You know, I’ve thought about this all weekend, and I couldn’t decide my answer to the question posed at the end of class on Thursday (Who is the protagonist?) until I finished reading Bordwell’s “Three Dimensions of Narrative Film.” On page 90, Bordwell lays out a series of statements that generally categorize who a protagonist is; in other words, a set of schemata that spectators intuitively recognize as signifiers of which character is the protagonist. The remainder of this post will focus upon whether Angier or Borden is the protagonist (Cutter’s role in the movie is not un-important, but I see stronger cases for either Angier or Borden and would rather focus my discussion upon those two characters).

Statement 1: “The protagonist may be the character with the greatest power.”

I don’t believe that this statement easily resolves the question. What first comes through my mind is another question, that being “the greatest power…over what?” The greatest power over their craft? Magic? I would say that Borden wins out. He has dedicated his life to being a magician, on stage and off, to an extent that causes his wife’s death, and the eventual death of his twin brother. Angier could be argued the better showman (although this claim can be countered by Borden’s stunt involving Angier’s drunk double), but certainly his reliance upon Cutter for magic, as well as his decision to turn to science (a decision I have literally zero problem with), reveals Borden to be the better Magician.

Further, at the end of the film, it is Borden (arguably, the better Borden: the one who truly loved Sarah, and maybe the innocent Borden in the question of who killed Angier’s wife at the beginning of the film?) who remains alive to take care of his young daughter. Although, it is hard to say who lost more: Borden, who lost a brother and the woman he loved, or Angier, who had to kill himself 100 times. Also, Cutter, in my opinion, was on the side of Borden at the end, having chosen between the better of the two magicians. Also, the ‘power’ held by each magician changes constantly throughout the film. In one scene, Angier sabotages Borden’s act; in another, those roles switch. In one scene, Borden’s Transported Man trick in superior; in another, Angier’s device stumps even Borden (Note: Borden always could figure out Angier’s tricks UNTIL Angier resorted to Tesla’s machine).

All in all, I believe that Borden best fits this definition because he ends the film A) Alive, and B) with some future (his daughter), and C) all the reasons above.

Statement 2: “The Protagonist may also be the character with whom we tend to sympathize most keenly”

This question also is a rather difficult one to answer. I remember the first time I watched the film, I sympathized with Angier’s revenge motive up until it is revealed that Angier, well ‘one’ Angier, was alive while ‘one’ Borden was sentenced to death AND his daughter was in Angier’s custody. I mean, a man’s wife dies due to a stage ‘accident’ and, driven by his grief, he attempts to get revenge. I get that as a motive. But, I believe that Angier takes it too far by sending Borden to his death. Angier is always motivated by revenge and becoming the better magician. I came to sympathize more with Borden at that point, although in many ways, Borden takes it too far as well. He lives his tricks, his art to such an extent that his obsession leads to the death of his wife, a women he loves, and his brother, the “Borden” who, however, when you read his last lines, is truly sorry for what he’d done:

“So… we go alone now. Both of us. Only I don’t have as far to go as you. Go. You were right, I should have left him to his damn trick. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for a lot of things. I’m sorry about Sarah. I didn’t mean to hurt her… I didn’t. You go and live your life in full now, all right? You live for both of us.”

I think that apology, as well as realizing that Angier set Borden up, threw all of my sympathies behind the surviving Borden. Then, I had no problem with Borden killing Angier at the end. Also, I feel like it helped me that Cutter’s sympathies fell towards Borden. So, round two goes to Borden.

Statement 3: “The Protagonist may be the character with whose value system we are assumed to agree.”

In my opinion, I don’t think we as audience are supposed to agree with either Borden or Angier’s value system, but rather Cutter’s value system. I think that Cutter is the most reliable of the three narrators of the film and, like I’ve mentioned above, sympathetic towards Borden and his values. So, Cutter gets this round by a longshot.

Statement 4: “The Protagonist may be the one who is most affected or changed by events.”

My inclination is to give this round to Angier because his wife’s death turns him from a loving husband into a man unstoppable in his quest for revenge. He will kill himself 100 times in order to outwit Borden. It seems like real magic (science) is posited in the negative, while Borden’s honorable magic (that is, honorable to the art itself) is more esteemed and positive. Borden is not willing to take his competition with Angier to the same extent. Also, Angier dies (negative) and Borden lives (positive) and gets his daughter back (positive). I’d say this round goes to Angier.

Statement 5: “One quick measure of how narration can suggest who is a protagonist involves registering how long a character is onstage.”

I have no concrete answer to this statement, although I would assume that Angier and Borden share a very similar amount of time on screen together. Also, if one has more time on screen, it certainly wouldn’t be by an amount large enough to make the decision an easy.

