Section 1
Classical Hollywood Narrative is the theory that most (if not all) movies released will follow a narrative structure based on the following idea of each movie starting in an equilibrium, then something happens to cause disequilibrium, the hero of the movie then tries to fix the equilibrium and then the climax of the movie occurs before the hero of the movie is placed into a new equilibrium. This theory of narrative was published by Tzvetan Todorov, he stated that every movie begins with a status quo based on his research of movies that had been released and were being released during the 1960's. It is important to look at the structure of movies for the benefit of both the audience and directors of todays movies, thanks to this theory every movie can have a unique twist on it to then change the market for movies and bring on the next trend of popular films, for example since the movies Todorov were watching are quite old and they all held this theory but now if you compare new movies then you find that some movies either follow none or very little of this structure at all. A movie that follows this structure quite well is the Movie Halloween, the movie contains an equilibrium where the main character Laurie is living a good life of studying and working as a child minder/babysitter, after that the equilibrium is broken by Michael stalking and attempting to kill her, she tries to fix the equilibrium by killing him first and returning to normal, the climax is the detective shooting Michael out the window. The ending doesn't follow the structure as the villain escapes and lives to make 3 more movies of manslaughter, however, the structure was followed through the first part of the movie and the middle with just the end being different, if you look at some more recent movies then you can find movies that completely stray from the narrative structure altogether.
When it comes to actors involved in these horror movies then you move into the theory around character types and this is an idea created by Vladimir Propp that every movie will hold 4-8 characters that are distinct to the story and yet can be found in most (yet again if not all) movies. Propp studies hundreds of old folklore tales and mythical stories to come up with 8 characters that were in every one of the fantasy tales he researched, these 8 types are:
- The Hero (the protagonist of the story)
- The Donor (provides an object with use to the hero at some point of the story)- The Helper (helps the hero in his quest)
- The Princess (usually the reward for the hero and/or connected to the villains schemes)
- Her Father (usually gives the hero a reward)
- The Dispatcher (gives the hero the mission at the start)- The False Hero (the person who pretends to help the hero but actually works against them)
by investigating into how and why these characters are involved in most movie plots then movie producers can use it as a guideline to their movies or as a list of characters to whom the director might want to twist and play with (such as Snape in Harry Potter being a Triple agent as he goes from working for Dumbledore, then to Voldemort and after back to Dumbledore) also by looking into each individual character there can be detail added to give them more motivation such as making the Donor and the Dispatcher the same person and this way you get spy movies where they give the main character a cool gadget and then tell them the mission they need to go on. When it comes to the movie Halloween we can see a lot of these characters are involved but the interaction is different, there is the Hero (Laurie) who tries to survive, the Villain (Michael) who wants to kill the hero, The Helper (Samuel Loomis) who goes looking for the villain and stops the villain from killing the hero, The Dispatcher (also Samuel Loomis) who tells the police to hunt the villain down.
Binary Opposition is every opposite term for any subject within a movie, such as evil and good are Binary Opposites and so are safe and dangerous. This narrative structure is used to delve deeper into themes and genres to find any underlying meaning to them, it was thought up by Claude Levi-Strauss when he researched how movies portrayed opposition as opposed to how the events of the story was arranged and with this he found that when you place polar opposites into the plot of a movie then the scenes get a more dramatic effect layered onto the atmosphere that was already there. If you watch a whole movie that is based at night in the dark, then when the end of the movie comes and the safety of light and day shows then the whole aspect of freedom and victory to survive is magnified by a lot. when it comes to the horror movie Halloween we can see a lot of clear Binary Opposites which include;
- Good/Evil
- Night/Day- Safe/Dangerous
- Strength/Weakness
- Innocence/Guilty
These Binary Opposites are magnified since they counter each other by a lot, we feel more tense around dangerous situations of the move and more relief when the danger subsides and the hero manages to escape. the following video shows video examples of Binary Opposition;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wo2ofNFYBA
Bordwell and Thompson worked on a different theory to narrative structure and created a sentence to explain their theory that goes ''a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship, occurring in time and space'' this is not a full narrative theory but it helps explain the narrative structure of movies based on what the camera sees and what it does not see. A lot of the time the camera will be focusing on the hero of the movie whilst all the other side characters will get minimal screen time unless they do something important but even though we do not see them we know they are doing something all the time, even if its just standing still they are still part of the group. This narrative theory also explains how effects have a chain reaction that cause the flow of the whole movie, like if the villain kills someone or leaves them to last to be killed, it also looks into how off screen events can cause a reaction that effects the on screen events and how they are explained to the audience so that we can follow along every object that pushes the narrative forward without missing any details.
Section 2
Halloween
1) How does the start exemplify a common technical code convention of the horror genre?
the beginning of Halloween shows the first scene through the eyes of the killer, this is used a lot to magnify the horror of what the killer is doing as well as showing the audience how he does it without delving too deep into the mind of the killer so that we are still guessing what the motive is.
