Fairy Tales And Film Narrative example essay topic

How relevant is the work of Propp and Levi-Strauss to the study of cinema This essay will focus on the different approaches to narrative structure employed by folklorist, Vladimir Propp and anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss to see if they can be applied to the study of narrative cinema. In his book, Morphology of the Folktale, 1928, Vladimir Propp analysed a group of Russian folk-tales in order to see if they all shared common structural features. As the title suggests he 'breaks down the tales according to its component parts - which he calls 'functions', and studies the relationship of the components to each other and to the whole' (ibid: 19-20). Propps first conclusion found that no matter how widely the tales differed in their surface details they all shared common structural properties. 'The most basic of these were the functions of various sets of characters and actions within the tales' (Turner: 1999: 79).

Propp maintain that the characters should be categorised not by their looks r virtues but by the task they performed. He outlined eight character types, or 'spheres of action' that he believed appeared in all tales: 'the hero', 'the villain', 'the princess', 'the father', 'the dispatcher', 'the helper', 'the donor', 'the false hero'. The characters would then engage in a combination of thirty-one possible narrative functions that make up a tale. Not all stories had to include all the functions but when they do appear they are in the exact order otherwise. So from his analysis Propp concluded that: 1.

Functions of characters serve as stable, constant elements in a tale, independent of how and whom they are fulfilled. They constitute the fundamental components of a tale. 2. The number of functions known to the fairy-tale is limited. 3. The sequence of functions is always identical.

4. All fairy-tales are of one type in regard to their structure. (Propp: 1968: 21-23) Propps final point raised the issue of the possibility that a universal narrative may exist, although he stressed that his work only accounted for only one type of tale. Therefore according to Cook: 'any attempt to apply his research to a contemporary cinematic narrative reverses a fundamental principle of Propp's method by starting from the working hypothesis that the model he found in the fairy tale is also present in other narrative forms and by transferring it to (in most cases) a single, isolated text' (Cook: 1985: 235) That said many Hollywood films are found to be structured according to Propps scheme. John L. Fell article Vladimir Propp in Hollywood (Film Quarterly: 1977), felt the: 'Morphology of the Folktale has a peculiar fascination for students of genre because of parallels that can be seen between Proop's functions and elements of narrative material that has no direct connection with either Russia or the fairy tale... such a design lends itself to westerns detective stories, horror, science fiction, and simple adventure tales, particularly as these forms... are dominated by energetic, visible active plots which make effective use of all their material' Fell felt his reference (Fell applied a Proppian method to Kiss Me Deadly) did fit into the scheme and so suggested that a similarity did exist between the fairy-tales and film narrative.

Peter Wollen also applied a morphological analysis to Hitchcock's North by Northwest in his attempt to test Propps method outside an oral or written narrative. He also wanted to see if there was any similarity between the folktales of a traditional, primitive culture and contemporary mass culture. Wollens response was quite positive: I was surprised how easily Propp's functions and method of analysis in general could be applied to North By Northwest. It does seem to have something in common with a fairytale... the basic structure described by Propp is present in the film; a task is set the hero (by the dispatcher). If he performs it successfully, he will be rewarded (girl of the princess, by her father = the dispatcher). The task involves finding and returning with an object of desire, to liquidate a lack.

This object may be the princess, or some other object. It may simply be lacking or it may have been taken by a villain, from who it must be taken in turn... To retrieve the object the hero will need help and to receive this, he must perform a further task (s) before receiving his reward and concomitantly the hero is not recognised. (Readings and Writings: 1982: 31-33) Subsequently Wollen then remarked that Propps technique still needed 'a certain amount of re-formulation but was a useful starting point. It was anthropologist Levi-Strauss who took structural analysis a step further and attracted the attention of film critics. Myths, according to Levi-Strauss served a common function within the societies it existed.

He claimed that contradictions and inequalities that could not be resolved in the real world could be resolved in myths by placing them as part of natural existence (Turner: year: 83-84). "The purpose of mythology is to provide an outlet for repressed feeling... with myth everything becomes possible" (Levi-Strauss: 1963: 208) Unlike Propp who laid emphasis on the linear sequential structure or 'syntagmatic's structural analysis, Levi-Strauss believed "The task of the structural analyst is to see past or through the superficial linear structure to the 'correct' or true underlying paradigmatic pattern of organization" (Propp: 1968: xii) In his prototype the elements are taken out of the 'given' order and are re-grouped in one or more logical system (ibid). Levi-Strauss's research suggests that a feature of the narrative structure in myths is based on the principle of binary oppositions, black / white, good / bad, man / woman and it is through these oppositions that one can make sense of the world. Referring once again to Turner, he claimed that the binary paradigm is logically supported by the fact that humans define things not just in terms of what they are, but also in terms of what they are not. Consequently, meaning is a product of the construction of differences and similarities. So to highlight the major contrast between the two theorists is Propps lack of consideration of the social and cultural context within the text.

