Bordwell and Thompson - Story and Plot
According to Bordwell and Thompson, narrative describes how a story is told, how the material is selected and arranged in order to achieve particular effects on the audience: linear or non-linear (episodic, flash-back etc.)
Bordwell and Thompson offer two distinctions between story and plot. These relate to the deigetic world of the narrative that the audience are positioned to accept and that which the audience actually see. This is based on the Russian Film Theory:
In their theory there are 4 different sections they focus on; Graphic, Rhythmic, Spatial & Temporal editing.
This editing is all about the mise-en-scene, what we are shown on the screen, thinking about the pictorial qualities within a video.
- Patterns, light and dark, colour similarities and differences.- Can be used to create 'smooth continuity' or abrupt contrast.
- Graphic match - shots link together.
- Graphic continuity - Point of interest stay the same throughout cuts.
- Graphic discontinuity - Everything keeps on changing, plays around with juxtaposition.
Bordwell and Thompson never did come up with a complete narrative theory but they believed that a chain of events within a media form causes effects on a relationship occurring in that time and space and the narrative shapes this material in terms of time. This can be portrayed through using effects to show the time by using flash backs, forwards, slow motion and speeding up.
The song Ghost by Halsey is a 'love story' between a heterosexual couple in which the female is conflicted about their relationship. She likes being used and gets a thrill out of being with emotionally deceptive men but is also tired of it and the way he comes and going as he pleases (like a ghost) but her feelings of love conflict with the rational decisions to leave him. To apply the narrative of Halsey's song Ghost to the music video for this essay, I will be focusing on the plot of the music video as it differs to the narrative of the lyrics within the song.
The music video narrative is simpler and a different story to what the lyrics imply in the song itself. The music video is again about a love story but between two females in Japan, their relationship has an unfortunate end when the artist's love interest leaves and she returns as a ghost, hence the song title, haunting her thoughts and memories of their past together.
The music video applies to this theory especially as it revolves around the idea of flashbacks and it is clearly seen through the editing. The music video begins with the central character reminiscing and the audience is then presented with a variety of scenes of this central character and her love interest using bright pink and neon colours which shows contrast to the beginning where she is alone and in the dark. These scenes continue and stay the same until the point of conflict happens and the central character is alone. She continues to be in the same place with the same neon colours but there is a slight dimness to reflect her emotions and to show the audience that she is now alone. As she continues to reminisce, her past lover appears in the same places as a hallucination, the lighting remains dim to show she is not truly there and then but cuts back to the beginning and ends with her alone in the dark again, the whole video taking place in her memories. This narrative is solely told using mise-en-scene/editing and lighting to show emotion and to show what scenes in the video are flashbacks and what is currently happening in the present.
Sven Carlson's theory is that binary oppositions drive the narration of the music video forward, e.g black and white theme. Also that there are two main types of music video; performance and conceptual. Performance clips where the video mainly shows an artist (or artists) singing and/or dancing. Conceptual clips are where something else is shown during the song's duration which may have symbolism or an artistic meaning. Halsey's Ghost video is conceptual although Halsey is seen singing at the video's intro, end and then at small parts through the narrative.The video has oppositions that drive the narration such as the neon bright lighting when Halsey is with her love interest and the darkness when she leaves, and the conflicting dim lighting when her love interest appears in a hallucination. This can be seen in the images to the left. The video is split into these parts to help you follow the story. Alone and reminiscing (dark lighting), memory with the love interest (bright colours), love interest leaves (dark), love interest appears in a dream (bright with dark undertones), back to alone and reminiscing (dark).
Tim O'Sullivan - Culture and Society
Tim O'Sullivan (1998) argues that all media texts tells us some kind of story. Through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves - not our own personal stories but the story of us as a culture or set of cultures. Narrative theory sets out to show that what we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand a particular set of constructions or conventions - to be then aware of how these constructions are put together.
Halsey's video tells a story about how our society has grown to be more tolerant of people's sexuality, race etc although we are not yet there on full acceptance it shows how much progress is made. It still hasn't become the norm for representation of different sexualities like this to exist but it shows how much we have grown since it is now possible for there is a music video with two female protagonists in love and instead of being pornographic or using offensive lesbian stereotypes, they are portrayed as a normal couple. There was controversy and some outrage but overall the music video was accepted and praised for its representation of homosexuals instead of it just being another standard love story about a heterosexual white couple.
Todorov - Narrative Structure
Todorov in 1969 produced a theory which he believed to be able to be applied to any film/media product. He believed that all films followed the same narrative pattern. They all went through stages called the equilibrium, disequilibrium, acknowledgement, solving and again equilibrium.
There are five stages the narrative can progress through:1. A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be.)
2. A disruption of that order by an event.
3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred.
4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.
5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium.
Halsey's video is almost entirely narrative (minus some performance) and doesn't apply to Todorov's theory entirely, at the beginning is technically the ending of the video with the shots of Halsey by herself reminiscing on what had happened, instead of it beginning with the state of equilibrium which begins after this in the shots of Halsey with her lover. The next stages apply as what follows is a disagreement between the two (A disruption of that order by an event) and then the love interest leaving (the recognition that the disorder has occurred) but Todorov's theory is no longer relevant to Halsey's video after the 3rd stage. After the love interest leaves, there is no resolution. There appears to be one but it turns out the love interest being back is just in her head and instead she is alone and reflecting on the situation. I dont think this applies to the 4th and 5th stages as nothing is done to repair the situation and there is no new equilibrium as the video ends with Halsey sad about what had happened. Because of this, Todorov's theory is not entirely accurate for every media product although sometimes certain elements of the theory do apply and Halsey's video is an example of this.
Pam Cook's Narrative Structure Theory
According to Pam Cook (1985), the standard Hollywood narrative structure should have:
- Linearity of cause and effect within an over all trajectory of enigma resolution.
- A high degree of narrative closure.
- A fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially by spatial and temporal coherence.
Pam Cook's theory applies to Halsey's Ghost video in some ways however also rejects certain factors of and isn't entirely accurate. The video is an accurate representation of a normal relationship involving two females thus creating verisimilitude through coherence of space and time as mentioned in the 'Hollywood Structure'.
The areas of Pam Cook's theory which are rejected and don't apply are the points to do with cause and effect and having narrative closure, two things that I do not think this video has. Although the music video has a narrative in that it tells a typical love story, when it comes to narrative structure the video does not conform to a particular structure/theory because the video goes back and forth between locations and time periods in the relationship and is not presented in chronological order. It would be easier to apply a narrative theory to a TV show as that shows cause and effect much more explicitly as they have audio to help with the portrayal of the plot, emotions and deeper meanings. This also doesn't have a high degree of narrative closure due to the video not having a resolution and ends at its conflict. I definitely don't think the theory applies to all kinds of products and would fit better with other types of media such as films or TV, and using Ghost as an example, the video rejects the theory more than it applies to it.
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