Essay one: Narrative Theories in relation to The Crazies

        

In this essay I will be looking at the mystery/thriller horror film that is the crazies and talk about narrative theories (Propp, Todorov, Levi-Srauss and Bordwell and Thompson). I will also be talking about the horror film conventions in the film. The crazies was made in 2010 by director Breck Eisner and has a box office of 54.8 million. The crazies is about a normal town called Ogden Marsh which has it's water supply infected with a toxic that turn people mad, craze blood thirsty people. This toxic that authorities have made is released by mistake a plain that has crashed in Ogden's water supply. To try and contain the spread of the infection that authorities shut down the whole village allowing no one in our out and killing everything that remains infected or not. Main characters who are trapped in the village and trying to escape are, Sheriff Dutten (Timothy Olyphant) and his wife (Radha Mitchell) and two companions. The target audience for this film is people who like horror film but also virus and break films/ zombies. But also for only 18+ due to some of the content in it like violence and language.

Screen duration-101minutes
Plot duration-2 Day
Story duration- 15 years

The crazies follow horror film conventions form the location being a small communities this gives more of a scene of isolation. In the crazies being in a small commit it is isolation form being able to escape from danger due to how far the village is form other villages.The camera work included a lot of close up's to show the audience terror and get a feeling to what the characters are facing. These shots also line up just scares but the evil invading the close up shots. The editing of different types of shots allows form they to create jump scares and also the adding of music to cause tension but for these scares. The iconography includes lower lighting as the film becomes more tense and more people getting infected and lighter as they being to finally escape the village. Fire is used a lot in the film this shows destruction, hell and ciaos.

Tzvetan Todorov a Bulgarian structuralist linguist publisher in the 1960 and onward changed some of the work on the narrative form. Todorrov suggests that there is three point to a narrative the beginning it starts with the initial equilibrium where everything is balance things seem to be normal. The it moves on to the disequilibrium where something has unbalanced the equilibrium this start a set chain of events. In the end there is a new equilibrium as the disequilibrium has been resolved.

The crazies follows Tadorovs theory it starts with internal equilibrium (normality) it starts in a small village and everything is happy and the whole town are watching the baseball game. When the sheriff who is one of the main charters has to shoot an old man who has a gun this is then the disequilibrium as it has unbalance the tone of the film. The disequilibrium then starts a chain of events that the main charters have to face. The main event is the shooting of the old man which then start a chain of ill people in the village and so on. The two main characters serve and get out of the village before it is blown up to stop the infection spreading. This is the new equilibrium but this equilibrium is not full closed and left ambiguous this is so the films is then able to go one and have a sequel this is comely done in horror  films.

 Vladimr Propp looked into folks tales and he came up with 8 characters roles in narratives. These 8 charters today can still be included in all sorts of media today. Underneath I haven included the roles and in brackets I have included what characters I believe fit to that roll and why next to them.

1) The villain(s)-(The infected and the government) These are the baddies in the film. I have chose both of these as the government are the once that made the infection to be a biological weapon but the plain crashed that held it a spread the infection in the wrong place The government is also trying to kill the over charters to stop the infection form spreading. The people are also the villains as they are working against the hero to try and kill him. The villains are also deformed and scary looking they look like a villain.
2)The hero-(David) He is the main protagonist also the one who takes charge and gets through the whole film serving and saving others.
3) The donor-I was unsure who this would but it is someone that provides an object with some magic property.
4)The helper-(Russell)He aids the hero but is a hero within his self. He makes himself a distraction so the two remain charters can gets past the government but ends up getting killing to help his friends.
5) The princess-(Judy)She and her unborn son surviving are a reward for the hero. She is an attractive woman.
6) Her father- I was again unsure who the father charter was within this film.
7)The dispatcher-(PvT. Billy babcock) He is part of the government but helps the hero to understand whats going on and sends the hero on his way.
8)The false hero-I was unsure who was this character but at times I believe Russell shows some of these charter trait when he first is catching the infection and hinders the hero rather then helping him.

Levi-Strauss looked at the narrative structure in terms of binary opposition. This is sets of opposite values that are revealed in the structure of media text. For example good vs evil, known vs unknown, humans vs aliens. In The Crazies these is a strong binary oppositions of good vs evil. The good is the non infected which are the main charters through out the film. The evil in the film are the government that made the infection and are trying to kill the protagonists so they don't spread the infection. The fact they would even make a biological infection to kill people is pure evil as they where going to use it as a weapon to kill a whole town. These is also more evil in this film which are the infected people. These people who get the infection turn crazy and have a thrust from blood and try to kill ever remaining no infected thing. But in this film I believe the main evil is the government who have then gone on to create more evil.

The women charters in the film through out are wearing white, white stand for pureness, innocent,

good. Both the women charters in the film are good people they even work in a doctors surgery helping others. laure Mulvey wrote the there for the 'male gaze' but in this film I don't believe the women are seen as sexual objects for the male pleasure. The women in this film are both attractive women but they are not wearing clothing that reveals a lot of skin. But the women in this film are not as strong as the men they still follow the men for guidness and to save and protect them. I am also going to argue that there could be A 'female gaze' the main protagonist in this film is a young man he is well built and show as a strong man. These are all characteristic that men have in horror films I believe for the audience to be attractive to the characters, men or women.

This film follows Todorov theory for the nativity structure but It also challenged the theories as the ending dose not  have a fully close ending. Most horror films do this so they can make a sequel I believe these crazies have done this to have freedom to make a sequel. In my opinion this film follows a lot of the typical code and conventions for zombie/ outbreak horror films. They is a clear good vs evil in the film to clear charter types. I enjoyed this film from the jump scares to the way it was edited and the overall story line/ narrative structure.