2) How does the setting fit with the horror genre/
The whole movie is set in a residential village where the streets are empty most of the time and the crime rate is low, the kicker to this is that it is Halloween and the whole area is dark and gloomy which forces the audience to focus their attention to wherever the light is.
3) What iconography of ''innocence'' do we hear or see early on?
although the very beginning of the movie contains no real view of innocence (the first scene being mickey killing his sister and the second being him escaping the asylum) there are connotations as to what innocence is based on that bad that does occur during these beginning scenes. One iconic scene of innocence is the therapist Samuel claiming to attempt to rehabilitate the child in hopes of stopping him from staying evil.
4) What was the main industry impact of Halloween?
The movie was low budget with no hired iconic actors at the time, yet the movie still turned over a huge profit and because a star amoung famous movies. This meant that ever other company had to have their input into the market so they could send out their version of the horror theme and try to make just as much from it.
5) Name some ''Slasher'' films which followed on from Halloween.
Friday 13th, Nightmare on elm street, Terror Train, Prom night and bloody valentine are all good movies that were inspired or developed around the movie Halloween
6) What are the four plot rules of the ''slasher'' film sub-genre which Halloween began?
I- a traumatic event creates a psychotic killer
ii- the killer returns to the scene of the crime with his motif coming from specific calendar dates or historical events in their universe
iii- the killer murders the teens who are guilty of falling under certain stereotypes. usually with a blade used for working purposes
iv- the killer is defeated by the final girl (a tomboyish and usually virgin girl) but is never officially ridden of.
7) Give three ways in which Laurie is androgynous.
I- she fought back against the killer as opposed to being helpless
ii- she was in charge of the situation through most of the event giving orders top the children to protect them
iii- she risked her life to try and keep the kids safe, she played the superhero whilst superheros are usually played by the male characters due to dominance
8) What does the extract mean by ''a reactionary sexual agenda''?
It means that the killer was successful in taking out the targets that had any connection to sex or its activities, for example annie was in her underwear ready to get her boyfriend and was then killed, her friends had sex and they were murdered soon after. laurie refrained from secual activity and was the survivor which applies to the children (obviously ) and the detective.
9) How does the director, Jhon Carpenter, counter the suggestion that Halloween had areactionary sexual agenda?
he stated that the killer was always chasing after Laurie and that even though she was no killed it made no affect whether she had sex in the past or not. the killer was just able to kill the others due tothem having their guard down after the commotion of sex.
10) Why does Mike Myers kill his sister?
it was discussed that he killed his sister to copy the act of penetration with his knife in a phallic manor, however the director stated that Samual Loomis said that the boy was the embodiment of pure evil and nothing more.
Section 3
The Crazies
1) Does the Crazies follow the CHN? Why or why not?
the way classical Hollywood narrative works is to follow the theory behind Todorov, this movie broke it straight off the bat by showing what the virus had caused to the little village before going to how it happened, plus the equilibrium was never found nor was a new equilibrium sought out.
2) How many of Propp's character types can be identified in the film?
The obvious is the Hero who is the protagonist of the film, then we have the helper who was the deputy, the princess was the wife who was pregnant, the anti hero was the army who claimed to try and save the un-infected, the villains were the zombies and finally the dispatcher which was the people who were infected early on telling the sheriff that something bad was happening.
3) List five examples of binary opposition in the film and explain them briefly.
I- Good/Evil, the hero had to fight against the evil zombies that wanted to kill them all
ii- Sanity/Insanity, everyone was separated by how they dealt with the situation, the deputy went insane at some point and threatened to kill the main character
iii- Powerful/Powerless, the army is a huge power to try and avoid since they have all the weapons and all the different specialties, meanwhile the hero has a few guns and no really used skills other than courage
iv- Day/Night, the day time period was shorter as everything is a lot scarier during the night, even during the day all the scary action would happen in a shaded area like the house or car wash
v- Dangerous/Safe, this one is pretty obvious as they are in danger all the time but this just means that the times they are safe just makes the audience feel relief for however long it lasts.
4) -
5) there are a few event that cause a future effect but were not shown on screen, these may have been to add effect or to add purpose but they do have a very large impact on what happens to the protagonist and the his group of survivors
i- the first event is the plane crashing, we never see the plane loading up or even flying for that matter, we only see it when it is shown from the river and even though we don't see it we later learn that the plane contained a disease that turned people into hideous zombies.
ii- the wife gets pregnant before the movie starts, this means that when they go to scan her they think she is infected and separate her from her husband which then leads him to try and save her and the whole story ahead. if she didn't get pregnant then she and the husband would not have been separated and they would have died from the army in the ''safety'' trucks.
6) The first is the activist against the military, we don't see them planning anything or even at all until they hit the fence that causes the zombies to break free, if we or the protagonist knew that there were activists trying to fight the army to help the zombies then it would be too predictable a circumstance. the second is the adventures of the deputy, as the virus outbreaks he disappears and doesn't reappear until the sheriff is in trouble, this means that he was sneaking around as well and we don't know how he managed to avoid all the guards.
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