Month: December 2008

The idea behind my project is to try and show how the NFL and the media (TV, Sports Raido, the Internet) shape the NFL football season into a narrative to make it easier to follow and more enjoyable to watch. The idea is to take a look at how the media sensationalizes (spelling?) the game and the incidents surrounding it in order to make a compelling narrative. American’s are used to watching narratives in their movies and tv programs and it makes sense that the NFL and the cable stations that cover it would want to try and fit it into the same category – an example:

a commercial running for this week’s thursday night Patriots-Jet’s game features Brett Favre as the “hero” and the Patriots as the “rivals” that he will have to over come – it also talks about how Favre is starring in his 280-somethingth straight “episode” (a reference to his record number of games played in a row)  – the game has been set up as a narratie already – tune in to see if Brett Favre can beat his rivals – the commercial gives characters (favre, the jets, the patriots) and gives them clearly defined goals (Favre: beat the patriots – Patriots: beat Favre) even a casual fan of the game still might tune in to see how the story unfolds.

Another interesting aspect to cover is the off-field lives of NFL players – whose lives can literally be made to look like a running soap opera by the media.

Another interesting thing to look at is the actual coverage of NFL games and how they are filmed – Professor Hector Vila who teaches a class on “Media, Sports and Identity” says that, “…the camera following the professional game on any given Sunday actually follows, for the most part, the narrative of the color commentator, not the actual game since the camera can’t capture the entire game.  The entire game—or the rest of the experience—is done through a series of “flashbacks,” these too keeping with the narrative.” I think that it would be interesting to look at what Bordwell says about flashback and then analyze an NFL game to see how cable stations use flashback as a part of their narrative.

Tenative Thesis: The NFL, along with sports media (TV, Internet, Sports Radio) sesationalizes their product in an effort to fit it into a narrative structure that is easier for the public to consume. The NFL and sports media form this narrative in the way that they cover each team throughout the season and in each week leading up to a game, and also how they cover and film each individual game.

Sources:

Class Texts

David Borwell, Narration in the Fiction Film (university of Wisconsin Press, 1985)

David Hermann, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Narrative (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

J.J. Murphy, Me and You and Memento and Fargo: How Independent Screenplays Work(Continuum Books, 2007)

Interview with Hector Vila

Aaron Baker and Todd Boyd, editors, Out of Bounds: Sports, Media, and The Politics of Identity (Indiana University Press, 1997)

– more sources to come

At the end of the screening of The Prestige last wednsday the question was raised, “Why does the one Bourden brother get to live while his brother and Angier both die?” The same question was raised again at the end of class on thursday. I am slightly embarrassed to say it but I spent a good chunk of time this past weekend thinking about this question. I like this film a lot and have seen it more than a few times but I have not been able to, or maybe I haven’;t really wanted to answer this question. The more and more I think about the filmk the more I start to think that Nolan may have spent some time setting up to Bourden as two different people not only to reveal as the prestige of the film but also to answer this very question. I like to identify the two Bourden brothers by the women that they loved: Sarah’s Bourden and Olivia’s Bourden. there are two scenes when we know absolutely which Bourden brother we are dealing with and those two scenes are when they each meet the women they love. Sarah’s Bourden (during the scene in which he meets her) is friendly and kind (he talks to her nephew and explains some of the rules of magic) and through this interaction with Sarah we learn about his character. Olivia’s Bourden meets Olivia, and although I do believe that he does love her, immediately begins to think about how he can use her against Angiers, which says something about his character as well. Judging from these two experiences and knowing that Sarah’s Bourden is the one who loves her then we can assume that every time Bourden tells Sarah that he loves her and she does not believe him (and the one time when Bourden tells her he does not love her) that it is Olivia’s Bourden who is speaking. This would also mean that Bourden is the one who presents Sarah with the key to their new house and it is Olivia’s Bourden who fights with Sarah even after Sarah’s Bourden has asked him to help him out in his relationship with her. Undoubtedly it is not only Olivia’s Bourden who is capable of being short tempered or nasty but Nolan does not show us this, and I believe by only showing us Olivia’s Bourden acting this way he is giving us as the audience clues to the morality and character of each of the brothers. Going on what I have just stated (which I will readily admit is not concrete evidence) I believe, based on what Nolan has shown us about the characters, that it is Olivia’s Bourden who ties the knot on Angiers wife that causes her to drown (and starts the fued with Angiers), but Sarah’s Bourden who shows up to pay his respects at the funeral (this would account for his not knowing which knot was tied) – if this is indeed true that tells us a great deal more about each character. I also think that it is Olivia’s Bourden who decides to go to Angiers show at the end of the film to try and figure out his trick, even after the brothers have decided to let it go. This would mean that it is Olivia’s Bourden who is arrested, tried, and eventually hung and Sarah’s Bourden who kills Angier in order to avenge his brother. The way that it shakes out in the end then is that Oliva’s Bourden accidentally kills Angiers’ wife and then Angiers frames Olivia’s Bourden, while Sarah’s Bourden kills Angiers to avenge his brother and also to reclaim the daughter that is most likely and logically actaully his and not Angiers or Olivia’s Bourden’s. I know that this is a lot of assumption on my part but it is a way that the movie can make sense to me and not end on such a morally ambiguous note. Anyway, I would welcome comments or other thoughts or ideas on the ending.