Films that come along with carefully constructed and innovatory narrative techniques are eagerly anticipated by audiences, largely due to the lack of originality in so many films. Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) is a contemporary example of this; its challenging and surreal nature has seen audiences go back to the cinema and see it again just to gain some sort of understanding of what they’ve just witnessed. By paying close attention to innovatory narrative styles, filmmakers ensure that their films will have an edge to them that will captivate audiences. The reason I’ve chosen to analyse the use of these techniques is the fact that - pretentious, I know - so many of my favourite films are avant-garde in their use of narrative. Memento (2000), written and directed by Inception’s Chris Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) are the two texts I’ve selected to focus on because they offer thoughtful techniques in their standout manipulation of narrative. I will analyse these films by comparing and contrasting their respective approaches to narrative with several narrative hypotheses proposed by theorists.
Bordwell[i] wrote that ‘While watching a film, the spectator takes as one goal the arranging of events in temporal sequence. Our prior commerce with narrative and the everyday world allows us to expect that events will occur in some determinate order, and in most films specific cues encourage us to treat each distinct action as following previously presented ones.’ The knowledge that most films conform to this means that audiences are reassured and take comfort in the predictability of plots, but it also means that the narrative in films can become painfully repetitive. The unvaried nature of populist film narratives, which have been extensively analysed by narrative theorists such as Todorov and Propp, make the experience of watching a film with an unconventional narrative especially rewarding.
One of most noticeable things about Pulp Fiction and Memento’s narrative structures is that they both subvert Todorov’s classical narrative structure[ii] by making a point of not moving coherently forward and challenging the audience expectations that Bordwell discussed. Pulp Fiction’s multistrand plot is incoherent throughout: it starts off in a diner, shows three separate storylines that are interrelated, and then returns to the diner in the final scene at the same point in time at which it started. Memento’s plot is meticulously linear but in reverse. It consists of 22 colour scenes that are in reverse order, with a Memento at the start of each scene connecting it to the start of the next scene, and 22 black and white scenes which move forward. As Bordwell stated, audiences are commonly encouraged to ‘treat each distinct action as following previously presented ones’, so Pulp Fiction and Memento’s narratives challenge the audience to break out of their normal routine and work at constructing the narrative themselves. Todorov’s classical narrative structure is broken as neither film’s narratives start with equilibrium, instead using a catalyst to introduce conflict (Pulp Fiction starts with the proposal of an armed robbery while Memento starts with Leonard killing a man) and throw the films straight into disequilibrium, setting the tone for the rest of the plot.
Roland Barthes’s narrative codes are relevant in both films. Pulp Fiction toys with Barthes’s delay code by exaggerating its use: the audience has to wait until the last scene to discover the outcome of the bank robbery proposed in the first scene. Memento has enigmas continually planted into its plot - the questions of whether Leonard’s memories are accurate and whether his ‘friends’ are manipulating him are a couple of the mysteries that engage the audience in the text.
Propp’s character function theory[iii] is subverted in both of the films, with the characters far more complex than those in many populist films. This is particularly apparent in Memento, in which Leonard is seen to be seeking revenge for the murder of his wife and the loss of his short-term memory after an assault. The audience progressively discovers that his memories aren’t accurate and in actual fact it was he who killed his wife, though through no fault of his own in extraordinary circumstances. Propp’s black and white ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ characterisation can’t be applied to such a complicated character, enabling the audience to instead adopt a negotiated reading of the protagonist based on their own ideologies.
Both films enhance their narratives by employing a femme fatale (associated with film noir and therefore making the two films a hybrid of genres) to expose the vulnerability of characters. Marsellus Wallace’s wife, Mia Wallace, fulfils this role in Pulp Fiction. Vincent goes to a 50s bar with her, as a favour for Marsellus who’s out of town, and her seductive nature persuades him to compete in a dance competition with her before returning to her house, where he ends up having to revive here after she mistakenly sniffs heroin. In Memento the femme fatale, Natalie, reminds the audience of Leonard’s vulnerability by asking him and other men at a bar to spit in a pint of beer before offering it to Leonard only seconds later, and he of course accepts because he doesn’t remember spitting into it. She also manipulates him into driving a dangerous man called Dodd out of town. By exposing characters’ weaknesses, these events evoke sympathy from the audience. The narrative theory of the Seven Universal Myths[iv] is relevant here. One of the myths is the Achilles Heel, by which a character’s weakness, in this case a weakness for women, brings them down and puts them in danger. This is evident in Vince’s susceptibility to seduction and Leonard’s gullibility due to his severely damaged memory. The Noir film convention of crisis in masculinity is also apparent. Noir films’ plots often centre on a male protagonist who’s lost his way, usually after experiencing a tragedy of some sort, and a result has a crisis of masculinity. Leonard fits perfectly into this role; due to the damage to his memory he has no job, no partner, and no direction in life; he just sets off on revenge-seeking quests in order to install some sort of purpose into his life.
Shots of characters in private are used as techniques of identification and alienation in both films. There are two scenes in Pulp Fiction, with alternating shots between Vincent in the toilet and the significant events occurring outside the toilet, that enable the audience an intrusion into his world to understand his obliviousness to the potential danger while also placing them in a frustrating privileged position. There are numerous shots set up to see the world as Leonard would in Memento, such as the slow camera movement used when Leonard discovers his tattoos throughout the film which suggest he hasn’t seen his tattoos before, even though we know he has. Over the shoulder shots are also used to make the audience feel as if they’re pushing him on and insert shots of isolated details are used to keep the audience seeing through his eyes. The black-and-white scenes of Leonard in the motel are shot much like CCTV footage with a high angle used. The monologue in the black-and-white scenes is in second person, which makes the scenes seem like parts of a documentary. This alienates him and allows the audience a chance to see him objectively, in contrast to the subjective colour scenes shot from his point-of-view.
