The Narrative Structure in 3 Selected Films

Narrative is always one of the most important elements that people look at when viewing and comparing between films. All narratives have a basic structure and the simple three-act structure is the most commonly used (Gillespie 2006, 96). However, “the same narrative may take many different forms, appear in myriad ‘substances’ and genres” (Gillespie 2006, 88). Therefore, filmmakers make great effort in planning and organising the narrative structure, in order to demonstrate the plot in its best way. The following paragraphs will briefly analyse three different films in terms of their narrative structures, which are used to develop the characters and the stories. These films include Titanic(1997), Juno (2007), and (500) Days of Summer (2009).

Titanic (1997)

Written and directed by James Cameron, Titanic (Cameron 1997) was produced by Lightstorm Entertainment (IMDb.com, Inc. 2014), a production company founded and owned by Cameron in 1990 (Wikia, Inc. 2014). James Cameron is famous at producing high-budget films that contain a great amount of special effects and computer-generated imageries, which are what people willing to wait for. The production budget is estimated at $200 million, while the total worldwide lifetime gross is calculated up to $2 billion (Box Office Mojo 2014), generating a net profit of 992%. Therefore, it could be said that Titanic is a Hollywood blockbuster at all times, which captured 11 Academy Awards in 1997.

Though most classical Hollywood movies are narrated in a linear form of temporal order, Titanicis an exception. The story is narrated by a fictional survivor of the RMS Titanic. She is Rose, who, through the use of both diegetic and non-diegetic elements such as her voice-over dialogue, narrated her experiences on the Titanic to the team of treasure hunters who were searching for a necklace with a rare diamond called the “Heart of the Ocean”. The first 20 minutes of the film demonstrated the role of Rose in the story, by introducing her as the survivor and how she found out about the treasure hunters.

 

The following is an extract of that 20 minutes, leading the audience to enter the plot from the story.

On the Titanic, Rose met a nice but poor man, Jack, and consequently fell in love with him. She even decided to leave with him when the ship docks. In the plot, they strived to stay together, even the ship started sinking and Rose was offered to aboard the rescue boat. Moreover, in her narration, Rose repeated a couple of times that she was sick of being in a wealthy family, which she had to attend “endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches… always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter” (Cameron 1997). This could be the major theme that Cameron would like to bring out from the film. Last but not least, since Titanic is narrated by Rose, who was the main character in the plot, the narration is restricted, limiting the audience to what she knew. Thus, the audience would know her emotions and innermost thoughts, from a subjective point of view.

Juno (2007)

Juno (Cody 2007) was not produced by big Hollywood companies, instead was jointly produced by two independent companies named Mandate Pictures and Mr. Mudd (IMDb.com, Inc. 2014). As an independent production, Juno could be said that it engaged audience not solely on entertaining or aiming to achieve escapism, but it also touched on a very common and serious social problem at the time – teenage pregnancy. However, it did not promote the use of condoms and to perform abortion. It was a low-budget production, which used $7.5 million (Box Office Mojo 2014), and, despite that, it captured $231 million gross profit worldwide (Box Office Mojo 2014), incurring a net profit of 29.8 times. This profit ratio is even much greater than the Titanic. It is no wonder that it, at the end, captured the Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay.

Unlike Titanic, Juno is narrated with a linear narrative structure, which is an exception for typical independently-produced movies. It is narrated by the main character, Juno, with her voice over as non-diegetic narration. Thus, since the narration is done by Juno herself, the narration is also restricted to what she knew, and is subjective.

 

On the other hand, the plot was also divided by the four seasons, and three of them are displayed on screen as a non-diegetic element.

 

The following clip is the turning point of the whole story, which could be the most important scene of the narration.

This scene hinted to Juno that she was making a wrong decision to perform the abortion. Before that, it could be said that she was an irresponsible and aimless teenager who did not know the consequence of what she had done, and thus she was going to abort the pregnancy and pretend nothing had happened. However, with the reminder of her classmate and uncomfortable environment of the clinic, she realised the baby had the right to be born. She was turned into a conscientious and considerable “adult”, and she then actively and constructively thought of what to do next, such as how to break the news to her dad and where to find the adopters. This sequence is significant to the plot as it is able to bring the story forward, showing how did Juno change and become more mature throughout the year.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

(500) Days of Summer (Neustadter and Weber 2009) was again produced by an independent production company named Watermark Pictures (IMDb.com 2014). According to Movie Insider (2014), Watermark Pictures had only produced this film so far, though they are currently producing three other projects with Mark Waters as one of the producers, as he also did in (500) Days of Summer. This suits the situation of typical independent filmmaking that the same crew and/or actors are employed in various projects. In terms of the production budget, (500) Days of Summer was produced with the budget of $7.5 million (Box Office Mojo 2014), which is the same as Juno, but it did not capture a gross profit as high as Juno. The worldwide gross is calculated as $60 million (Box Office Mojo 2014), with a net profit rate of 7.1 times.

As the title suggests, the film relies on the number of days to narrate the plot. Thus, non-diegetic date counts were added in between different scenes to demonstrate what happened before and what happened next, since the plot is narrated in a non-linear temporal order, which the screen jumps constantly between the first half and the second half of the 500 days. 

Moreover, repetition was also used to contrast Summer’s attitude and response to Tom between the first and second half, for instance, they went to IKEA twice, on the 382^nd and the 34^th day respectively, they went to the top of the mountain on the 95^th day and the 488^th, Tom expressed his love on Summer while she was lying on the bed on day 154 while he expressed his hate on her on day 322 with the same shots on screen. The clip below is the two days they went to IKEA.

  

On the other hand, non-diegetic audio narration was also included with a voice-over of a narrator, providing extra information for the audience, which is called an unrestricted narration. Lastly, together with the camera framing techniques that were often done from the audience’s perspective, instead from the characters’ point-of-view such as over-shoulder shots, the narration was done objectively.

Conclusion

Wrapping up, there are common and different narrative elements used across the three films. To start with, the three film all used voice-over non-diegetic narration to lead audience along the plot. However, Titanicand Juno are narrated by one of the main characters in the story by herself, while (500) Days of Summer is narrated by a third-person narrator who was not part of the story. Consequently, (500) Days of Summer provides unrestricted narration that demonstrates objectivity, while Titanic and Juno restrict the range of knowledge provided for the audience, narrating the story from a subjective point of view. Lastly, the plot in Juno is presented in a linear chronological order, both Titanicand (500) Days of Summer are narrated in a non-linear temporal order. Despite that, their narrative structure still varies, since Titanic used it in the form of flashback, while (500) Days of Summer jumped constantly between the “before and after”.