Narrative Theories in Relation to 'Halloween'

Narrative Theory in relation toHalloween and the Crazies

Narrative Theory in Relation to Halloween

Tzvetan Todorov suggested that stories follow a certain order and pattern, he suggests that they begin with an equilibrium or status quo where everything is normal and in balance. The equilibrium (norm) is then disrupted by some event, setting in a chain of a series of events (disequilibrium). All the problems and issues which the events may have caused have then me solved so that order can be resolved to the world of fiction and therefore the equilibrium is restored or as some people would argue that it would be a new equilibrium. People then came up with the term 'Classic Hollywood Narrative' to describe Todorovs' theory. 'Halloween' does not follow this theory, as it doesn't start with an equilibrium instead it starts with a death and a little boy killing his sister whilst his parents are out in a small suburban town, so we already know there is a killer there is no real event that disrupts the norm, apart from that Mike Myers (the killer) is put in an institution and then we see that he is coming back so in a way this could be classed as the disruptive event but there is already disequilibrium so clearly it doesn't follow the 'Classic Hollywood Narrative'.

Vladimir Propp examined 100s of examples of folk tales to see if they shared any structures; he identified 8 character roles and 31 narrative functions. The 8 character roles are: 

1. The villain (baddie)
2. The hero (main protagonist and victor)
3. The donor (provides an object with some magic property)
4. The helper (who aids the hero)
5. The princess (the 'reward' for the hero and object of the villain's schemes)
6. Her father (who rewards the hero)
7. The dispatcher (who sends the hero on his way)
8. The false hero (double agent who hinders the hero rather than helping him)

Propp believes that all the roles can be applied to all kinds of narrative, he uses the example of TV news programmes and how we are often presented with 'heroes' and 'villains'. This can not be applied cleanly to the film Halloween as it is not a happy typical Hollywood film but we can apply the character roles to it they just don't apply exactly: 

1. Villain-Mike Myers
2. Hero-Laurie
3. Donor-Doctor Loomis who shoots Mike
4. Helper-Doctor Loomis 
5. Princess-Life, Laurie and the children survive
6. Father-Doctor Loomis
7. Dispatcher-People who worked at institution and allowed him out
8. False Hero- Policeman (Sheriff) he doesn't really believe the doctor and thinks looking for him is a waste of time.  

Claude Levi-Strauss looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values which reveal the structure of media texts. An example would be good and evil they are opposites. They weren't interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot, they looked instead for deeper arrangements of themes. There are many opposing themes in Halloween they are:

• Good&Evil - Laurie&Mike
• Young and innocent&Older and wiser - Children&Laurie&Doctor Loomis
• Virginal&Promiscuity - Laurie&Her friends 
• Aware&Unaware - Laurie&Her friends&The Sheriff
• Light&Dark - Daytime&Nightime
• Safety&Danger
• Life&Death - Laurie&Children&Doctor Loomis survive&Laurie's friends die 

Bordwell and Thompson defined narratives as 'a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time ad space'. They believe that a narrative typically begins with one situation, a series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally a new situation arises that brings the end of he narrative. Narrative shapes material in terms of time and space-it defines where things take place, when they take place, how quickly they take place. Technical techniques are used to manipulate our awareness of time and place; flashbacks, replays of action, slow motion, speeding up, jumping between places and times. When we watch a film we naturally try to make a connection and try and see a cause and effect. This is by far the most important factor in narrative because even if there is no obvious connection, we still try to make one, we do this because this is what we do to make sense of the world. The events are very clear in Halloween: 

Narrative Theory in Relation to The Crazies

The Crazies does not follow the CHN (classic Hollywood narrative) because the film starts off showing the audience the town on fire and completely deserted and in destruction, this is not the norm, the film then tells us that the destruction was '2 days earlier' and then we do see everyone in the town acting as they usually would, this is the norm Chronologically the film does start with a norm but we don't see it like that as we have already seen a disequilibrium before we have seen an equilibrium. The film then ends on a disequilibrium which doesn't follow the CHN because it doesn't end with a equilibrium and we see that everything that happened in Ogden Marsh is going to happen again at Cedar Rapids where they end up. 

