Unit 26: Film Studies - Part 1, Task 1 - Auteur Theory and Narrative Analysis

In film, there are many theories about structure, style and story that have been created on how to categorise the industry into certain sects. One such theory created was the idea that there are different auteur's - a signature by a director to mark their work - that can be used to identify a movie.

For example, if you watched the following video:

And then this video:

You may notice some similarities. For example, you may note the use of bold, stand-out colours that catch your eye in both the videos, constantly attracting the attention. There is also a lot of use of symmetry throughout, especially noticable in the second clip in which he uses the symmetrical telephone in the symmetrical diner.

The reasons for these similarities is, in case you didn't read the titles of the videos you were watching, because they were made by the same director, Wes Anderson. Wes Anderson is known for his stylistic and artistic choices in set and costume design and use of symmetry to make a more pleasing and satisfying image. One of his more famous movies is "The Grand Budapest Hotel", a movie that is very much worth watching, and features similar styles to what is seen in these prior examples, but with the use of colours that aren't yellow thrown in there, as well as being a full length movie.

Wes Anderson has other interesting points of his auteur. Notice how the characters behave and act, throughout both the short film and throughout the Grand Budapest Hotel. Not only do they tend to stick towards the centre of the frame for symmetry, but they all appear to display this sort of upper class atmosphere to them, they try to maintain a posture showing their position and power throughout the film no matter what situation they get into. Think about the Grand Budapest Hotel, the concierge character (played by Ralph Fiennes) almost always manages to maintain this posture of being calm and collected no matter what unusual or crazy situations they end up in.

He also has a tendency to stick to actors. For example, he tends to use Owen Wilson in a lot of his films as a lead or at least background character. While not seen in the short movies above, he can be seen towards the end of Grand Budapest Hotel and during a large number of Wes Anderson's earlier works. Wes Anderson is also known for his love of Bill Murray, which is more than understandable.

The other most notable thing of Wes Anderson is his use of a long, complicated and choreographed tracking shot that will follow the action on screen for several minutes at a time, such as this clip from Grand Budapest Hotel below where, as you can see, the camera does not change shot for a large majority of this sequence, where people walk past them. You'll also notice that they stay in centre frame and that Ralph Fiennes remains calm and collected amongst all the crazy antics surrounding them. There is, however, an absence of Owen Wilson or Bill Murray in this scene.

Other auteurs include people like Quentin Tarantino and Alfred Hitchcock as well as some arguable examples in people like JJ Abrams and Michael Bay.




Another interesting point in the film industry is the narrative behind the movie. As someone who is very much interested in the writing aspect of a film, I find it interesting to see plot broken down. For example, without going too in detail about the idea so that nobody steals it - I had the idea about developing a plot based around a simple premise, one in which a model becomes blind, and I turned that idea around to make a larger plot based around people with positive and negative abilities (if you ever see this idea on TV it means I've made it, hi) - seeing a plot broken down in a simple way can be very enjoyable to see the creative process stem into a larger product.

The idea behind a base narrative is based on at least three steps:

At first, everything starts out fairly standard and normal, nothing too unusual or out of the ordinary. (Equillibrium)

Then, everything becomes out of order, something is different that the plot is focused around, in which things are centred and in which things need to be resolved. (Disequillibrium - A lack of Equillibrium)

Finally, everything is returned to a state of normality, but with differences based around the plot that had transpired. (Equillibrium - Returned Equillibrium)


This theory was created by Tzvetan Todorov, known as "Todorov's Narrative Theory".

Consider the film Die Hard 3, at first everything is fairly standard, Bruce Willis is a standard cop in New York, when a terrorist attack begins and he and Samuel L. Jackson have to stop the robbery of the National Treasury, and at the end they are both now friends, and Bruce Willis is back to being a cop (otherwise Die Hard 4 would not exist, which would have been a better ending).

This is the basic structure of a narrative. There are exceptions, such as Pulp Fiction, where, if viewed in order of events happening, the film would start with Jules and Vincent going to the apartment to find Marvin, and then going to Jimmy's house after their unfortunate accident, getting cleaned up, going to the diner where Jules stops them from getting robbed, visiting Marcellus, and then Vincent taking Mia on a night out. After this, Butch's story starts, where he flees from the boxing match he wins and attempts to leave town, killing Vincent and being chased down by Marcellus before killing Zed in the basement. Even broken down chronologically like this, the film has no specific start, middle and end. It has Jules' story and Butch's story (once again, Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson) which seem to take place during two halves of the story, only connected by Vincent and Marcellus, and while the two stories do have a definitive start, middle and end, the rules are very different by the end of their stories, with Jules going off to travel the world and Butch going off to live somewhere else, which are very different to their start of working with Marcellus. Viewed as it is, the film even less follows this narrative, with the only possible way it does being that it both starts and finishes with the couple in the diner trying to rob it, overall being a very non-linear film which shows that the general theory doesn't need to be applied at all times.

Usually there are more steps involved, but as a general rule, this is how a plot is typically broken down into stages, with starting drama to then resolving it at the end of the plotline, and it is something I intend to bring into the plot revolving around this blind girl.

Other narrative theories include the theory by Vladimir Propp, who proposes the following list of characters are relevant to a plot:

1. The villain (struggles against the hero)
2. The donor (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
3. The (magical) helper (helps the hero in the quest)
4. The princess (person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)
5. The false hero (perceived as good character in beginning but emerges as evil)
6. The dispatcher (character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off)
7. The hero [AKA victim/seeker/paladin/winner, reacts to the donor, usually marries the princess

To apply this to a film, let's go again with Die Hard 3. The villain would be Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons); the donor would also be Simon Gruber, as he is the one that sets up Bruce Willis to find the bombs; the helper would be Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson); the princess being Bruce Willis' movie wife; the false hero possibly being the number of undercover criminals posing as NYPD officers; the dispatcher being the real cops and/or Samuel L. Jackson again; and the hero being John McClane (Bruce Willis). While it's possible to debate some characters and their roles in the films and it's arguable whether all of them are present in a lot of cases (such as in this example).

That is how Auteur Theory and Narratives work in films, how they are applied and how they could help you and (more importantly) me make a work of art, even better.

Thanks for reading.