Narrative

Narrative - A story is portrayed
- Sequence of events
-The means by which a story within a film is structured and organised to create a given meaning - Normally have an exposition, which is in the opening scenes of the film and presents the protagonist and their situation or predicament
- May hint a back story to that character which will shape the characters behaviour and the events that befall upon them.

Ellipsis - Change of time.
This can be shown through when a flash back appears, it's usually in black and white.
In Momento when we look back at the man writing down important facts about a murderer, the scene is in black and white.

Parallel narratives - two stories at the same time

Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian philosopher and his theory was:
Equilibrium: the state of normality of someone's life.
Disequilibrium: Something which creates the imbalance of the normality state.
New equilibrium: Normality has restored, doesn't mean the life is what it used to be, living a new normality state.

Bambi - Equilibrium - Bambi happy with his mother whislt being a young deer.
- Disequilibrium - Bambi's mum is shot
- New equilibrium - His father takes him in and looks after him.

Films can also fit into another structure which is often used, Vladimir Propp was a Russian Formalist who analysised Russian Fairytales and came up with a theory that is thought to be in most stories. The theory was that a particular group of characters always appear in most stories, especially Fairytales:

Example for the use of ToyStory 1

1. Sid - The Villian -
2. Mr Potatoe head The Donor - Prepares the hero for the adventure ahead
3. All the toys - The (Magical) Helper - Helps the hero throughout the task
4. Little Bow Peep - The princess of prize - What the hero gets once defeating the villian or the task and ends up marrying the princess
5. Her Father - Gives the task to the hero
6. The Dispatcher - makes the lack known and sends the hero off
7. Woody/Buzz The hero or victim/seeker hero - reacts to the donor
8. False Hero - Takes all the credit

There is another structure which is commonly used by large Hollywood Productions which is called 'The Classic Hollywood', this contains more sections to Todorov's theory.

Exposition - tells us a little bit about the protagonist and sets the scene.
Development - the film proceeds further and tells us more about the protagonist and the relationship with others.
Complications - A problem occurs which makes the life of the protagonist harder
Climax - The situation builds up to the problem and fights it.
Resolution - All is restored the protagonist is happy once again, basically what happens after the problem has gone.

However a film called Momento goes against Todorov's theory of the three main structures of a film. Momento starts off being in a disequilibrium state, and every time the protagonist is close to finding out the problem so they are thrown back again. This film is very effective as it breaks all the rules of being an organised film, also the idea of the story flowing through, whereas in Momento as the story goes forward it keeps converting backwards as well.