How do films tell stories? Refer in detail to two films of your choice, which employ different narrative strategies and discuss some of the main techniques used by film makers.
The narrative strategy of a film can be constructed in different ways to tell the story of the film. This is done in different ways in the films "Mission Impossible 2" and "Run Lola Run". This essay aims to analyse the different narrative structures if both texts and the other techniques employed to communicate the narrative to the audience.
Firstly the text "Run Lola Run"; a bricolage film that uses a mix of styles and genres including thriller and romance, tells its story in an un-conventional way through non-linear narrative. This is shown as the film consists of three different stories of how the protagonist, Lola, has to obtain 100,000 marks for her boyfriend Manni.
Diese ehemalige Bolle-Filiale in Berlin (Osnabrüc...
Run Lola Run
Lola's ApartmentEach story begins with Lola replacing the receive of the phone after hearing Mannis plea for help, this symbolises the start of the twenty minute countdown she has before the money must be delivered to Mannis boss, thus the entire film plays with the narrative structure of cause/effect chain that is clearly identified as Lola makes different decisions resulting in different outcomes in each story.
Each of the three stories of how the money is obtained unfolds differently, and according to the theorist Vladimir Propp the characters act as different 'spheres of action' that are not gender specific and the actions and events or 'actions of functions' change the order in which they appear.
Each of the three stories begin with complication, where Manni acting as a dispatcher sends the hero, Lola, a character seeking something, on her way to find what is desired, the money that Manni needs.