Analyzing film narrative questions to ask when discussing the narrative

ANALYZING FILM

NARRATIVE

• Questions to ask when discussing the narrative:

• What is the chronological order of the film? Is it told in flashbacks, real time, or over an extended period of time?

• Are there voice-overs or title cards to help narrate the film? What is the plot of the film?

• Is the narrative conforming to the conventions of a specific genre? (Romance, Western, Crime?)

CHARACTER

• Analyzing Filmic Characters is similar to analyzing written characters: Are they realistic, how do they change over the course of the film, what do they represent etc.?

• Types Of Characters:

• Round Characters

• Complex, life-like, multidimensional, and changeable
• Usually only a few per film
• Appear throughout the film
• Essential to the plot

• Flat Characters

• Simple, stereotypical, minor, one-dimensional, unchanging
• Appear only in a few scenes
• Are rarely essential to the plot but add interest

Two Examples of Round Characters in The Matrix – Neo and Trinity

• Example of Flat Characters in The Matrix – extra agents who help Agent Smith

POINT OF VIEW (POV)

• When is the POV objective (omniscient), and when is it subjective (seen through the eyes of one of the characters)?

• What does this POV tell us about the characters?

• How does the camera’s eye limit or control what you see? How do shifts in POV affect the viewer and the viewer’s understanding of the film?

Point of View

MISE-EN-SCÈNE

MISE-EN-SCÈNE: Setting

• Lighting: is it harsh or soft? Tinted or colored? Natural or artificial? What shadows does it create?

• Costumes: what do we learn about the characters from what they wear (or don’t wear)?

• Sets: Are props or sets significant? How do characters relate to them? Are they related to any themes?

Setting: Lighting

• How does side lighting influence the interpretation of the frame?

Setting: Costumes Costumes may be used to distinguish main characters from secondary characters, to further the plotline, and to identify good and evil.

Setting: Sets Sets can reveal how a character has changed. In these two shots from American Beauty (1999), the setting echoes the changing relationship between Lester and his wife.

MISE-EN-SCÈNE: Composition

• Some questions to consider when analyzing composition:

• The Arrangement: How are the elements in the frame arranged? (Foreground and Background)
• Photographic qualities: Are the images grainy, distressed, crisp, or processed in a special way?
• Framing: Do elements (besides the screen itself) confine/divide/exclude parts of the image? What is off-screen? How is space created or violated by the frame?
• Camera angle, distance, and tilt: Does the camera itself move (tracking) or does it stand still and just rotate (a pan)?

Composition: Arrangement (Part 1) Foreground and Background

Composition: Arrangement Symmetrical Composition

• In symmetrical compositions, the subject(s) is seen in the approximate center of the frame.

Composition: Arrangement Asymmetrical Composition

Composition: Photographic Qualities of The Shot

• The grainy, washed-out quality in this shot from Minority Report (2002) recalls the hard-boiled detective genre, suggesting that Tom Cruise’s character will be involved in a mystery.

Composition: Framing

Composition: Framing (continued)

• In these two images, which follow each other sequentially in the film, we see an object (the parasol) and then we cut directly to the subject looking outside the frame at that object. This happens quite often in scenes of dialogue.

Composition: A Framing Sequence in The Matrix

Composition: Camera Angle, Distance and Tilt

• Here are two interesting “from-above” camera angles. How could this camera angle change or enhance our interpretation of characters, events or themes in the film?

SUMMARY

• The following elements should help you analyze any film.

• Narrative

• Characters

• Point of View

• Mise-en-Scène

• Setting (lighting, costumes, sets)
• Composition (arrangement, photographic qualities, framing, camera angle)