Essay Example on Exploring Narratives: What Xxxx Defines

Introduction

We get to understand what gets around us through the readings and actions through films, in either form, they try to narrate an event to create a picture in the mind of the audience or the readers. The narrative is what lays the center stage when giving a description of an event. Xxxx defines narrative as a report that connects event, imagery or real, presented in a sequence of spoken or written words, sounds, moving or still images, or a blend of all these or other such sensory experiences. A narrative can take an experimental film form, it rigorously re-asses cinematic convention and discovers and explore non-narrative forms and alternatives to traditional narrative or style of working. Narrative 'experiments' it involves all about restraint where you show and how you show it. The narrative experiment that breaks from the convention is themed to the notion that every image and every sound needs to align with the story and the characters (Hardy, 2019). The following essay focuses on the three films in the narrative 'experiment perspective, they include Casablanca, Unfriended and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The analysis will include the anecdote of the film before focusing them in an experimental perspective. The films are narrative 'experiment, as most of the events that are being depicted are those that are narrated through verbal means, but the films are taking the role of demonstrating how the events happened.

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Casablanca

Casablanca is viewed as a narrative experiment as it is set in the contemporary World War II, it majors on the American expatriate who has the options to choose between his love for a woman or assist the woman's husband and also a friend, a Czech Resistance leader to flee from Casablanca which was at that time the Vichy-controlled city, so that he can go ahead to fight against the Nazis. The narrative is experimental as most of the scenes in the plots can be traced to the reality of things during those times, and the film is meant to validate to the audience the actual situation at that time and the hard choice people have to make and sacrifice all that they had for their people. In Casablanca, the key themes that evolve include self-sacrifice and unhappy love; both set the romantic melodrama different from many of its genre. Casablanca, in an experimental form, we see the main protagonist navigating the plot of the film; they try to picture the actual situation in the community. The themes are suitably expressed in the interactions of the three main characters: Ilsa Lund, a mysterious femme fatale, Victor Laszlo, a heroic political leader, and Richard (Rick) Blaine a seemingly ethically equivocal night club owner. The unfamiliar love triangle sets with the two men's mutual love for the intermediate woman. Unlike the typical romantic triangle that involves the victorious lover and the betrayed husband, this situation led to unhappiness and the loss for the persons involved. The entire three main protagonists are willing to sacrifice the love, despite their suffering that they endure along with their pursuit.

Ilsa is the character at the center of the story. Ilsa is on the dilemma to choose between her lover Rick and her vows of marriage to Victor. She ends up being deceived by her confusing feelings for her husband, "...she looked up to him, worshipped him, with a feeling she supposed was love. He opened up for her a whole beautiful world full of knowledge and thoughts and ideas" (Pontuso 104). Ilsa loves victor as a "heroic father figure." While her affection for Rick leads her to totally surrender her will to his judgment. She is willing to risk herself for him to show her the passionate love that she has for him though in an adulterous relationship. The shameful decision that she made disrupts her honor, ideal as well as the sacred vows of marriage. In the end, despite her choice for Rick leads to unhappiness, and cuts her connection with the man that she truly loved, she yields to it and leads her husband back into their unfulfilling relationship.

Victor, on the other hand, is depicted as an idealistic leader, whose firm devotion to his political cause is only defied by his tremendous love for his wife. Victor is a virtuous human; actually, his only imperfection is that he lacks the romantic intimacy with his wife, Ilsa. Although he suggests in his own self-sacrificial offer, he informed Rich "...I ask you as a favor to use the letters to take her away from Casablanca" (Ray, 1985 p.104). Victor is not only sacrificing his wife to another man, but he is also giving up his only opportunity to escape from the nearly possible death he faces in Casablanca. Victor's courageous offer proves how deep he loved his wife, at the end of the tale; Victor had to live unhappily while accepting the reality that Ilsa was not truly his, who was with him while her love was for another man.

Rick is an ethically uncertain night club owner, he romanticism conceal behind the natural facade. He is troubled with his affection towards Ilsa, at the same time with his admiration and loyalty he had towards Victor and his cause. Rick acknowledges the significance of the role played by Victor towards the community, whereby Ilsa is an art towards the cause. Rick respects victor's self-devotion to Ilsa and understands that Victor is a better man for her. Rick affirms to Ilsa how much he acknowledges the role she plays with Victor in their mission for the community... ". Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it...Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life" (Myers, 2019). In the climax moment of nobility and self-sacrifice, Rick confesses his intimate feelings and love that he has for Ilsa, by convincing her to leave Casablanca with her husband, Rick. With the sacrifices that he presented, Ricks love attains the new status of purity, which means redemption.

