You can’t have a story without, well, a story. The analysis of narratives is central to media theory - after all, media tells narratives. With the linguistic turn in modern philosophy, too, narrative and how it relates to language has been a central focus of philosophy since the early 20th century.
Semiotics and structuralism
In the early 20th century, one obsession of many theorists across the social sciences was the science of signs - semiotics. Starting with linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiology, this focus on semiotics led to the rise of structuralism, or the identification of structures across the world, in language, and in everything.
Semioticians identified a structure in our language - we only know what a word means insofar as it is not another word/related to another word. Thus, we build structures around signs (words) which signify things to create meaning. This structure raised more questions - could we base our analysis of human cultures, and, for the purposes of this blogpost, stories, off of universal structures like this?
For the purposes of looking at various structuralist theories of narrative, I will use the opening of Christopher Nolan’s 2010 sci-fi thriller Inception. In case you haven’t watched it (and you probably have) and are not planning to anytime soon, you should probably read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia.
Todorov
Tzvetan Todorov, Bulgarian-French theorist, presents a theory of equilibrium and disequilibrium. In relation to our chosen film opening Inception, his stages of a narrative are below:
Equilibrium: Everything is fine. Inception starts with a somewhat peaceful, but disturbing (possibly seen as in medias res) sequence where Leonardo diCaprio’s character, Dom Cobb, is seen crawling in the water with peaceful but somewhat blurry images of children playing. This image is rather pleasant, combined with the harmonious sounds of the beach. The scene after is also very much devoid of action, but Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack gives off the impression that something is about to happen. We could interpret this, however, as starting in medias res, as the main character is in the middle of an operation, and thus relegating the equilibrium not from the first scene but to the first few shots of children playing, which echo in the end of the movie. We could also say, conversely, that the operation is the equilibrium.
Disruption of the Equilibrium: Things start to go wrong. In the opening of Inception, guards find Cobb with a gun on him, and he is dragged into the room to meet Saito. He then explains to Saito major plot devices related to dreaming. Cobb is told “he (Saito) knows”, an ominous disruption of the equilibrium. The next scene is another disruption, cutting from something calm to a riot in the streets and then the characters in the previous scene sleeping as things in the streets affect the dream negatively, but not so much for the characters to notice something is wrong. The operation is not going as smoothly as planned.
Recognition of the Disruption: The protagonist recognizes that something’s off. Really off. In the opening of Inception, this happens when Cobb opens the safe and attempts to take the envelope inside. The lights suddenly turn on behind him and Saito’s booming voice tells him to turn around, to which Cobb responds by pulling out his gun. He is coerced into putting the gun down.
Attempt to Repair the Damage: The protagonist sets off to rectify the problem. In the opening of Inception, the action starts as Arthur is killed by Cobb to wake him up in the real world, and as the dream starts to collapse, Arthur tries to keep Saito asleep for longer and Cobb runs out as the action starts. Cobb tries to read what’s in Saito’s envelope, but he is dunked in water to wake him up. The antagonist here, Saito, pulls out his gun on Arthur, but Cobb swiftly subdues him.
New Equilibrium: Everything is fine again. Things are, however, better than the original equilibrium, and the protagonist has grown from their experience. At the end of the opening of Inception, Cobb has Saito in a calm state. He has extracted all the information, Saito tells Cobb that he’s failed, but Cobb takes a powerful stance over him by pulling his gun on him, and the crew escapes. Cobb is, at the end, more powerful than Saito, and has some of what he wants. Everything is calm again.
Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss’s narrative theory is based on pairs and opposites. He places everything in a plot as in a structure of dichotomy. Themes are based on contrasts, which plays into the structuralist idea that we only understand words as they contrast with other words. At the end, one side is supposed to win over the other, and the winning side is supposed to be favored by the audience. This could be drawn from influences such as Hegel. In the opening scene of Inception, there are multiple contrasts to be seen.
East v. West - Saito and his lackeys are Japanese, while the protagonists are American. The scene also goes from a dream with East Asian architecture to a dream with more Western architecture.
Good v. Evil - Cobb, Arthur and the crew are pitted against Saito.
Dream v. Reality - For most of the scene, the characters are dreaming, only waking up at the end. Leading from this, Real v. Fake is another binary opposite, which can be seen in Saito’s envelope and the fake that Cobb replaces it with.
Rich v. Poor - Saito is obviously quite rich, but the protagonists are dressed in just suits (one character is notably dressed in a hoodie) and are employed by a certain corporation. They might not be poor, but they are certainly poorer.
Light v. Dark - This theme is played on best when Saito finds out about Cobb’s infiltration into his safe. He turns the lights on, signifying that something is wrong.
