Storytelling is apparent in everybody as a part of their life. My memory of narratives involves my childhood memory of reading and listening to stories. When I was young my grandmother was a very good storyteller, she always read children’s book to me. I always thought that narrative is as simple as people telling stories, I never have thought about the structure of narrative that allows the interpretation of the meaning and messages. Upon learning the theory of visual narrative, I grew interest on learning about the structure of narrative. The purpose of writing this journal is that I want to investigate the difference between plot and story and I also want to oppose that the argument regarding post structuralist narrative as the cause of the decline in Meta-narratives in relation to story and plot.
On studying philosophy, I am greatly influence by the philosophy of Rene Descartes, he was a dualist where he argued that mind and body are two separate entity, where he introduced the mind/body dualism. Simliarly, Story and plot are two separate entity but they are interconnected with each other.
In the book titled Narrative, Plot is defined as the chain of causation which dictates that these events are somehow linked and therefore to be depicted in relation to each other. While story consists of all the events which are to be depicted (Cobley, 2001, p.5).
Academy Award wining film "Milk"
Scene 1
Scene 2
These are some of the scenes in Sean Penn's portrayal of the first gay politician , Harvey Milk in the film “Milk”. Story has always been associated with plot, each sequences in the scenes of Milk are linked together as plot to form a story. Each of the scene works like gestalt theory. In the book titled Gestalt psychology in German culture 1890-1967, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka defined gestalt theory as "the experienced objects and relationships that are fundamentally different from the collections of sensations, parts, pieces or sums". (Ash, 1995). Each of the pieces must join together to form a whole. This psychological theory is applied here in plot and story. The pieces is the sequences of events that are causally link to each other which called the plot, this pieces of events must join together to form a whole which is the story. Scene 1 above shows the opening scene of the film portrays the celebration of Harvey Milk’s 40th birthday living in New York City where he met his male lover Scott Smith, where the scene highlights his sexual orientation as homosexual.Scene 2 portray the intimacy of his relationship with his male partner over a dinner. These scenes and other scenes in the movie are causally related to each other to form the story.
Some advertisement do not have a plot, advertisement such as posters have a story but they do dot have any plot.This advertisement does not have a plot. Plot must have a sequence of events that are link together. "NO SMOKING" advertisement above consists only one event that makes up the totality of the event being depicted which is called story. This advert conveys a story of the dark side of smoking, the health issues that will arise as the effect of smoking. It does not consist of the sequence of events that are link together to for the story. This prove that story and plot are two separate entity and can exist independent of each other. Some genre such as poster advertisement convey a story independent of a plot.
Post structuralism is a movement in philosophy, particularly in French philosophy. Belsey defines it as “a theory or group of theories, concerning the relationship between human beings, the world, and the practice of making and reproducing meanings” (Belsey,2002 p. 5). Quentin Tarantino is famously known as the producer of post structuralist narratives in his film. In his film Kill Bill vol 1, the opening of the film depicts a scene where the main protagonist is shot and covered with blood. This does not follow Aristotelian narrative because the scene from the beginning of the story looks like the end. I would like to criticize on the argument that post-structuralist leads to the decline in meta-narrative.
By using the example Kill Bill Vol. 1, I would like to argue that that post-structuralist does not cause the decline in meta-narrative because the only change that separates it from traditional narrative is just the structure, but the plot is still intact. In Kill Bill Vol 1, there is a plot where all the sequences of events are link together despite the shift in its structure. Where despite of is destructive structure, it is still accepted by society. If post-structuralist really is the cause for the decline in grand narrative, why would Post-structuralist films such as the matrix, sin city and the inception became the overnight sensations that lure audiences to watch. Why are this movies effective in telling stories to audiences, how can this film receives such a big hit. The drawbacks of Post structuralist in my understanding means in scientific terms as the opportunistic infection to a narrative structure. However, the reason why narrative is suppose to follow beginning, middle and end is because of its reminiscence to real life. I begin to ask myself does virtual world has to mimic real life? the most important purpose of visual narrative is to tell story. Post-structuralist narrative retain plot and story thus, maintaining its purpose to tell story is for me a good enough reason call it a narrative.
In conclusion, Narrative is the theory designed to tell story, to convey message to audiences. It doesn’t matter how it is presented, there is no correct structure for storytelling. I think, narrative should be seen as a cultural realm. It is the society that will ultimately be the judges upon how narrative is suppose to be told.
References:
Ash, M.(1995).Gestalt psychology in German culture 1890-1967.Cambridge University Press, USA
Belsey, C. (2002). Poststructuralism: A very short introduction.Oxford University Press.Oxford.
Cobley, Paul.( 2001). Narrative. Routledge.london.
No comments:
Post a Comment