Specialist Study Area: Narrative

Narrative is a Specialist Study Area for Section C: British Film since 1995 on the first exam paper Component 1: Varieties of Film and Filmmaking (Trainspotting and This is England) and for Section D: Film Movements - Experimental Film (1960-2000) on the second exam paper Component 2: Global Filmmaking Perpectives, where you may be asked to discuss narrative in relation to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.

Stories surround us and narrative is a fundamental way that we make sense of the world. In childhood we learn fairy tales and myths, as we grow up we read comic books, short stories, novels, history and biographies and watch plays, TV shows and films. We are used to religion, philosophy and science presenting their doctrines through parables or tales. Much of our conversation is taken up with telling tales - recalling an event that has happened to us or even telling a joke. Even newspaper articles are called 'stories' and when we ask for an explanation of something, we may say "what's the story?".

Because stories are all around us, spectators inevitably approach films with definite expectations regarding what the narrative may entail and how the narrative will be structured. We may already know a great deal about the particular story the film will tell, having read the book or seen the TV show upon which the film is based, or having seen the film to which this is a sequel.

More generally, though, we have anticipations that are characteristic of narrative form itself. We assume that there will be characters and some action that will involve them with one another. We expect a series of incidents that will be connected in some way. We also probably expect that the problems or conflicts arising in the course of the action will achieve some final state - either they will be resolved or, at least, a new light will be cast on them. We often expect a film's narrative to follow a three-act structure, with a clearly defined beginning, middle and end. Crucially, a spectator comes prepared to make sense of a narrative film.

As we watch a film, we pick up cues, recall information, anticipate what will follow - piecing narrative events together. The ending frequently has the task of satisfying or cheating the expectations prompted by the film as a whole - often cueing the audience to review earlier events, possibly considering them in a new light. As you begin to discuss the narrative form or structure of Trainspotting, This is England and Pulp Fiction you should think about the ways the filmmakers manipulate your expectations through decisions they make regarding narrative and the ways in which this manipulation of narrative encourages dynamic, active engagement on the part of the spectator. This idea of active spectatorship is particularly relevant to a film like Pulp Fiction which presents story events out of chronological order and asks the spectator to work hard at piecing these events together so that they make sense in relation to each other.

It is perhaps best to consider narrative as a chain of events in a cause and effect relationship, occuring in time and space. Typically, a narrative begins with one situation, a series of changes occurs according to a pattern of cause and effect (one event leads to another), before finally a new situation arises that brings the narrative to its resolution. A random string of events is hard to perceive as a narrative, which is why viewers often struggle to make sense of a film such as Pulp Fiction on first viewing.

If you consider the following actions, you may have troubling grasping them as a narrative: A man tosses and turns, unable to sleep. A mirror breaks. A telephone rings. With this example, the audience is unable to determine the causal, temporal or spatial relations of the events. Now consider a new description of the events: A man has a fight with his boss; he tosses and turns that night, unable to sleep. In the morning, he is still so angry that he smashes the mirror whilst shaving. Then, his telephone rings; his boss has called to apologise. This second version is more clearly recognisable as a narrative. The audience can connect the events spatially; the man is in the office, then in his bed, the mirror is in his bathroom and the telephone is somewhere else in the house. More importantly, we can understand that the three events are part of a series of causes and effects - the argument with his boss causes the man to have a restless night's sleep, this leads to the man breaking the mirror. The phone call from the boss resolves the conflict and the narrative ends. We can also clearly understand the temporal relationship of the events; the sleepless night happens after the argument with the boss and before the breaking of the mirror, which in turn occurs before the phone call. The events happen chronologically, running from one day to the following morning. Now, the narrative develops from an initial situation of conflict between the man and his boss, through a series of events caused by the conflict, to the resolution of the conflict.

What is crucial in questions on narrative, is the need to consider how the narrative is pieced together by the filmmaker; is the narrative constructed in chronological order (as is largely the case with This is England and, to a slightly lesser extent, Trainspotting) or is it fractured, following a non-linear pattern (as is the case with Pulp Fiction).