So, overall, I would see Borden as the protagonist, but in a lot of ways, many probably not mentioned here, Angier could also be argued convincingly for the title of protagonist. Lastly, I think that the film purposefully leaves this ambiguous, or maybe another discussion needs to be raised concerning the possibility of dual protagonists here (but maybe somebody did already, and if so, awesome).

After perusing Aaron and Leslie’s blog posts about Barton Fink, particularly Aaron’s point concerning the impossibility of separating the objective fabula from the subjective, I remembered a website that I found when looking for help to uncover the truth behind Barton Fink, and I figured that I would pass it on to the class.  I’ve copied and pasted the link: (titled “A Viewer’s Guide to Barton FInk”) into my blog for easy reading. I guess the connection to the past readings that I made with this article was with regards to George Wilson’s “Transparency and Twist in Narrative Fiction Film” and his discussion of subjective shots and sequences. I think that this article shows how subjective inflection can be conveyed without the use of, say, traditonal POV shots.

The first idea that came to mind directly relates to the readings we’ve had to read for this week’s class: Voice-over narration in Film Noirs and Neo-noirs.  I conceived of this idea before reading the Kozloff article and then realizing that on the first page of his article he basically outlines the type of paper I probably would’ve leaned towards writing. Sweet. But, perhaps a specific application of Kozloff’s theory to the genre of film-noir and its eventual hybrids. Perhaps there exist fundamental differences between film-noir’s usage of the voice-over and its possible reinvisioning in many neo-noir films? How does French New-Wave use voice-over differently in its use of the film-noir genre? I keep thinking about the movie Blade Runner where the original theatrical version used voice-over, but the director’s cut eliminated it. In what ways did the voice-over hinder the narrating of the fabula? There are more questions than answers at this point, but I think that further, detailed research on this subject could find some interesting and instructive results.

My second idea deals with how the notion of star power and other transtextual motivations affect the spectator. For example, I remember seeing M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening and how I could not accept Mark Wahlberg’s “nice” character when all other movies that I have seen starring him have cast him as a “bad” guy. I was unable to separate my knowledge of Mark Wahlberg and his prior film work from a different type of character he was portraying. Also, I came into watching the film knowing that Shyamalan consistently throws ‘twists’ into his films, and when one didn’t appear in its conventional sense, I was a little bit disappointed. I’m not sure how much critical literature there is out there on this phenomenon, but perhaps I could take a more general stance and investigate how all forms of paratextual and transtextual information cues the spectator towards and understanding of a film even before seeing it? Coming back to the example of The Happening, how did the trailers, the promotions, the website, etc… all communicate aspects of the fabula? What aspects were presented? Why? Why are aspects left out of trailers? These are basic questions, I know, but hopefully they can lead me to discover the nuances of paratextuality and allow me to incorporate all that we know so far about narration, fabula, syuzhet, and style into an analysis of said elements.

The notion of slant and filter as defined in Chapman’s article has sunk in quite a bit, but there are some instances in films that we’ve seen where I try to apply the terms and just get plain old befuddled.  So we’re all on the same page, let me copy down the definitions Chapman provides:

Slant – The narrator’s attitudes and other mental nuances appropriate to the report function of discourse.

Filter – The much wider range of mental activity experienced by characters in the story world – perceptions, cognitions, attitudes, emotions, memories, fantasies, and the like.

First example: in the fourth episode of The Singing Detective, there’s one sequence where young Marlowe is riding with his mother on the train to London. Young Marlowe is looking out the window at a scarecrow atop a hill when suddenly, the scarecrow waves. Then, eventually, the same sequence is replayed, but from the other side, crossing the 180 Degree line, showing the head of the scarecrow to be Hitler. Then, Hitler taunts a battalion of British soldiers and they in turn fire upon the scarecrow. So, as I understand it, the flashback sequences are all filtered through Philip Marlowe’s mental processes; we are witnessing his rendering of his past memories. One question I have is are we getting our fabula information filtered through the young Marlowe in the memories, with Older Marlowe as the implied filterer (or the more general focalizer), if you see the distinction? Further, in my mind, there is no possible way that in the memory sequence, young Marlowe could visualize the aspect of the memory with the soldiers. So, is this a flourish provided by the filtered memories of Older Marlowe, or a narrational slant? Or maybe, there are just multiple filterers coinciding with the different ages of Marlowe?

