Friday, 6 April 2018

Strauss Narrative and film Trailers

Levi Strauss thought that all narratives are structured around the idea of Binary Opposites, and the conflict between the two, Strauss thought that each film would always have a hero but to counter and challenge this hero a villain is needed, to beg the question does good overpower evil, which opposition is supported by the narrative and triumphs over the other.

There are many Binary opposites such as:

Good vs Evil,
Hero vs Villain,
Human vs Supernatural,
Light vs Dark,
Old vs Young,
Beautiful vs Ugly,
Strong vs Weak,
Rich vs Poor,
Peace vs Conflict.

These are just a few oppositions to be named, there are almost an infinite amount, just thinking of anything it always has an opposite, of course not every film has every opposition, however there are a few very distinct oppositions in films, for example in Superhero films the clear oppositions are Good vs Evil, Hero vs Villain etc. whereas in Horror films an opposition could be Light vs Dark, Human vs Supernatural and in Comedy an example could be Old vs Young.




The Dark Knight is a good example of how the movie uses Binary Opposites as it makes it very clear and obvious that it is about Good vs Evil, the Superhero/Batman vs the Villain/The Joker, in this case being a Superhero film the Hero comes out on top, this is why I didn't want to look at horror movie trailers as a lot of the time the unnatural/supernatural force overcomes the human/good side.

For my film trailer, the genre being a horror I would like there to be a clear Binary Opposite however the good side doesn't win, it is expected that in films the better side will overcome the evil or problem and triumph so instead in the trailer I don't want to give too information away as i'd like there to still be some mystery in the trailer as to who comes out on top.

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