Narrative Theory in Relation to Halloween (Carpenter - 1978) and the Crazies (Eisner 2010)

 Halloween

Tzvetan Todorov
Todorov suggested that there is a Classic Hollywood Narrative that most films appear to follow where an equilibrium is disrupted but restored in the end however, Halloween strays from the typical narrative structure within the first scene. We, as an audience, are put in the position of the villain as we watch him creep through his house and stab his sister repeatedly. This suggests a state of equilibrium in no way at all and so immediately audiences can tell that this film has a different structure to most. Throughout the film we learn that Mike Myers is actually 'pure evil' and so the first event (the stabbing) could be thought to be an equilibrium in the mind of the villain as these kinds of events would be a normal thought / activity that he takes place in, however, in terms of the film and how it begins, normality is disrupted for the town, the house and his sister as her death leads to the abandonment of the house and 'haunted curse' the young children of the town believe it to posses. The structure changes depending on the character's you apply it to and their perspective; Laurie's life starts off in equilibrium as she is seen going to school, arranging to babysit (which we learn she spends a lot of her time doing) and talking with friends; it isn't until she places a key under the doormat of the Myers' house that the audience notice a disruption to her life. The disruption gets progressively worse and more noticeable until Laurie ends up being attacked and attacks Mike Myers. There is no restoration of equilibrium as the thought-to-be-dead Mike Myer's is missing and so the town continues to be panicked about his whereabouts and their safety.

Vladimir Propp
The fear that Mike Myers causes for Laurie, Loomis and his victims certifies that he is the villain. This would be clear to see even without the presence of a hero (binary oppositions - Levi-Strauss) as the events that Mike Myer's takes part in and triggers are not ones that a normal, mentally stable character would partake. Propp came up with the theory that there are 8 character types that suggest a kind of narrative structure because of their mere presence in the film. When applying this to Halloween, some of the characters overlap because there isn't a definite good guy vs baddie storyline as we already know that the film doesn't follow Todorov's CHN structure. Loomis could be thought to be a hero in the way that he is the protagonist; he tries to stop the villain and the bad things he predicts will happen however he could also be the helper because of the way he provides the police with information about the danger the town is in. When thinking that Loomis could be the hero, Mike Myers could be a 'kind-of' princess. This is because he is the reward; Loomis sets out to find and stop Mike and so, despite being the villain, he is also the reward for those trying to stop him. The description of the 'princess' is that they are often the victim of the villain's schemes. Although Mike doesn't kill himself like he does the provocative females, he is the victim of his own mind because it is his mentally instability that is causing him to be the way he is.

Laurie could be seen as the hero as well because of the way she physically fights the villain and acts maternal to the children she babysits. She does this by looking out for them and keeping an eye on what is happening outside of the houses she is seen in. Laurie is quite a masculine leading lady, especially compared to her friends who wear tight fitting trousers and tops, heels, make-up etc because of the deep voice, wide-legged walk and manly body language. Laurie is also the only character to fight back against the villain which, in stereotypical terms, is usually the job for the male. In this respect, Laurie is more fitting to the role of hero despite her gender because of the actions she takes to stop the villain and the protective role she takes over the children.

Claude Levi - Strauss
Levi-Strauss's theory of binary oppositions works particularly well with horror films and superhero movies. Because of his theory that opposite factors in films structure it, films where there is a definite difference between good and bad, human and non-human, earth and space etc become more interesting because you begin to question whether or not (for example) the bad guy is really that bad or whether the presence of a hero just makes him seem worse. Michael Myers is quite evidently the bad guy in the film; he murders people and this act begins at a young age - he is described to have the "devil's eyes" and "pure and simply evil" by the man who has spent the most amount of time with him (Loomis). Loomis is thought to be in-compassionate because of the way he refers to Michael as 'it' rather than 'him'. Because of this he could be thought to be a mean character due to his lack of respect towards another human however, when we know of Michael and what he's done, we learn that Loomis is in actual fact a decent character with no unjust motifs because we can compare him to an extreme evil presence.
Comparing Laurie to Michael is the most simple case because of how innocent and sensible Laurie is. Due to her androgynous mannerisms she doesn't appear to be a threat in the film as she, unlike the other females in the film, doesn't partake in sexual, youth-typical activities making her seem careless or selfish. On the other hand, Michael is, like previously mentioned, 'pure evil' and so there is no need to compare them any further because it is apparent that they are total opposites.
Another binary opposition in the film is the aspect of known and unknown. Michael Myers is missing and so his whereabouts in unknown to Loomis however, his mysterious presence in the neighborhood is unknown to the citizens. This becomes more apparent when the certainty of Laurie's innocence and sensibility is recognized; she is everywhere she is meant to be, school, babysitting etc and so she becomes a familiar character because we trust her as the parents trust her to babysit their children. Her and Michael Myers are quite clearly opposites in many ways and the theory of binary oppositions allows this to be analysed and evident within the movie.