The subtle manipulation of visual and audio codes in Memento strongly contributes to the narrative. The audience is immersed in Leonard’s worlds through the repetition of certain images and scenes which create a sense of déjà-vu and encourage the audience to question what it must be like for Leonard to repeatedly see the same things without remembering them[v]. A specific pallet is used which has enough variety to resemble the world we live in but is cinematically limited in order to portray Leonard’s challenged view of the world. The environments in the film such as the motel are anonymous to emphasise the difficulty of orientating yourself after losing memory. The importance of repetition in Memento cannot be overstated as it is crucial in understanding the plot structure and story on a personal level. The abandoned warehouse is shot identically at the beginning and end of the film, with Leonard’s car parking in the same spot, the camera in the same position and the same music playing. An ingenious way of disorientating the audience is used during Teddy’s death; the camera footage is shown in reverse motion, whilst the sounds of the gun shot and the glasses falling on the ground are deceptively forward-moving. Distinctive sounds are inserted to distinguish between black-and-white scenes and colour scenes. The sounds in the black-and-white scenes are cold and subliminal whereas the sounds in the colour scenes are more overtly haunting. This draws attention to the sadness felt by Leonard and to his fragile emotional state. The audience is positioned alongside Leonard and therefore feel at one with him in his attempt to piece together the mystery that is his life.
The epileptic soundtrack to Pulp Fiction complements the unorthodox narrative progression, with the songs juxtaposed into an incoherent musical sequence that mirrors the narrative sequence of the film. The stylish collection of music played, such as Jungle Boogie by Kool and the Gang, is crucial to the character development and emphasises how cool the characters are. It also provides inter-textuality; John Travolta’s character dances to You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry when he competes in the dance competition with Mia, referring to Saturday Night Fever (1977), which Travolta starred in, and adding an inter-textual layer to the narrative.
Pulp Fiction and Memento could both be categorised as postmodern cinema, but Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction especially, with its subversion of mainstream narrative structure and flood of inter-textual references. Baudrillard claimed that we live in a world of “hyperreality” in which the perceived ‘truth’ regarding events and experiences is constructed by media images. He believed that a copy world has replaced reality, in which we feed off old stimuli without procreating[vi]. Tarantino pointedly conforms to this postmodernist theory by injecting a wealth of references into Pulp Fiction. For example: Zorro (1957) is the name of a character; Psycho (1960) in referred to when Marsellus walks in front of Butch’s car before turning to him; The Flintstones (1960) is paid homage to via a Freddy Flintstone t-shirt; and the influence of the aforementioned Saturday Night Fever (1977) is evident in the dancing scene[vii]. Tarantino’s known to have been influenced by the French New Wave (he dedicated Reservoir Dogs to New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard) and he alludes to this through pieces of dialogue such as “Don’t Jimmy me, Jules,” a line borrowed from Francois Truffaut’s Jules and Jim. Tarantino has established himself as a prominent master of postmodern cinema through his imitation; by creating pastiches such as Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill (2003) he maximises the entertainment of his films, enabling the audience to take gratification in recognising the references and rewarding their cultural competence.
Pulp Fiction and Memento are grand examples of how to enhance films through the manipulation of narrative. By going against the traditional ordering of events which audiences are accustomed to, as discussed by Bordwell, they challenge the audience’s expectations of film structure. They both subvert Todorov’s theory by adopting incoherent (Pulp Fiction) and reversely ordered (Memento) narrative structures which catapult their plots straight into disequilibrium. Barthes’ narrative codes are used exaggeratedly: Pulp Fiction introducing a delay code in the opening scene which is only returned to in the final scene; and Memento engrossing the audience in its plot with a bombardment of enigma codes. Both films ignore Propp’s black-and-white character functions, instead applying more subjective, complex characters. A femme fatale is injected into both narratives to expose vulnerability in characters, forming a hybrid with film noir whilst utilizing one of the Seven Universal Myths, the Achilles Heel. There is a polysemic layering of the narrative in Pulp Fiction and ingenious editing in Memento: reversed camera footage and forward-moving sounds simultaneously used to disorientate the audience.
Considering the diverse range of innovatory narrative techniques employed in Pulp Fiction and Memento, it’s not hard to understand why both films have drawn such tremendous critical acclaim, but it is hard to understand why so many filmmakers refuse to take a similarly avant-garde approach to narrative, which enriches the film-watching experience so profoundly.
[i] BORDWELL, D 1985 Narration in the Fiction Film University of Wisconsin Press
[ii] BRANSON, G 2010 The Media Student’s Book Routledge
[iii] CONNEL, B H 2008 Exploring the Media: Text, Industry, Audience Auteur Publishing
[iv] BOOKER, C 2005 The Seven Basic Plots, Why We Tell Stories Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
[v] NOLAN, C 2000 Memento Special Edition Pathe Distribution
[vi] BAUDRILLARD, J 1995 The Precession of Simulacra Jade Tree
[vii] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/movieconnections
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