get married because of their lack of money?

Is it a coincidence that Cassidy pays cash? And is it a coincidence that the money just happens to be for a wedding present? We can also ask other questions, such as:

Is it a coincidence that the first three scenes directly follow on from one another? Why don't we see Sam leaving the hotel room and going to the airport? And why don't we see Lowery and Cassidy eating lunch?

By asking these questions, we begin to make explicit the film's cause-effect logic. The last two events just mentioned are left out because they are not relevant to the film's cause-effect logic, since they would not cause any effects in subsequent parts of the film.

At the end of scene 1 we see Marion closing the door of the hotel room. Scene 2 begins with her entering the office. All extraneous information is simply eliminated (although we see the director, Hitchcock, standing on the sidewalk just outside the office - how relevant is this to the film's cause-effect logic?!).

As with the transition from scene 1 to scene 2, Marion's journey from the office to her apartment (via the bank?) is eliminated between scenes 2 and 3

In scene 2 Marion claims that she will go to the bank and then go home. Because, in scene 3, we see her at home, we initially assume that she has already gone to the bank.

However, we soon have to revise our assumption, since the camera then shows the money on Marion's bed. Here the ellipsis between scenes 2 and 3 is significant to the cause-effect logic of the film, whereas the ellipsis between scenes 1 and 2 is insignificant.

Not all shots and scenes in narrative films are linked by causal logic. We can imagine a shot of a man walking a dog followed by a close-up shot of the dog.

If the shots are reversed, the meaning is still the same, since there is no causal logic linking these two shots.

Such shots can be characterised as being descriptive, rather than narrative. It is common for most narrative films to contain moments of description.

Indeed, the opening of Psycho contains several shots of the skyline of Phoenix, Arizona, which are descriptive because they simply aim to describe the space in which the narrative events are to unfold.

However, the dominant structure that holds a narrative film together (including Psycho) is still causal logic.

In summary, for a film to appear coherent and meaningful, the relations between its actions and events need to be motivated. In narrative films, this motivation is supplied by the cause-effect logic.

But we need to go further than discussing narrative films in terms of cause and effect. Narrative development is dependent on the way in which the cause-effect logic is worked out in relation to the film's character (or characters), who motivates that cause-effect logic.

This point can be made by referring to Hitchcock's 1959 film North by Northwest (which will also be discussed in my analysis of narration).

First, I shall simply outline the rather complicated series of events contained in the film.

After a hard day's work, Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant), a Madison Avenue advertising man, goes to the bar of the Plaza Hotel to meet a couple of friends.

He decides to send a telegram to his mother to cancel their night out at the theatre. But, as he calls the bell boy, he is mistaken by spies for the CIA agent George Kaplan.

The spies kidnap Thornhill and take him to the head of the spy-ring, Vandamm (played by James Mason). Thornhill manages to escape from Vandamm and begins searching the Plaza Hotel for George Kaplan. But Thornhill, pursued by the spies, is implicated in the murder of a UN delegate (who was in fact murdered by the spy-ring).

Wanted by both spies and police, Thornhill catches a train to Chicago. On the train he is assisted in his escape by a stranger on the train, Eve Kendall (Eve Marie-Saint), who hides Thornhill in her bathroom when the porter arrives, and in the top bunk of her sleeping compartment when the police search the train.

But the film spectator discovers that Eve is Vandamm’s mistress and, once the train arrives at Chicago, she sends Thornhill into a trap - the famous 'crop-duster' sequence.

Eve has supposedly contacted Kaplan and has sent Thornhill to meet him in desolate farm country. But, once Thornhill has reached the arranged location, he is pursued by a crop-dusting plane which almost kills him.

He manages to escape and tracks down Eve at the Ambassador Hotel. After confronting Eve, Thornhill follows her to an auction room, where he finds her with Vandamm.

Vandamm's men attempt to seize Thornhill but he saves himself by creating a disturbance at the auction and getting himself arrested by the police. It is at this point in the film that the CIA 'Professor' who created the decoy agent intervenes.

At Chicago airport he informs Thornhill that Eve is the real CIA agent and that Kaplan is a non-existent decoy. Because Eve is in danger, Thornhill continues playing Kaplan in order to divert suspicion from Eve.

