The Story
Story Defined
In our first learning unit, we defined narrative as a
Chain of events in cause-effect relationship which is situated in time and space.
And we used the term story to refer to fictional narratives.
Meaning, stories have a beginning, a development and an end.Stories are defined by a particular series of events that have consequences and provoke other events – and that chain of events happens at a specific time in specific places.
Openings
The opening is the process of getting the audience involved in the story. That explain the importance of a good opening for the success of the film.
First of all, it must be clear that the opening of the movie does not necessarily correspond with the chronological beginning of the story.
As a matter of fact, most of the movies situate the audience at a point of the story in which significant actions have already occurred.
That forces every spectator to start filling the blanks in their minds.
The art of the filmmaking is to engage the mind of the audience. The best way to achieve this goal is to keep them active, to force every spectator to fill the blanks in their minds.
The film can perfectly well open with the actual end of the story without losing interest. In some cases, more important than to find out what happens at the end of the story is to understand the process that took the characters to that point.
In this regard, we need to refresh the difference we introduced in the first learning unit between the concepts of “story” and “discourse”.
The story is just the objective chain of events as they happened and in the chronological order they happened.
This discourse is the filmic presentation of those events. (Some authors – Jon Lewis for instance – use the term “plot” instead of “discourse”).
Case Study: Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder, 1950.
Narrative Structure
In spite of centuries, millennia actually, of human story-telling, the structural patterns to construct stories is more limited than it may seem.
There are a couple of standard narrative structures that are used again and again.
With no intention of being exhaustive, I am giving you just a couple of examples (Borrowed from Bordwell and Thomson, Film Art, 2010).
Change
Something, expected or unexpected, changes in the life of the characters.
It may be that they found out something they did not know (their spouse is cheating on them), or that a new character enters in their life, or that some major event impacts or threatens their existence ( a war, for instance).
Goal Oriented Plot
It is also very common that the story plot turns around a goal, something that the characters aspire to achieve.
Objects, challenges, feats, …
Time as Articulating Element
Something that will happen at a specific time (High Noon),
Historical films (Saving Private Ryan)
Theme of time-travel (The time Machine, Back to the Future).
Space as Structuring Element
The place where the story takes place triggers the plot.
Actions may be constrained to very explicit settings (Murder in the Orient Express ).
Space as a metaphor (Open landscapes in the Western).
Journey
Characters in motion – It is the journey, not the goal, what gives meaning to the story
Road movies (Easy Rider)
Closing
If the opening of the movie is essential to get the audience involved in the story, the closing is the impression that the film will leave in the audience, what makes that each one of us keep in some way engaged after its end.
The CLIMAXis the essential moment in the resolution of the story, when the characters find what they were looking for, achieved what they wanted to achieve or arrived at the place they were longing for.
Mainstream vs alternative filmmaking
Climactic vs anti-climactic closing
Range of Story Information
(Bordwell and Thomson, 2008)
The range of story information refers to how much the author lets us know about the story.
Restricted vs Unrestricted Narration
Restricted Narration
Spectator has the knowledge of only one of the characters of the story.
Unrestricted Narration
The audience knows more than any of the characters story.
Depth of Story Information
The knowledge of the psychology and the emotional state of the characters.