It is important that you understand the formalist critical approach to narrative and that you are able to distinguish between STORY and PLOT. Plot refers to the arrangement of material in the film as it stands; what we see and the order in which it is presented as we see it (in Pulp Fiction, for example, the first moment of the plot is the scene in the diner where Honey Bunny and Pumpkin discuss the robbery, in Trainspotting the first moment of the plot is when Renton and Spud run down the street from the security guards - both events come much later in the story).

Story refers to what the audience can see, but also to presumed or inferred events that we don't see (such as Marcellus Wallace throwing Tony 'Rocky' Horror out of a window and through a greenhouse for allegedly massaging his wife's feet, or Vincent's time spent in Amsterdam in Pulp Fiction). When story events are presented out of chronological order in the plot, it is the spectator's job to construct the story out of the plot by putting these events back in chronological order, in order to make sense of the narrative. The beginning of the story, in Pulp Fiction, begins with Captain Coons at the start of 'The Gold Watch' section of the film, where Coons tells a young Butch about the journey the watch has been on (including inferred events we don't see involving Butch's father, grandfather and great-grandfather). Confusingly for spectators, this happens much later in the plot, over a third of the way into the film.

Experimental films may not always link story events by cause and effect and it may be difficult for viewers to see how these events relate to each other, which in turn may confuse and disorientate them. Manipulating when events are shown in relation to each other can further confuse and disorientate the viewer. In Pulp Fiction, for example, the plot begins with a couple deciding to rob a diner whilst they are eating breakfast. This scene takes place much later in the story, but the spectator doesn't learn this until near the end of the film, when the robbery interrupts dialogue between Vincent and Jules (more central characters than the couple we meet at the beginning of the plot) who are eating breakfast in the same diner. By pulling a scene out of chronological order and placing it at the start, Tarantino deliberately unsettles the audience, asking more of them in order to make the narrative make sense. Later in the film Vincent is shot to death, but he appears alive in subsequent scenes in the last third of the film, which show him and his partner trying to dispose of a dead body and eating breakfast at the diner. Tarantino has shifted a block of scenes from the middle of the story (before Jules was killed) to the end of the plot; again playing around with where the events appear in relation to each other. By coming at the film's conclusion these portions receive an emphasis they would not have if they had remained in their chronological story order.

One other point worth considering in relation to story and plot is temporal frequency. Most commonly, a story event is presented only once in the plot. Occasionally, however, a single story event may appear twice or even more in the plot, as is the case with both Trainspotting (the scene which opens the plot with Renton and Spud running from the security guards reappears much later in the film) and Pulp Fiction (Jules and Vincent recovering their boss's briefcase from the apartment appears twice, as does Honey Bunny and Pumpkin beginning the robbery of the diner). Each time we re-visit these events, we know a little more about the characters and therefore may understand the scene in a different way than we did initially. The increased frequency may allow the audience to see the same action in several ways, bringing new meaning and significance to events that we may not have considered as particularly important the first time we witnessed them. This is certainly the case with the robbery scene that opens Pulp Fiction, which only takes on its full significance when it is repeated at the end of the film's plot.

It is important also that you understand the structuralist critical approach to narrative and that you are able to analyse the significance of any binary oppositions that occur in Trainspotting, This is England and Pulp Fiction. Binary oppositions are ideas or concepts (or even characters) that appear to oppose each other. These oppositions feature heavily in film narratives as they help create the tension and conflict so crucial to successful, engaging storytelling and they can provoke more active spectator engagement as audiences ere encouraged to take a side (either positioning themselves with or against particular characters, or with or against particular ideas or concepts). Analysing these oppositions can be a useful way of examining the film's key messages and themes.

Other aspects of narrative that you may wish to discuss include devices such as voiceover (apparent in Trainspotting, but not in This is England or Pulp Fiction), flashbacks and flashforwards, open and closed endings and montage (the opening of This is England uses montage as a narrative device to establish era and context). You may even want to discuss genre and the ways in which the narrative of the film you are analysing follows or departs from the typical storyline or narrative structure commonly found within that genre.

The extent to which you write about anything outlined above in relation to narrative will obviously depend upon which film you are discussing. There is no requirement for you to discuss voiceover, for example, in Pulp Fiction as it is not relevant, but you would want to discuss its narrative significance in detail in any essay on Trainspotting. Similarly, an in-depth discussion of story and plot and non-linear narrative structure is crucial when analysing Pulp Fiction but much less so in an essay about This is England.