Propp
Theorist Vladimir Propp has a different take on narrative structures, identifying different character functions in plots (he intended to only identify them in fairy tales and folklore, though these functions can be identified in other sorts of stories). The following character archetypes that could be identified in the opening of Inception are:
Villain - this part is played by Saito, who works against the protagonists in the opening. Throughout the film, the villain is Fischer, the main antagonist of the plot.
Dispatcher (calling for need from the protagonist) - the mysterious corporation the protagonists work for, Cobol Engineering, although throughout the film, this part is played by Saito.
Helper - this part is played by Arthur and the rest of the crew, who accompany Cobb through the dreams.
Princess/Prize - this part is possibly occupied by Saito’s information in the opening, although through the whole film, the part is best fit for Cobb’s children.
Donor - In the opening, this is the architect of Saito’s apartment, Nash, who gives his dream to the crew. In the rest of the film, this might refer to Ariadne, who comes into the crew and designs dreamscapes for them, or Professor Stephen Miles, who recommends Ariadne to Cobb. The name Ariadne itself links to the myth of Theseus, where the character Ariadne played a donor in giving a sword and a ball of string to Theseus to assist him in navigating the maze of the Minotaur.
False hero - It is very hard to identify a character like this in the opening of the film or in the rest of the plot. Nash, the architect before Ariadne, does betray the team, but not the point where he first makes himself look like a hero. There is also a possible false hero in Cobol Engineering, the protagonists’ initial employers.
Barthes
Roland Barthes, known for his radical ideas in semiotics, identified five codes in the analysis of a narrative by an audience in his work S/Z:
The Hermeneutic Code (Enigmas) - The creation of things that are unanswered that keep the audience guessing. In Inception, this could be questions such as "Who is Cobb?" or "What is the link between Cobb being dunked in a bathtub and his world collapsing in water?" Many of these questions are answered in time.
The Proairetic Code (Action codes) - Actions that use our understanding of cause and effect to influence the audience. The forward drive of the text. In Inception, there are action codes such as the action of waking up.
The Semic Code - Things in media that relate to the characters, such as their names or appearance. Cobb, as an example, is a generic, bearded white man - a classic protagonist.
The Symbolic Code - The symbolic meanings of the work. This can be anything from dichotomies, as seen before in Lévi-Strauss's ideas, to reflections on the economic climate of the time period a work is set in.
The Cultural Code - What the audience is supposed to know beforehand. Links to the culture of the period the work is set in. For example, the place Cobb wakes up in is supposed to be in Asia, as can be seen from the traditional Asian architecture.
In order to apply our understanding of these theories as a class, everyone in the class did a write-up on the opening of Saw (2004), picking it apart and analyzing it through the lens of structuralism.
Saw, a classic thriller, incorporates these narrative theories in multiple ways, as can be seen from the notes above. When faced with Todorov's theory of equilibrium, Saw doesn't hold up very well, although we can clearly see when it does. The starting shot is one of tranquility, almost - it's dark and damp, and not much action is going on. However, this equilbrium is quickly shattered and the dead horse that is the equilibrium is beaten throughout the rest of the scene where the characters find out what they are doing, and it sets in that something has gone horribly wrong.
Levi-Strauss's theories apply well to the film. It begins with the establishment of a dichotomy between darkness and light - common, yes, but very prevalent in thriller films especially. A dichotomy is created between the two characters - one is calm and professional, while the other is agitated, speaks faster, and is quicker to action, as can be seen from technical codes such as the difference in camera movement between the two characters. Truth and lies are also important themes, as both are suspicious characters - Lawrence, although he appears calm, lies about his credentials at first. Finally, there is the dichotomy between the killer and the victims, one that is common, or even needed, in slasher films like this, providing a feeling of helplessness that helps establish suspense and thrill.
Propp's theories, although used mostly for folklore, can apply here, too. The character archetypes can be seen - Adam, whom we start off with, is thus presented to be the main hero. However, the calmer Lawrence is quickly established to be the "better" person - the real hero, as opposed to Adam's false hero. The villain, obviously, is Jigsaw. To increase the feeling of madness, Saw takes an unorthodox approach to Propp's character archetypes, lumping the villain and the donor together, and in mashing these two seemingly conflicting character archetypes together, paints Jigsaw as a madman, playing on our preconceived conceptions of character archetypes from common stories.
Barthes gives us a whole load to work with - the start of the film is chock full of enigmas to reflect the confused state of the characters and also to ease in the audience. No one in the audience knows what they are doing there, and neither do the characters. Action codes, such as the gradual revealing of things such as the body in the center of the room, are in use to show where the story will go next. Cultural codes identify the setting as modern America - the accents, the revolver, and the cassette tape show this. Semantic codes are also in use - the name of the film, Saw, is linked to the saw used to try and cut the chains.
Finally, we can see a bit of a nonlinear narrative in Saw. Throughout the film, the audience is subject to flashbacks and context for them to piece together the narrative through exformation.
Commentaires