Bordwell and Thompson
Bordwell and Thompson came up with the theory and understanding of how a film is put together in order to help audiences to make sense of a narrative structure that may include parts focusing of different times and places. They explored how different camera shots are put together to display how sequential shots relate to each other and thus how they tell a story without actually telling us; we as an audience interact with the film because we make connections due to the effect the structure of the film has.
An early example in Halloween is how the we start off with Michael Myers as a young boy, and the next shot is Loomis and a woman trying to catch him as a man. We learn from the way these two shots are put together that the man they are after is the young boy we saw in the first scene because we naturally place together two events to make sense of the wider situation. The first scene doesn't use this technique because the handheld camera takes us around the house, into the house, up and down the stairs etc so we have no link-making to do as of yet; the setting and the actions are being fed to us because the camera is acting as our eyes; we are placed in the position of the character.
Dr. Loomis later says that he's spent a total of 15 years with Michael; eight trying to get him to open up and seven trying to get him locked up. There is no visual evidence of this happening in the film because there is no footage of it however, we know it happens because we've been told. This information fills the gap of Michael's life that was cut out in the jump from the first scene to the second; we then understand the connection Loomis has with Michael without actually seeing them together.


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The Crazies
1. Does The Crazies follow the Classic Hollywood Narrative?
The very first scene of the film shows the town of Ogden Marsh on fire. This is a shot of what's to come in the future and so already, the film does not follow a classic narrative because of the way it begins with a state of disequilibrium. After this scene, we go to a baseball game where the local sheriff, David, and his deputy are on the outside of the court watching. Rory, a local with a known drink problem is seen entering the field with a gun and is shot dead by the sheriff despite having been sober for 2 years. Even without the scene from future starting the film, the narrative fails to follow this structure because of the disruption caused by the shooting of Rory.
There are many times in the film where audiences feel that the main characters are going to be okay however different events crop up (e.g., the helicopter circulating above them whilst they're on the highway to escape) causing them to enter different situations of disruption and potential death.

2. How many of Propps' character types can be identified in the film?
Of the eight character types that Propp explains within his theory, I believe The Crazies identifies at least five of these depsite them being interlinked within each character.
David, the local sheriff poses as the hero. He takes control and care of the town in which he and his wife live in and his job is to protect incidently making him a hero whether or not his personal qualities and characteristics display this. During the part where, Judy, his wife, has been strapped to a bed along with the other suspected 'crazies', David shoots down an already infested 'crazy' before it gets the chance to kill her. This event partnered with his authoritive and protective actions of keeping the town from the contaminated water and making sure his wife is out of harm before he is demonstrates him as the film's hero.
The fact that his wife is the woman he saves suggests that she is the princess. The already mentioned scene where she and David are separated because of the assumption that she is an expected 'crazy' links her to the villianous characters. The 'crazies' are the main villians because of their unsympatheitc need to kill.
Further into the film audiences learn that members of the government are in actual fact the villians. Despite the 'crazies' need to kill any living creature, a governemnt agent explains how they created a biological weapon named "Trixie" is what was in the plane that crashed, contaminated the swamp thus contaminating the drinking water and therefore infecting the citezens with this virus. Although the crash and contamination was not intended, they are the characters that caused the whole misfortune to begin.
David's deputy, Russel, is the false hero. Throughout the film he saves David and Judy's lives numerous times and he seems a loyal character, assistant and friend to Davd. However, we see his characteristics change and he increasingly becomes more violent and 'odd' within his behaviour. Despite it not being his fault that he is becoming infected with the virus, he begins to hinder David and his wife in several ways: he shoots the government agent even though David explained he wanted to talk to him; he held a gun towards Judy and later wasted all of the bullets from another gun. He didn't chose to fall into the character type of a false hero but he definitely ended up making the survival of David and Judy more difficult. His kind act towards the end of the film by where he distracts soldiers at a blockade to ensure that David and Judy survive. Because of his repetitive efforts to save David and Judy he can also be classed as the helper.

3. List five examples of binary oppositions in the film and explain them briefly.
Claude Levi-Strauss' theory of binary oppositions suggests that characters and elements within the film counteract each other, exaggerating each other's role and reiterating the presence of the other. For example, the presence of a hero allows audiences to distinguish who the bad characters are. However, the presence of the bad characters enable the hero to look more heroic than he perhaps is.