Some of Propp's character types but not all of them can be seen within the film:

• Villain- The government can be seen as the villain on the film as they are the ones that created the virus which turns everyone in the town into a 'crazy'
• Hero- We could argue that there are 3 heroes within the film; David the local sheriff, his deputy Russell and his wife, Judy 
• Princess- We could argue that David and Judy's unborn baby is the princess as it is arguably the only reason they are trying their hardest to survive. 
• False hero- At some points of the film we can see Russell David's deputy as being a false hero as at one point of the film Russell turns on David and threatens him we soon see that this is because he has been infected and shortly after this Russell sacrifices himself to the government so Judy and David can escape. 

There are many binary oppositions within the film:

• Healthy/Unhealthy-most of the people in the town are infected and the people that aren't infected (unhealthy) are fighting to survive and to be healthy (not infected) Judy, David and Russell are trying to survive but unfortuantely Russell does get infected
• Derelict/Busy-The town starts off busy, filled with people, lively and then within 2 days the town is completely derelict
• Life/Death-most of the people that are alive do shortly die because they are either shot by the government or die due to the infection
• Safety/Chaos-at first the town looks safe and calm and so small no one would think it existed (safe) and then within a matter of days the town is under destruction; murders, fires, explosions, buildings are destroyed, cars are clamped or on fire and all of a sudden the town is completely unsafe and destroyed
• Moral/Immoral-the government create the virus in the first place and instead of trying to save the uninfected they shoot them if they try and escape, they are the enemy when in reality they should be the ones trying to save their people and their country. People who do have a higher status such as doctors (Judy) and the sheriff (David) are doing the opposite of this they are trying to save themselves as well as other people.  

There are three distinctions within a film, they are; screen duration, plot duration and story duration. Screen duration is the length of the film, plot duration is the length of the time the plot covers and story duration is the length of the time the story covers (including all the inferred events we bring to it) Distinctions in The Crazies:

• Screen duration: 92 minutes
• Plot duration: 3 days as we know that for the virus to overcome everyone and for the town to be destroyed took 2 days and then we see Judy and David trying to escape for another day so we can figure out that in total the plot went on for 3 days
• Story duration: couple of years, even though we don't see all of this in the film we can figure out that to come up with the idea and to make the virus would of taken a long time and then for the government to decide when and where and weather or not to actually distribute the virus would of also taken a long time.

There are two main events that cause later events in the film which occur before the film starts, they are:

1. The plane crash-we don't see the plane crash itself but we do see people and the plane in the water, we then know that this has infected the water and by people drinking the water it is causing the infection to spread, just like the plane crash we never see people drink the water but we know this because of what we are told in the film. 
2. We know that a short time before the film starts that David has got his wife Judy pregnant and this is very important to the plot and events of the film as if Judy wasn't pregnant David wouldn't be alive and they wouldn't have survived the film. We see in the film that Judy and David get separated because Judy's temperature is high because she is pregnant but the government instantly assumes that it is because she is infected and she then gets taken to another room with other people that have been named as 'infected' David then escapes to go and save her and if David hadn't of done this he would of been shot and then burned to death and therefore would of been killed off a quarter of the way through the film. 

There are 2 events based around Russell which we don't see:

1. Judy and David get taken from there house and put on a bus with all the other residents where they are then taken to the high school field where the government are dividing the residents into infected and not infected. We see Russell on this bus and he tells David that they spiked his tyres, by this comment we can tell that he obviously tried to escape but they spiked his tyres so he couldn't get any further. Later on in the film David Judy and Russell are walking along the highway and they spot a black car coming towards them, Russell then spikes the tyres of the car and then spots his truck which is stocked up with food and water and basic essentials, by this we can tell that before he was put on the bus he was stocking up his truck with essentials and then got in it to try and escape
2. When Judy and David get seperated we don't see Russell in the film for a while. When Judy is tied to the bed in the high school she looks out of the window and we see a red truck arrive and shoot people and by doing this it allows people to escape over the fences, we don't see Russell in this bit either but when he meets David back at the police station he describes that situation which makes us assume that he would of been there to see it.