Week Thirteen (Monday 4-28-08)

Duck Soup is a narrative film in a way; it does lead us from point A to point B. It has characters that drive the story forward and some of the events are cause and effect. These are all indicators of narrative film so Duck Soup, in a way, is narrative. However, the film is also unconventional because of the manner in which in intervenes into and alters the idea of narrative. It is on one hand a slapstick comedy, but on another hand one could see it as a sort of abstract statement against war. There are many hilarious visual gags throughout the film. And perhaps some of these gags, in particular the more ridiculous ones, show how senseless and stupid war really is. This is especially abundant in the final sequence when all the characters are trapped in the house fighting off the enemy. We see several very silly things (such as Harpo getting stuck in the closet full of explosives which eventually go off, and Groucho getting an giant pot stuck on top of his head). We see these acts as funny and ridiculous - but maybe the Marx brothers were trying to make a statement about war with these absurd visual gags. I think to a casual viewer, Duck Soup is really more about the individual jokes and gags then the film as a whole. But to someone who pays close attention to the film and its structure, I think that he or she will find a narrative path. Although, I do see how someone might not consider this film a narrative - instead he or she might just see a series of funny vignettes or skits that are loosely tied together. Using Frampton's formula on Duck Soup, I can say that the film seems to be about chaos, disorder, anarchy, or whatever you want to call it. There is a lot of craziness in the film, all provided by the Marx brothers. There don't seem to be any kind of rules or restrictions - anything can happen, no matter how absurd.

The Way Things Go is also a narrative film of sorts - in a way it is and in a way it isn't. It is similar to Duck Soup in this way. They are both semi-narrative films. Duck Soup has continuous and established characters, but has a disorderly story with some blurred lines between cause and effect (the anarchy and visual comedy of the film rule over the plot). The Way Things Go is quite the opposite. The entire film is cause and effect - we always know that one thing will lead to another and we continually see how it happens. It is like a narrative film in this way. However, one could argue that the film has no characters - or at least not characters like in Duck Soup. We see tires rolling, bottles pouring, fuses lighting, boards tilting, liquid flowing, fire burning, and much more. These are all objects and they tell the story. So I suppose that you could say that these objects are the characters. But at this point it's really up for grabs because can you really compare people and objects both as narrative characters. I think that this is really up to personal opinion. I think that the objects are not characters so much as they are pieces in the giant narrative puzzle machine that is The Way Things Go. True, the objects do drive the story or the action forward, but they don't really 'act' like characters. They are more like placeholders - but the film could not work without them. Going by Frampton's formula, I would say that this film is about how common objects can organized and arranged to tell a complete story all on their own. It really is entirely about cause and effect - the first thing will always lead to the second thing and so on. And the second thing could never happen without the first thing.