Narrative theory

After watching "The Shining" a 1980's horror movie we had a group discusion about applying four very diffrent narrative theorys by Bordwell and Thompson, Propp, Todorov and Levi-Strauss to the movie.

Bordwell and Thompson had a theory on the distortion of time and space within a movie. The distortion of time and space created the story of the movie and the theory went that without it a movie woudn't work. When his theory is compared to that of "The Shining" we notice that use of the distortion of time in the movie as it progresses. This is shown at the begining of each day when a month, day of the month or time is only shown to the audience, but with no other description, which gives us a noticable progresion of time but without the knowlage of WHEN it actully is. Space is also distored throught the movie and this is most noticable with Jack when he has illusions and when he is shown in the old picture at the end of the movie. Although the theory does apply to "The Shining" it has the problem that it dosen't actully tell us anything about the actual story that we see.

Propp created a theory based on characters and narrative functions. Propp suggested that there are eight character functions.

• The villain ( This could be jack or the hotel )
• The hero ( In places this is Wendy, the cook or Danny)
  
• The donor (who provides an object with some magic property)
• The helper (is the person that helps the hero. This could be the cook, wend, Tony and the ability of shining)
• The princess (This would be Wendy.... but this dosen't completely fit as she isn't the sought for person or the reward for the hero and object of the villain's schemes)
• The father (who rewards the hero. This would be Jack... the problem been that Jack dosen't rewardd the hero)
• The dispatcher (who sends the hero on his way, in this case the cook)
• The false hero (It's unsure who this could be and infact might not be anyone of the characters)

As noticed above sometimes a character may fit into the same role "The Shining" has a very small cast so it turns out that, some roles are played by the same person. However this breaks as some of the roles arent played by any of the characters in the shining. Propp also has a theory that suggests that all storys follow a narrative structure, a set of 31 stages. He says that these stages would follow in the order of the 31 stages. However it is clear that when the theory is compared to that of "the Shining" that it falls apart after the first few stages and then fits again in some other stages. This shows that "The Shining dosen't follow his theory but does have a few good few comparisons. Instead of watching a movie and seeing characters, Propp theorys show us a diffrent perspective of how to view the characters and their functions within a movie.

Todorov's thoery is that movies all begin with and equlibrium which then leads to an disequlibrium and the into a new equlibrium. Todorov's theory works when compared to that of "The Shining" as the movie starts it all normal, this would be the equlibrium and when jack goes crazy it would be the disequlibrium and when Wendy and Danny escape at the end it would be the new equlibrium. Although this theory fits in well with "The Shining" it also fits well with any other narrative as it follows the patterns of a standard narrative thta all movies/stories have a starting point, a middle point and an end point.

Levi-Strauss theory is based on binary oppositions (Binary is used for digital devises and is a set of 1's or 0's, this can mean on or off). He plays with the fact that when a human thinks something their also unconsciously thinking the opposite , A good example of this is when someone thinks evil they also thinking good. when compared to "The Shining" it is shown throughout the movie. This can be seen by Danny when the movie starts, he is inocent and harmless and the starts talking in the mirror as Tony which seem somewhat evil/ different virsion of him. His narrative theory fits in well with "The Shining" as its seen throughout the movie.

The narrative theorys, not only an interesting subject to studie but also gives a huge insite into underlines of the ways that movies work and create an indepth sight into their narrative structure. Although each give a good understanding of a theoretical narrative structure, it is just that a theory, as it's not able to define all narrative stuructures, but does fit well as somewhat of a guide to how a good narrative structures can work.

Although I don't think that any of the narrative theorys completely fit the narrative structure of "The Shining" I do feel that the theorys of Propp have the closet comparisans than the other theorys. The reason I think this is because it's more more about the characters and the theory of how a story is structured. Todorov's theory fits all narrative, but dosen't really tell us anything about the story, so although it's good, it dosen't work when trying to understand the narrative of "The Shining". For this reason I think Propps theory tells us most about the movie.