Narrative

Narrative is a key component used in film and is it's discourse, the way it moves and flows. Film Reference defines narrative as 'two separate components: the story presented and the process of its telling, or narration, often referred to as narrative discourse'. We can infer from this that the story and narrative are two completely different things, not to be confused. The story tells the audience what is happening within a characters life, whereas the narrative is a tool used to express this. 'From the audience's perspective, story and plot refer to the different ways movie narratives construct meaning for spectators'. The plot is again different to both story and narrative, 'plot is about how, and at what stages the key conflicts are set up and resolved.' This is different to story,  because story shows the meaning and is displayed through the narrative discourse, in either a linear or non-linear way. They still both provide the audience with meaning behind the film, which can be symbolic. In other words, 'story is about trying to determine the key conflicts, main characters, setting and events'. The story and plot are focused around the characters life, whereas narrative is the technique used to project this. 'Conventionally, both story and plot are described in terms of how a character's life is disrupted by an event or change in his/her situation.' A typical narrative device used in non-linear films are narration or voiceovers. They can help to express the story and feed it to the audience in a unique way. It can show the audience what is happening through dialogue, filling in any gaps in the storyline or plot. Films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and 500 Days of Summer use voiceovers to 'deliver the story information to the audience' in an unconventional way. Narration uses ' a set of representational, organisational and discursive cues'