I understand slant to emerge when imformation is presented that cannot possibly be in the scope of knowledge of the filtering character. For example, the glimpse of both Leonard and Sammy in the same wheelchair towards the end of Memento. In my chronology of the fabula, Leonard had already experienced his wife’s rape and thus his memory condition, so how can he have remembered himself in that way? Are these latent memories still in his head that only come forth due to Teddy’s retelling? Are they projections of internal processes going off in Leonard’s head? Possibly, but couldn’t they also be the narrator inserting an opinion towards the correct way to understand the fabula? What has become clear to me is how complicated defining the cinematic language actually is.

Also, one last thing concerning filtering as it relates to Barton Fink. During the sequence where John Goodman’s character runs down the hallway and the walls light up in flame, is that filtered through Barton or John Goodman’s character. As we know, we are given a glimpse of where Barton was situated: in the hotel room on the bed, only able to see the little visible to him through the doorway (the fire lining the walls, John Goodman walking by and reloading his gun). I would presume that Barton may also be able to hear all that goes on outside the room, so it is not a stretch for Barton to filter that sequence based upon the visual and aural clues provided to him. But maybe, John Goodman’s character is filtering the sequence. We do know from Barton’s filtering that the hotel is hot, but maybe the fire along the wall is an external expression of John Goodman’s inner fury, in the same way that Wilson’s article uses the example of Bogart waking up from being drugged and having the spidery fog imposed on the screen while he stumbles around. This would tie into Wilson’s discussion of formal manifestations of subjectivity. Anyway, I’d like to hear of anybody has any opinions on these examples or could provide any other examples that might clear up any misuderstandings I have concerning the terms slant and filter

Being prompted by Professor Mittell to engage with the play between syuzhet and style, I stared at and scruntized the screen and discovered one thing: RED is everywhere in The Sixth Sense.  Bordwell speaks at length to the relationship between syuzhet and style, stating that “Film technique is customarily used to perform syuzhet tasks – providing information, cueing hypotheses, and so forth.” One prominent technique oft utilized by Shyamalan in all of his movies, especially The Sixth Sense,  is COLOR. Having seen the movie beforehand numerous times, I was familiar with the stylized use of the color RED. So throughout the screening tonight, I marked down every instance where the color red appeared. Also, by the color red, I mean THAT specific color red, indicating a conscious stylistic choice by Shyamalan.

52 scenes contained the color RED.

Here are prominent uses:

Funeral Sequence: Wife in Red Dress, Red flowers, Red Lipstick. The decorative box containing the cassette tape included a red adornment. In Mischa Barton’s bedroom, there is a starkly red “It’s never fun to be sick,” ‘get well’ card.

Cole’s Red Tent (equipped with a red flannel blanket and the Jesus figureine draped in a red shall)

Cole’s Mother often has red fingernail polish.

At the play sequence, the gem in Excalibur is red.

The red doorknob at Malcolm’s house; his wife is draped in a red.

The sequence with the dead bicycle rider: her bike helmet is red.

When Malcolm first enters the church after Cole, the church doors are red.

Malcolm’s wife wears red throughout most of the movie (except the sequence in which Malcolm actually dies).

When Malcolm and Cole are walking towards the beginning of the film, there is a red stop sign as well as a group of youth baseball players wearing…you guessed it…red caps.

The red balloon floating up the spiral staircase at the birthday party.

The Thermostat needle is red.

A faded red hospital instrument above Cole’s bed.

Cole’s mother finds Cole’s ‘upset words’ written in red ink.

Malcolm’s wife anti-depressants are red pills.

My list filled up two college-ruled sheets of paper front and back. The question I was forced to ask myself is: why so much red? I think that the obvious explanation is that the color red appears prominently when ghosts are present: particularly with Cole’s tent, the red door knob, the balloon, and Cole’s sweater. Upon first watching the film, this would become very apparent after a while, almost one of the ways in which Shyamalan teaches the audience how to watch the movie. However, watching the movie the second time, red is posited as a clue to Malcolm actually being dead. In a majority of the scenes with Malcolm and Cole, there is either a bright red or a shade of red present, oftentimes a subtle shade of red, which complements the hidden ‘double’ fabula that the article mentioned. When I watched the film this time, I noticed how many times red appears whenever Malcolm is around, almost throwing it in your face that he is actually a ghost. This is just one of the ways in which Shyamalan hides the ‘twist’ from the audience via cooperation between the syuzhet and the style.

Also, this color red allows for the audience (and me included) to make an hypothesis and test that hypothesis in accordance with Bordwell’s notion of the ‘spectator.’ Hypothesis: When the color red appears, a ghost will show up. Then, you could test that theory (multiple times even), and as an active viewer, we can figure out the connection.

Again, there are many examples of the connection between syzuhet and style. Hopefully we’ll chat about more tomorrow in class.