The film then shifts to Mount Rushmore, where the cafeteria becomes the stage of a mock killing, in which Eve shoots' Thornhill in order to regain Vandamm's trust. Eve then flees from the police and Thornhill is driven away in an ambulance.

In a nearby wood, Eve and Thornhill meet up briefly and declare their love for one another. (It is only at this point in the film that Thornhill meets the real' Eve.) Eve then returns to Vandamm, who later discovers her real identity. She is rescued by Thornhill and they escape across the stone faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore. They are finally reconciled as a married couple after Vandamm is defeated.

Thornhill motivates the film's cause-effect logic, since he must prove his innocence by finding George Kaplan. The forward momentum of the film is therefore driven by the needs and wishes of Thornhill. The resolution of these needs and wishes give the film a strong sense of closure, for Thornhill not only proves that he is the wrong man, but he also manages to expose Vandamm's spy ring and find a wife at the same time!

As this description of North by Northwest implies, narrative does not simply consist of a series of events linked together in a causal chain motivated by characters.

Narratives are also structured into three stages: a beginning (Thornhill meeting his friends in the bar of the Plaza Hotel), a middle (mistaken for Kaplan leads to Thornhill's kidnapping and to his subsequent adventures) and an end (Thornhill's successful attempt to prove his innocence, expose Vandamm and marry Eve).

The narrative theorist Tzvetan Todorov also describes narratives in terms of three stages:

· a state of equilibrium

· the disruption of this equilibrium by an event

·        the successful attempt to restore the equilibrium.

Here narrative is not defined as a linear structure, but as circular. An initial state of affairs is introduced and is then disrupted.

The narrative is then driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium, which is finally achieved at the end. However, the equilibrium achieved at the end is not identical to the initial equilibrium.

As Todorov argues, narrative involves a transformation. In North by Northwest, it is primarily Thornhill who goes through a transformation.

At the beginning of the film he is an unmarried advertising man planning to go to the theatre with his mother. But by the end of the film he is a married advertising man.

This transformation is brought about by his temporary loss of identity (he is mistaken for a CIA agent and taken out of his everyday lifestyle by kidnappers). The middle part of the narrative has therefore caused Thornhill's transformation.

We can characterise the middle part of the narrative as the narrative's liminal (or transitional) period, which means that it takes place outside of established (or normal') social events.

The liminal period of a narrative therefore depicts transgressive events, events that exist outside of normal social events, whereas the initial and final equilibrium stages of the narrative represent social normality.

The concept of liminality can clearly be applied to North by Northwest. The film begins with the everyday routines of Roger Thornhill. He is then literally taken out of his everyday routines by the kidnappers, whereby he loses his identity (the kidnapping therefore signals the beginning of the film's liminal period).

It is only when Vandamm is arrested that Thornhill can regain his true identity and return to his original routines  but with a new wife.

David Lynch's independently produced American film Blue Velvet (1986) parodies this three-fold narrative structure. It begins with an excessively picturesque series of shots of small town America; a simplistic, naive and innocent environment.

However. underneath this chocolate box image, there is a terrifying world of horror, violence and evil. The film depicts the journey of Jeffrey Beaumont (played by Kyle MacLachlan) from this picturesque environment to the underworld, and back again.

In the liminal space of the film's underworld. Jeffrey confronts Frank Booth (played by Dennis Hopper), the incarnation of evil, whom Jeffrey has to confront and defeat in order to return to the light of day.

With the help of Sandy (Laura Dern). Jeffrey manages to defeat Frank, which then enables Jeffrey to return to the world of innocence. As with the opening scene, this world is presented in an excessively idealistic way, a parodic image of normality (or established social events).

As with Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest, Jeffrey has been transformed, for he has found himself a partner, Sandy, as a 'reward' for his journey into, and successful emergence from, the underworld.

Psycho is notable for not conforming to this three-fold narrative structure because the main character, Marion, is killed a third of the way through the film.

(She therefore goes through a radical transformation.) However, her act of stealing the money marks the beginning of the film's liminal period. After Marion is murdered, Norman Bates then becomes the film's dominant character.