Many articles during the early 1970's, 'put the question of structuralist study of cinema back on the agenda' (Brian Henderson in Film Quarterly: 1973). Charles W. Eckert's published an article commenting on the 'lack of through attempt of Appling Levi-Strauss's study of mythic thought and codes to film', albeit he does consider Peter Wollen's argument in Signs and Meanings in the Cinema provides a good test case of a structural approach to film: .".. There is danger, as Levi-Strauss has pointed out, that by simply noting and mapping resemblances, all the texts which are studied (whether Russian fairy-tales or American movies) will be reduced to one, abstract and impoverished. This means of course that the test of a structural analysis lies no in the orthodox canon of a directors work, where resemblances are clustered, but in films which at first sight may seem eccentricities.

The protagonists of fairy-tales or myth, as Levi-Strauss has pointed out, can be dissolved into bundles of differential elements, pairs of opposites... We can proceed with the same kind of operation in the study of films, though as we shall see, we shall find them more complex than fairy-tales". (Wollen: 1998: 60-66) However Henderson felt Wollen avoided the fundamental question of whether the study of myth is relevant to film study. Eventually in 1977, Will Wright's book Six guns and Society, was the first to employ a full-length Levi-Strauss structural analysis to the cinema concentrating on the western genre. His argument was that, although Westerns or all films for that matter are not myths but commercial products made for the sake of profit, it is through the movies that the myth has become part of the cultural language by which America understands itself (ibid: 12-13). When Wright first looked the western genre he found four fundamental oppositions central to the western myth included: Inside society / outside society, civilization / wilderness, good / bad, strong / weak.

He also discovered four changes in the structure and development of the Western myth that he believed corresponded to the changes within society. The 'Classical Plot', he believed was the 'prototype of all westerns', examples that he believed exhibited all the basic components of the classic, included Shane, 1953, Dodge City, 1930 and Canon Passage, 1946. In the 'classic' western Wright reduces each story from his research to three sets of characters, the hero, the society and the villains, where the hero and society are united. Wright then applied a Proppian account in which one can see a clear outline of a plot in which society is served by a strong individual and as a result absorbs the individual into itself. A variation then occurred in the classic plot after 1949 between the relationship of the hero and the society. In these films Wright sees the hero leaving the society to seek revenge.

He is then asked by a member of the society, usually a woman to give up his request and take up his position in society again. Such films of this version included Stagecoach 1939 and One Eyed Jacks 1960. After the 1950's Wright's notion moved towards a 'transitional' western where the relationship between the hero and society changed from the estrangement-acceptance pattern found in the previous plots. Instead of being forced to fight the villain (s) the hero is forced to fight the society, which before was weak and vulnerable.

"The four oppositions that we have found to be central to the western myth... also appear in these films, but there has been an important change in the relation of meaning to image in the opposition of good and bad. While the hero is still 'good', the conceptual weight of 'bad' is now carried by the townspeople". (ibid: 74-75) Samples Wright used to emphasize this model came from High Noon, 1952, and Broken Arrow, 1951. Finally Wright proposed a fourth variant of the great western, the 'professional' western, such films include, Rio Bravo, 1959, The Professionals, 1966, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1970. Here Wright found a complete reversal of the oppositions found in the original classical plot, the hero is now seen as an outsider of society. To sum up what Wright's argument then, was that within each period the structure of the myth corresponds to the conceptual needs of the society of that period. So to answer the question of whether Propp and Levi-Strauss' approach is relevant to the study of cinema, one must first mention that narrative can takes many forms, whether it be a myth, folktale, dance, or joke they all serve a function within the society they exist, that is they communicate meaning to its audience just as film functions as a medium of messages and values.

We saw from Wright's findings that the western film reflected the society it exist within and since myth is: "A cultures way of understanding, expressing and communicating to itself concepts that are important to it's self identity as a culture" (O'Sullivan et al: year: page) then yes a morphological of the folktale is relevant. To reinforcing this proposal, Eckert (Film Quarterly? ?) believed that in order for films to qualify as myths, "films must first fulfil one fundamental condition that they must originate in a community possessed of a 'common conceptual world'". He understood film to conform to this principle as film history is 'usually written as an analysis of communal blocks of art or styles, such as German expressionism or Italian neo-realism, or as international movements like Surrealism or the New Wave or as studio-centered styles such as Warner Bros'. He went further still saying that Hollywood itself could resemble a complex social structure and so allowing the film products that came out of Hollywood could qualify as a version of myth..