1B - Narrative

Narrative is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, portrayed in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images. I am going to speak about the film opening I created last year at AS level. The film is called 'Traffic Lights' and is a crime drama which follows the life of a drug smuggler.

There are various theorists who talk about the importance of narrative. One theorist, Todorov, stated that in a narrative, there is a state of equilibrium at the start which is followed by a disturbance to the equilibrium (a problem which is encountered by the main characters). My film opening can conform and subvert this theory depending on what perspective you have when watching the opening. One perspective is that the protagonist ( a teenage boy ) is quite satisfied with the job he has of smuggling drugs for powerful individuals until he gets caught by police at the airport. This is a disturbance to the equilibrium because the audience feels sympathetic for the young boy who feels he has no other way of making a salary so turns to drug smuggling which he feels has very little risk. However, the film opening could also subvert this theory because the audience might feel that the young boy's life is going downhill from the start as he chose to take part in this dangerous life. Consequently, when he gets caught there is no disturbance to the equilibrium because the boy was always going to end up going to prison one way or another. This perspective suggests how the state of equilibrium never experienced any disruption so it does not follow Todorov's idea of a typical narrative. What we tried to achieve when creating the film opening is for the audience to have some level of sympathy for the protagonist who is only smuggling the drugs out of desperation for financial aid.

Propp was a Russian theorist who looked at narrative and how certain characters always appear in a film or any narrative. He stated there is typically always a hero, villain, a donor and a helper, however my film opening, Traffic Lights, actually subverts this theory. This is because the audience will feel somewhat connected to the protagonist when watching the opening even though he is performing an act of criminality. As a result, he cannot really be classed as a hero nor a villain because he is only doing this deed because he has to in order to raise some finance as times are tough for him. Contrastingly, it could be argued that my opening does follow Propp's theory, this is because there is a scene in an alleyway where a smart-clothed, arrogant man is handing over the drugs who is quite evidently a much more dangerous criminal who is exploiting young teenage boys to perform the so-called 'dirty work' for him. This character is easily identified as the main villain because he only features in the film in a dark alley way suggesting he has bad intentions in life. Additionally, the villain in my film opening decides to 'use' the protagonist by giving him a job of smuggling the drugs. From this, you can see that the villain has specifically chosen a weak, vulnerable young boy to carry out a task which is too dangerous for him and at the same time offering very little reward for it. This exploitation emphasises his character as someone who offers no help to society and has no care for anyone apart from himself.

Barthes was also a theorist who noticed that in every narrative there will be a constant supply of enigma codes. These are questions that the audience will ask themselves as the narrative reveals clues and mysteries about what could come next. We conformed to this theory in our film opening especially after the innocent boy was handed the drugs and begins his journey to the station. The audience is drawn in here because they are thinking where is the boy going? & what is he doing with these drugs and why? It isn't right up until the last scene where it becomes obvious he is actually trying to smuggle the drugs yet he cannot perform the task as it is just not in his nature to do so.

In conclusion, it is evident that the narrative we used in the "Traffic Lights" film opening not only converts the theories but also subverts them. However, before the production of this film opening we researched the different theories and ensured we followed the conventions that we found. Apart from this we wanted to make our film opening unique so this is why our narrative can carry different interpretations for the audience to discover themselves.