Barthes & Todorov - Narrative

   Barthes and Todorov share theories that try to explain how a 'good' narrative works. This is extremely helpful for me and my analysis of music videos; in order to find out how to create a 'good' music video if I want to go down the route in including a narrative. 

    Todorov was a Bulgarian structuralist/theorist and his theory of Narrative dwells around the point of 'equilibrium'. Todorov says that all stories begin with an 'equilibrium' where any potentially opposing forces are 'in balance. 'Equilibrium' does not mean that the story must start in a 'perfect/quiet state' where the world is a Utopia, it's where a state of balance is met. A lot of theories are based around mathematical equations, and this is one of them. This equilibrium is then disrupted my a multitude of events and throws the characters into action. But then it resolves it with another equilibrium. It isn't the same kind of equilibrium, but still one that follows the same principles. 

     Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic and semiotician. He narrowed down a narrative into 'five codes' to which he then said that these codes could be applied to most known stories. Here they are:

• The Enigma (or hermeneutic) Code - This is the code that sets out to make puzzles that the main characters get themselves into, and puzzles that the audience has to try and work out. The story doesn't tell the truth from the start but drops clues throughout for the audience to try and work out what's going on.
• The Action (or proairetic) Code - This is where the story is fortold beforehand through complex, yet 'readable' actions. This make the story less confusing to a point where you aren't bored, but still creates tension at major points.
• The Symbolic Code - The symbolic code is very similar to the semantic code but crosses over on a broader spectrum. This is typically done in the use of antithesis, where new meaning arise out of opposing and conflict ideas. This shows a sense of polysemy in certain texts and makes the story a lost more interesting due to its vastness.
• The Cultural Code -  This relates to the context of the story and how that relates to the audiences knowledge on wider cultural, morality and ideology. 
• The Semantic Code - This uses connotations of objects, events or characters in order to suggest a particular or additional meaning to the text that wasn't so explicit beforehand. 

     Clearly this theory is one of the most complex and least understandable out of all the theories I have looked at to which the creation of media text revolve around. On the other hand though (if used correctly) it does give a much more clear and in-depth analysis of a media text afterwards. 

Alt-J - Breezeblocks

Barthes  This video is quite a unique video because it is played in reverse. Consequently, the typical clichè ideas of their being a'beginning, middle and end' to a story is thus reversed similarly to the video itself.

   Both the 'Enigma' and the 'Action' code is activated right from the start of this music video. So the story starts off where it all ends for our characters. On the right is the first screenshot to the video, and this is first the 'enigma' code being activated, as the dead woman with a breeze block on her chest both intrigues and puzzles the audience. Obviously this is a reverse-told-story so the 'Action Code' isn't as simply sought out then what it normally would be. This is because we already know what has happened so 'clues' to 'fortelling' the story isn't relevant as we know the ending, but we don't the beginning. This is king of then like a CSI episode - the murder occurs at the start, but the hour-long episode dwells on how it occurred and why. Therefore the screenshot below actually activates the 'Action code' by telling the audience he has (quite-clearly) killed her, and there has been a fight that has led to this outcome. 

    A lot of these codes are about the implied meanings through connotations of the media text, and this is why it seems so hard to apply Barthes theory. The symbolic code is arguably activated when we first see the second woman in the music video. This is because throughout the video we start to gain a picture of what's going on, and then it is disrupted by this arrival. Antithesis is used within this scene to show a contradictory (first-thought) meaning, and this is what makes it more interesting. We, the audience, start to believe that the first woman was the only other person there and that she was his girlfriend/wife. However, this screenshot below implies and infers a lot of different meanings to the story, making it polysemic and a lot more fascinating. 

    Ideas concerning 'Culture' and the 'Context' of the narrative aren't as explicitly shown; but there are some references to ethical viewpoints in the modern day. 

    These screenshots above activate the 'Cultural code' because of their extremity. They all signify death & violence, but the middle one represents the viewpoint of most. This is because in modern day society 'murder' isn't acceptable (it seems obvious); but it's more the fact that Alt-J's video is not disproving this viewpoint, that makes it a lot more saddening and makes the audience feel a lot more sympathetic.

   This screenshot on the left is the kind of object used to enforce and prove beliefs in a narrative. It's arguable that this one of the potential activations for the 'Semantic' code. The tape around the second woman's mouth finally shows us that this character is trapped, vulnerable and weak at the time of the final (yet beginning) event. Plus it adds to the confusion and utmost craziness of the video and narrative itself, because not only has he killed a woman but he has captured one too. 

Todorov

   Luckily Todorov's theory of equilibrium is a lot more simple and easier to grasp. I though that in order to keep it fair, and to make a much more analytical case, I would apply the two theories to the same narrative.

Although this image above is compiled of all the screenshots found towards the end of the video, I have decided to analyse the video as if it wasn't played in reverse. At the start of the narrative an 'Equilibrium' state is met due to there being no violence at this point, and that no characters are present together.

   Then the equilibrium is disrupted with the arrival of the trapped woman. This is where the story starts to get interesting and sets off a whole load of implications to the narrative. This is shown by the picture on the left. This is used to confuse the audience and is the event that is the catalyst or slippery slope that then causes the end result.

   It is then this next part of the video that causes the action and 'the attempt' to stop the disruption. There could be hundreds of in-depth inferences made from these two screenshots, but I think the most clear main one is that the woman wants to kill the man because he has entrapped someone else. That is the obvious denotation of this scene, and that in which throws us into the action.

   This screenshot represents one of many violent attempts, of the man and woman, at harming/killing one another. This is the main character's (man) attempt at trying to resolve the disruption of the equilibrium. Todorov's theory is pretty straight-forward, but it's a lot more than the typical 'beginning, middle, end'. His idea concerns and links to states of affairs, and that means there becomes a lot more to a narrative, and you really have to delve deep to produce a great narrative story.

And here is the Ending Equilibrium that it has all lead up to. The fight is over, the woman is dead, and the main is left feeling guilty - but at least we are left with a balance of opposing forces. Of course this was inevitable for this story, right off from the beginning. So it doesn't make it that interesting. However this was played in reverse, so keeping that in mind, it does actually make it rather interesting. This is because we are given way too many clues at the start of the narrative, but at the video we aren't given any. This is why connotations of certain objects and actions through the video make it a lot more great when it comes to the big reveal at the end (or the start...).