Narrative in Comedy films

Two Key Approaches

• The Narrative/Situation Led Structure – Order – chaos – order restored– Equilibrium – disequilibrium – new equilibrium– The Three Act Structure

• Comedian led Structure - Showcase of individual gags, personal quirks and set pieces loose held together by a ‘plot’– The Three Stooges– Charlie Chaplin– Monty Python

What is the narrative of Love Actually• The film begins with a voiceover from David

(Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David's voiceover also relates that all the messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. The film then tells the 'love stories' of many people…

Love Actually and the Three Act Structure.

• Choose at least two ‘love stories within the film and plot out how the Three Act Structure works in each

In pairs

• Do a brainstorm of all the subplots of Love Actually… Make sure to detail the issue and how it is resolved.

• First one as an example …The Prime Minister falls in love with his simple secretary, the POTUS hits on her, the PM then forcing her to leave. The PM realises it was the POTUS’ fault, goes to her family home and wins her love.

Conflict in Love Actually• List on the left side of the page describing

words for the types of conflict we see in this film…

• Draw an arrow to the subplots in your brainstorm that are evidence of this type of conflict

• Why do you think this film offers and deals with conflict in these ways?

• Is there one conflict moment that is unlike the rest in the film?

• Why?

Question

• What is predictable about this text?

• Positives

• Negatives

Narrative Summary of Four Lions

• On the sheets provided list as many events/scene that you can remember from the film. Write only one event/scene per sheet of paper

• As a class order the events/scene according to how we saw them in the film.

Four Lions and the Three Act Structure.

• Mark out where the different elements of the Three Act Structure happen – you must reach a consensus.

Conflict in Four Lions

• Find the Four Lions conflict moments from your pieces of paper and group them together

• Group the papers in two groups – RESOLVED or UNRESOLVED

Discuss what sorts of conflict this film has.

RESOLVED

• What strategies are used by the director to resolve the conflict?

• How does resolving these conflicts make the audience feel? (Use an example to support your reasoning)

• How does this link to the expectations we have of this genre?

UNRESOLVED

• How come the unresolved conflict is left open?

• Why do you think the director chose to leave some conflict resolved and some unresolved?

• How would this film be different if all conflict was resolved? Would it be more successful?

Question

• What is predictable about this text?

• Positives

• Negatives

Four Lions and Love Actually

• Are mostly the classic Hollywood style but they both do include element of gags and they do play with conventions

• Single goal oriented protagonist

• Narrative is driven by character traits

Four Lions and Love Actually

• Cause and Effect

• Use of subplots

• The Happy Ending

Essay Question

• How far are the narratives of the two genre films you have studied for this topic predictable?

• Spend five mins brainstorming all the things you could possible talk about for this question

Constructing an Argument

• First of all you need to…

…decide on your point of view!On the sheet provided write three different points of view you could

have about the question – No sharing ideas!!!!

Ongoing Argument

• At GCSE, simply writing separate paragraphs about different narrative ideas with general analysis and examples from the film is enough.

• The difference between GCSE and A Level essays; the examiner will now expect your essay to have a central, ongoing thesis (argument) which runs throughout your essay (ie you refer to it often and use select evidence to back up your view point) and which you conclusively prove using detailed analysis.

• Including a counter argument (or acknowledging other possible view point) can also greatly increase your marks.