In The Crazies, the binary opposition of male and female is present in the characters of David and Judy. David takes on the protective, strong and determined role whereas Judy needs looking after, partly because she's pregnant, but also because she is a female. Without David's heroic actions audiences would understand how vulnerable Judy really is; the way she screams his name when she's being taken away; the way she looks for him every time something goes wrong, etc are signs that show the opposition in their characters.

The clearest binary opposition within the film is sane and insane / healthy and unwell. It would be easier to class these characters as good and evil however, it's not a case of the murderous characters being evil; they've been infected with a virus therefore they are helpless to their actions. We understand how heroic the sane characters are because of the countless number of violent deaths caused by the insane. The fact that Russel manages to save the rest of his friends a number of times, and the fact that David managed to kill a 'crazy' despite having a knife through his hand shows how 'sane' they are because of the way they are so aware of what is going on around them. Make-up and costume establish the differences between these two oppositions very well. Every single'crazy' in the film has a zombified look about them whereas the sane characters look like their everyday selves.
Another binary opposition that is not so clear is good and evil. At first audiences would assume that the 'crazies' are the villains because of their need to kill however, like previously mentioned, they are helpless to this and their inhuman behavior was at the cause of someone else's actions therefore, they can't be classed as villains when there are higher authorities that had the chance to exclude this from happening. This is a binary opposition in itself because through understanding the story, and seeing a government agent, audiences learn that the 'crazies' aren't actually the villains. Later on in the story audiences also learn that the military shot everyone, healthy or not. This portrays them as the villains as opposed to the 'crazies' because they had the mental ability to stop themselves from shooting innocent people whereas the 'crazies' do not.
David and Russel's relationship is a binary opposition in the way that we wouldn't fully understand David's authority without Russel with him. This shows the opposition in authoritative roles.
The fifth binary opposition I have picked out is past v present. We only understand the events that are happening in the film because of the explanation and discovery of events that had happened before that time phrase.

4. Identify the three 'durations' and give an estimate of the time each duration covers.

5. Give two examples of events that cause later events in the film but which occur before the film starts.
The fact that Judy is pregnant is an event that audiences don't see because that information has been taking into the time period of when film starts. Although Judy became pregnant in a time that isn't in the film, the event effects the way the whole film turns out. When Judy gets taken away because of her increase in temperature, she and David get split up. Although they were separated and Judy gets tied to a bed and nearly dies, her being taking causes David to escape the crowd of 'sane' people that are being loaded onto trucks to be escorted out of the town. David knows that her increase in temperature isn't because she has the potential to become a 'crazy', it is because she is pregnant. David saves Judy and her friend / colleague and later on in the film we learn that, had David had been loaded onto the trucks he would have died anyway. We learn this when Judy finds a truck that contains these escapees, but they're all dead. In answer to this question, Judy's pregnancy is a vital factor that leads to both David and Becca (Judy's friend) being saved (despite Becca dying in the end).
Another event that happens before the time stretch of the film is the act of the biological weapon being made. Audiences don't see this but the whole film is a visual explanation of the effects of it's mere existence. The creation of the virus is the reason why a plane, carrying the virus, is being taken to be destroyed. The plane then crashes (although there isn't an explanation as to why it crashes, if the virus had not been made the plane would not be flying at all however, even if it had been flying, it would not have been carrying the virus thus making the crash less dangerous) and the virus contaminates the drinking water, causing the whole to be infected with the virus and effectively, the 'crazies'.

6. List two events from the 92 minute film that happen in a different time and space to the one we are shown.
Throughout the majority of the film there are only two times where Russel is not visible. Despite his lack of presence in two scenes, audiences are still aware of what he was doing because of passing comments that he makes at different times. These are examples of things that happen in a different space to the one audiences see on screen.
Just before David and Judy are removed from their home by the army, Russel is doing something to the car. At this moment in time we are unaware of what he is doing but once he joins David and Judy on the yellow school bus of which is taking them to be 'checked out' by the army, Russel says "bastards spiked my tyres". This comment partnered with the scene where Russel finds his van on the side of the road filled with necessities, audiences learn that Russel was trying to escape without David and Judy in the first moment he was not on screen.
The other time Russel is not visible is when David and Judy get separated. Whilst Judy is tied down to a bed in the high school, she looks outside of the window to see a red truck crashing into the fenced off area, army men shooting at each other, and the people that were trapped in the fenced off area, escaping. At this point audiences do not know where Russel is however he later on describes the event that Judy witnessed from the bed despite not having seen it. When we later learn in the film that Russel is infected with the virus, audiences assume that Russel was captured within these fences due to being sick.