Narrative - Hermeneutic Code PDF

AUDIO-VISUAL NARRATIVE [email protected] Hermeneutic Code Rolad Barthes’ definition: hermeneutic code in narrative is “a variety of chance events which can either formulate a question or delay its answer” Roland BARTHES. S/Z. Oxford:...

AUDIO-VISUAL NARRATIVE [email protected] Hermeneutic Code Rolad Barthes’ definition: hermeneutic code in narrative is “a variety of chance events which can either formulate a question or delay its answer” Roland BARTHES. S/Z. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Historical discourse Hayden-White: The discourse about the past is not naturally created by reality, → it is a human construction. To make sense of the past we organise facts according to cause-effect relationships: Allow to reorganise facts Helps to give facts a meaning Structure of Questions / answers → respond to our necessity to oganis what happens according to relationships of cause and effect Narrative Bordwell and Kristen’s Thompson’s definition of narrative in Film Art: “We can consider a narrative to be a chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space.”  Our mind structures the story “The interesting thing is that our minds inveterately seek a structure, and they will provide it if necessary. (…) In classical narratives, events occur in distributions: they are linked to each other as cause to effect, effects in turn causing other effects, until the final effect. And even if two events seem not obviously interrelated, we infer that they may be, on some larger principle that we will discover later”. Seymour CHATMAN. Story and Discourse. Erotetic Narrative Noël Carroll refers to the hermeneutic code as Erotetic Narrative. The author reflects about the construction of narrative in cinema and the role of questions and answers presented in the plot: “Ask yourself why the later scenes in the films make sense in the context of the earlier scenes. [or provide] information that will contribute to such answers.” the narrative structure of a randomly selected movie is a system of internally generated questions that the movie goes on to answer.  Posing questions and answers Noël Carroll: Find a relationship that enables you to explain what makes certain scenes especially key: - they either raise questions or answer them, - or perform related functions including sustaining questions already raised, - or incompletely answering a previous question, - or answering one question but then introducing a new one”.  Aswering all questions? Classical cinema uses causality (questions and answers) to create suspense. Classical narrative tends to answer all questions posed by: – The main storyline – The secondary plots Open ends (more typical of modern cinema) tend to leave QUESTIONS opened throughout the film UNANSWERED  Key terms terminology specifically related to cause and effect: – causal chain – causal agents – inciting event – Catalyst – trigger (activate, provoke) → react – audience engagement – Suspense – Mystery – speculation. https://lessonbucket.com/media-in-minutes/media-in-minutes-essential-concepts-cause-and-effect/  Causality and time Order of events  Predestination Fate (the future is written and you cannot change it) At the same time cause and consequence Raises questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xar1Chxf6bI  Only relevant causes To tell stories sometimes we just choose ONLY those facts that are relevant to understand what happens later on For example: – to tell the life of a filmmaker in a documentary select the moments of his/her childhood in which s/he took a camera or saw a movie for the first time. – to tell the story of a murderer, select the moment in which s/he killed an animal for the first time. The audience automatically associates those actions as CAUSES and EFFECTS of the main plot line (a future professional career or a killing trajectory).  Exceptions MacGuffin Alfred Hitchcock: In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. Plot excuse to motivate characters and make the story progress, but without relevance in itself. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macguffin  MacGuffin Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)  Causality and enunciation Causal relationships can be: 1. Explicit: the narrator or the characters explain them with words (voice-over or dialogue) 2. Implicit: the audience creates those relationships, deducing them from: – The order of events in the story – Some stylistic devices (giving prominence to an object in the foreground, or an insert, or by changing the focus or with a camera movement) Explicit question https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LcIuVTAXso  Causality and characters Characters are the main causal agents in stories. They trigger and react to events. – In The Dark Knight, the Joker draws Batman into a conflict by staging an elaborate bank heist. – In The Avengers, Loki threatens Earth by stealing a powerful alien artefact. – In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The First Order attacks and pursues the rebel fleet. In each one of these cases, characters are the main causal agents in the story. https://lessonbucket.com/media-in-minutes/media-in-minutes-essential-concepts-cause-and-effect/  Suspense The art of delaying the answers to the questions posed earlier in the film Solving conflicts later so that the interest of the audience is maintained  Epistemic position Do we want the film to give all answers directly or clearly or is it better to make the audience think and deduce by themselves?  Editing Film writers – film editors Rythm / order https://screencraft.org/2016/08/16/why-screenwriters-should-think-like-film-editors/  Hermeneutic / Proairetic Code (Roland Barthes) The two ways of creating suspense in narrative, the first caused by unanswered questions, the second by the anticipation of an action's resolution. These terms come from the narratologist Roland Barthes, who wishes to distinguish between the two forces that drive narrative and, thus by implication, our own desires to keep reading or viewing a story.  Hermeneutic code The hermeneutic code refers to those plot elements that raise questions on the part of the reader of a text or the viewer of a film. For example, in the Star Trek: TNG episode, "Cause and Effect," we see the Enterprise destroyed in the first five minutes, which leads us to ask the reason for such a traumatic event. Indeed, we are not satisfied by a narrative unless all such "loose ends" are tied.  Detective stories Example: the genre of the detective story. The entire narrative of such a story operates primarily by the hermeneutic code. We witness a murder and the rest of the narrative is devoted to determining the questions that are raised by the initial scene of violence.  Proairetic Code The proairetic code, on the other hand, refers to mere actions— those plot events that simply lead to yet other actions. For example, a gunslinger draws his gun on an adversary and we wonder what the resolution of this action will be. We wait to see if he kills his opponent or is wounded himself. Suspense is thus created by action rather than by a reader's or a viewer's wish to have mysteries explained.