Narrative

By definition, narrative is; 'a spoken or written account of connected events; a story'. It is essentially how a story is told, as opposed to a story that is a sequence of events giving facts about the characters, what will happen and the setting. 

Narrative explores the conventions of;

• Character
• Genre
• Time
• Form 

Films can also use varying types of narrative structure, if this were not so, then every film would be predictable and lack any distinction. Some of these types are as follows;

 

Linear

This type of narrative structure means that the story will be played out in chronological order - it is linear, essentially meaning it follows a straight line. The basics of this structure means that many films have a clear beginning, a middle and an end. 

 

Open

The structure of this narrative follows that of the Linear one, until it reaches the end and there is seemingly no closure, thus meaning the audience are left to wonder what happens as there is no solid conclusion. The structure usually involves many characters and fails to have a foreseeable ending - implying there will be no resolve, no sense of ending. Usually, there are more characters in this type of structure, and the focus shifts between them, so ther is more than one story line, meaning that the film uses 'real time'. Perhaps the most notable example of this type of structure in a more recent film would be 'Inception'.

 

Closed 

After looking at open structure narrative, closed structure narrative is pretty self explanitory. It is opposite - therefore has a definite ending, resulting in solid conclusion. Thus, time in films with this structure is compressed, with many events taking place - so not within 'real time'. Unlike open structure, there is a small, principle group of characters, resulting in the audience being able to understand them in more detail. 

 

Circular

Here, the narrative begins at the end events - the audience are then taken on a journey, perhaps explaining how and why they got to that point, and finally finishing back at that point. It therefore means that nothing can change, and that the story wil always return back to the orginial point.