Narrative and non-narrative structures.
The following films, "Koyaanisqatski", "Telling Lies" and "The Girl Chewing Gum" all vary in their structure.
"Koyaanisqatski" doesn't have a straight forward structure as there is no significant beginning-middle-end. The whole film is one long story which changes slightly when the pace of the film speeds up and then down again. However, the beginning and end of this film is the same as it begins with cave drawings on walls and ends this same way. Also, the film starts with the word "Koyaanisqatski" being chanted and this happens at one stage during the film before ending this same way. This means it could be argued that there is a narrative structure in this film but I don't see a significant structure to this film as it looks like one long string of clips to me and nothing more.
"Telling Lies" has a similar structure to "koyaanisqatski". It does have some kind of narrative structure as it begins with a phone call in which we learn what has happened, it then continues to other peoples' views on the subject and it then ends with a final phone call. This kind of represents a beginning-middle-end. However, as new people call the central character, he has to retell some parts of the story which sort of takes the audience back to the beginning again. This, goes against the narrative structure of the story.
"The Girl Chewing Gum" has a structure similar to "Koyaanisqatski" as no significant event really happens in this film to suggest that it is not in the middle of the story. However, the audience does find out more as the film progresses which suggests this could potentially be a narrative structure. The majority of the film is one long scene with only two edits in the whole film. This doesn't highlight a change from the beginning to the middle. The only way the audience knows there are coming towards the end of the film is the fact that the scene changes from the street, where all the action has taken place, to an empty field. This move from the middle to the end is the only kind of structure in the film but even so, we don't really know where the middle starts, only where it finishes.
Those are the different structures of the three experimental videos, "Koyaanisqatski", "Telling Lies" and "The Girl Chewing Gum".
1 comment:
Good. Have a think a bit more about Girl Chewing Gum. It does have a traditional narrative of sorts. i.e we find out more as we go along and there is a conclusion. Apart from this Very Good.
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