The film's liminal period comes to an end when he is arrested for the murder of Marion (as well as his mother).

Finally, a few words about the actual arrangement of the narrative events. Most narratives are linear and chronological, because they present events in the order in which they happen.

This applies equally to the two Hitchcock films discussed above - Psycho and North by Northwest. However, a film that, for instance, contains a flashback does not have a chronological narrative, because the narrative events are not presented in a linear order.

By rearranging the narrative events in a non-linear order, flashbacks upset a film's cause-effect logic. Flashbacks are evident in films noirs (such as Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity) and are one of the main devices that create the complex and convoluted narratives that are typical of film noir.

If we return to the discussion of Psycho, where I talked about beginning the film with scene 3, it is possible to imagine that, when Marion drives out of town with the money. scenes 1 and 2 could appear on screen in the form of flashbacks.

These two scenes would then supply the cause of Marion's actions. Later we shall look at the complex and convoluted narrative structure of Pulp Fiction.

Summary

So far we have established that:

·        A narrative is a series of events related to one another in terms of a cause-effect logic.

·        The cause-effect narrative logic is motivated by the needs and wishes of characters.

·        Narratives are structured in terms of a beginning (the initial state of equilibrium), a middle (disruption of the equilibrium) and an end (restoration of equilibrium).

·        The progression from initial equilibrium to the restoration of equilibrium

always involves a transformation (usually of the film's main character).

·        The middle period of a narrative can be called liminal because it depicts actions that transgress everyday habits and routines.

·        Narrative events are not necessarily presented in a linear, chronological order.

We shall now move on to discuss how narratives are conveyed to the spectator.

Restricted and omniscient narration

The term narration' refers to a mechanism that determines how narrative information is conveyed to the film spectator.

Here I shall discuss how narrative information is conveyed to the spectator by means of two modes of filmic narration - omniscient narration and restricted narration.

Restricted narration ties the representation of film narrative to one particular character only.

The spectator only experiences those parts of the narrative that this one particular character experiences.

We can therefore think of restricted narration as a 'filter' or barrier that only allows the spectator limited access to the narrative events.

This type of narration is typical in detective films such as The Big Sleep (discussed below), in which the camera is tied to the detective throughout the whole film.

In omniscient narration, on the other hand, the camera is more free to jump from one character to another so that the spectator can gain more information than any one character.

Omniscient narration is therefore more like the view from a large window, which allows the spectator a panoramic view of the narrative events.

Omniscient narration is typical in melodramas.

However, many films (such as North by Northwest) combine restricted and omniscient narration.

Furthermore, these types of narration produce a particular response in the spectator. In restricted narration, the spectator only knows as much as one character, resulting in mystery.

In omniscient narration, the spectator knows more than the characters, resulting in suspense.

A good illustration of these different spectator responses can be found in an example given by Hitchcock in his famous interview with Francois Truffaut

In this interview Hitchcock gave the example of a bomb placed in a briefcase under a table.

If the spectator knows about the bomb and the characters around the table do not, then the spectator, placed in an omniscient position in relation to those characters, will feel suspense as he or she anxiously waits for the bomb to explode or  be discovered.

But if the spectator is not privileged over the characters' knowledge, then the spectator, like the characters, is in for a shock. In this second example, the scene is governed by restricted narration.

In omniscient narration, the spectator is implicated in a fantasy of 'all­seeingness', where he or she can imagine seeing everything of importance in the narrative.

At certain moments in the film, the camera disengages itself from one character and begins to follow another character, which means that the spectator gains more information about the narrative than any of the characters.

This results in suspense because it manipulates the spectator’s expectations as to how a character will react to a particular piece of information that the spectator already knows about, but which the character does not yet know about.

Restricted narration involves the spectator in the narrative in a different way. Because the camera is usually linked to a single character, then we only know as much as that character.

This results in mystery because the spectator, like the character we are following, does not know what will happen next. In detective films, in which the camera follows the detective around the narrative world attempting to uncover the motives of a crime, these motives are hidden equally from the spectator and character by the restricted narration.