The constant theme that is maintained all through the film is self-sacrifice and unhappy loves are dominant. The nonconforming ending seems to cast off the significance of romantic love, in support of the more righteous love of standards, such as self-sacrifice for the purpose of others. Although the story of Ilsa can be perceived to be tragic, it demonstrates the bittersweet realities of life more frankly than any happily ever after. At the same time, it challenges the predictable romantic sense of love with a more powerful state. A love that is exceptionally selfless, noble, and pure. The idea of this definitive state attained at the closing of this film is possibly more romantic in itself than any fairy tale ending.

Unfriended

There are many cases where the teens have committed suicides and some of the causes include, Verbalizes (Stanford children's Health, 2019) or social media (Zilles,2019). As a narrative experiment, Unfriended resembles an experimental form as it attempts to give a clear demonstration as to the event that leads to the teens being pushed to commit suicide. Unfriendly unfolds how the teenagers, computer screens as she is being stalked together with her friend by unseen figures who are in pursuit of vengeance for astonishing videos that prompt to the vicious bully to commit suicide in the subsequent year.

Unfriended unfolds over a teenager's computer screen as she and her friends are stalked by an unseen figure who seeks vengeance for a shaming video that led a vicious bully to kill herself a year earlier.

Unfriended is a 2014 middle-grade fiction film by Rachel Vail. It entails the problems that emerge out of the blend of digital communication and social media within formal educational environments. The main protagonist of the film include Truly and her classmates' Clay, Hazel, Brooke, Natasha, and Jack, who participate in the enrich middle school chaos, it focuses on the problem of bullying in young adult life. Going through the different characters' perspectives, the tale mostly focuses on the emotionally fraught periods of life to justify their directionless identities.

The climax of the film is the suicide accounts of the teens, they were obnoxious, and nasty teens, none of them seemed to be likable or even redeemable. Worse, the presentation does not give us the opportunity to see how the teens faced their death. Actually, their computers appear to have a lousy connection. While they are talking at one other and shouting at each other, or die in a Skype window, viewers are subject to intermittent audio and pixelated video freeze-ups. We endeavor to trace what is happening, and to who are these words said to, who is the speaker, but in all, we seem to be waiting for their prolonged reactions.

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari

The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari was written by Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz, and the film was directed by Robert Weine, it was produced in 1919 by Erich Pommer for Decla-Bioscop. It also takes a film narrative experiment form. In general, the film was accomplished by the good director and with great characters of the time. Many films critics state that this is one of the best films ever made based on the history of the cinema. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari did a brilliant job in showcasing how the feelings of the Germans at the time when applying the horror genre to bring a clear understanding of the situation to the audience. The film experiments the event of the 1920s into the present era.

The film falls under the genre horror it is compared to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and at the same times, it resembles the Dracula-type plot especially in the instance where somnambulist kills by night. But he is not willing to kill the girl since he is mesmerized by her beauty. The experimental mood of the narrative is characterized by black bringing darkness to the mood, and the entire outfits are completely black apart from the girl who wears white to signify of purity. While somnambulist has dark makeup that makes him appears to be the scarier and more different from the rest of the characters in the film. The climax of the film was abrupt when the audience learns that Dr. Caligari is indeed in the director in the mental institution once Francis interned. The entire narrative gives the experimental fragment of Francis's imagination.

The other experimental part from the film is the mood that the people in German during the creation of the film. They were depressed by their defeat in war, loss of, lives, jobs, and money, they were devastated and they were drowning into the weakest and most vulnerable part of the history as they were in fear that Adolf Hitler would soon take over. The film demonstrates the dark feelings that are given in the movies and they felt by the viewers of the time.

The narrative experiments the Nazi regime. Lil Dagover and Werner Krauss were in support of the Nazi regime and Lil was a close associate of Hitler. Lil was famous all though German and known for her beauty. The villain of the views was Conrad Veidt who assumed the character Cesare in the film, whereas Vedit was in love with a Jewish woman whom she later married, and became against the Nazi regime

References

Zilles, C. (2019). Does Social Media Have A Teen Suicide Problem?. Retrieved from https://socialmediahq.com/does-social-media-have-a-teen-suicide-problem/

Stanford Children's Health. (2019). default - Stanford Children's Health. Retrieved from https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en/topic/default?id=teen-suicide-90-P02584

Myers, S. (2019). Daily Dialogue - January 27, 2017. Retrieved from https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/daily-dialogue-january-27-2017-71e3f48...