Shrek, Basic Communication
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This assignment is to show how an understanding of narrative structures, the language of film, and binary oppositions can contribute to a critical reading of any one film chosen from the list given. In interpreting the purpose of this assignment, I have chosen the feature film “Shrek” to be analyzed. The overall story of Shrek is simply similar to Disneys Beauty and the Beast. It is a romantic story between an ugly-beast with a beautiful Princess, which is setting up as an old kingdom movie packed with hilarious jokes and images. The form of the movie is in 3D animation movie, which is brilliantly created by Dreamworks. In addition, I would like to use this assignment as an opportunity to argue that the genre of Shrek is a romantic fairytale comedy. In term of definition, fairytale is an interesting but highly implausible story. The argument stated in this assignment will be mainly focusing on the genre by analyzing the narrative structure, binary oppositions and the language of film.
Narrative is telling a story. Films tell stories. Telling stories is the best way to send information. Narrative structure is how a story is told. According to Todorov (1977) from Film as Social Practice, narrative begins from a stable situation, to a disruption, and to another stable situation. From the feature film Shrek, the first stable situation is basically when Shrek lives peacefully in his swamp. In the opening scene it is shown how he lives his day to day live in his swamp from his taking a shower, eating his dinner, and getting rid of the humans whos trying to kill him. From this, it moves on to a disruption. The disruption here is when the fairytales creatures invaded his swamp because of the evil Lord Farquaad has kicked them out from their place. This leads Shrek on his adventures to save Fiona, a beautiful princess that is trap on a giant Castile guarded by an undefeated dragon in order to get rid of the fairytales creatures from his swamp. The ending, which is the other stable situation, is a little bit different from the first one. The ending shows that all the fairytales creature are now live in the swamp altogether with Shrek and Princess Fiona. Here, it shows the changes of situation as in binary oppositions form from alone to jointly, quite to loud, and loner to a society individual. At first, Shrek is a loner and actually did not like to have anybody in his swamp. But at the end, he found himself living happily together with the all of them.
The best thing about Shrek is that it combined different kinds of fairytale in to one movie. At the scene when all the fairytale creatures lined up to sell their stuff to the Lord Farquaads army shows many fairytale stories there. There was Pinocchio, the three pigs, Tinkerbelle from the fairytale Peter Pan, and so on. Most of the part it has the same ingredient as the Disneys fairytale Beauty and the Beast. According to Levi Strauss (1955: 1966), the feature of mythologies is their dependence upon binary oppositions. From this point if view, I feel that fairytale is the same. Most of the fairytales around, there are always the element good against evil. In Shrek, it is shown that the good is the character Shrek and the evil is the character Lord Farquaad.
Good against evil is not the only binary oppositions that can be picked up in the movie. Binary oppositions, according to OShaughnessys Media and Society p.126-130, is that how everything has an opposition, or there are two sides of them. Binary means two. Its all about dividing things into two, negative or positive, yes or no. Binary oppositions help to analyze further about narrative structure. It also helps to understand the genre better. In the movie Shrek, I would like to analyze binary oppositions from the scene where Princess Fionas fight against Robin Hood and the Mary Man. This scene starts from when Princess Fiona grabbed by Robin Hood and carried to a tree up until Shrek and the donkey stunned when they just seen Princess Fiona beaten all the Mary Man including Robin Hood. The reason I chose this scene because this scene shows strong form of binary opposition. From this scene, I picked up eight binary oppositions in the following table of oppositions.
Comments:
When Robin Hood grabbed Princess Fiona and take her away from Shrek has made him the evil and Princess Fiona fighting back has made her the good
Women
Men and women are obvious here, Robin Hood and the Mary Men are the men and Princess Fiona is the women
Human
Monster
The human – monster oppositions here is clearly shown when Robin Hood yelled to Shrek, “Hey you, Monster! ”
Beautiful
The beautiful – ugly opposition here is between Princess Fiona and Shrek.
Bottom
When Robin Hood and Princess Fiona is on a tree, shows the top – bottom opposition clearly. Here, it is also shows that being in a higher position than Shrek, made Robin Hood feel more dominant.
English accent
France accent
The opposition of English – France accent here reflects on Shrek and Robin Hood.
Loose
The win – loose opposition reflects on who is the winner and the loser of the fight between Princess Fiona and Robin Hood and the Mary Men.
Masculinity
Femininity
Masculinity – Femininity opposition reflects also on the men and the women in the scene.
Future
The matrix scene. Read further in the essay
The part where Princess Fiona jumped and kicked two of the Mary Men at once has combined the masculinity – femininity oppositions. Kicking and fighting showing signs of masculinity. But while she was on the air and the camera freezes after turning 360 degrees, she also shown signs of femininity by the way she fixed her hair. This part of the scene where the action freezes and the camera turning around the character has a similarity with the movie the Matrix. In the Matrix, to do this scene they need to have hundreds of camera around the character. Since Shrek is a 3D animation movie, using 3D software is easier to just freeze the action and turn the move the camera in circle. By having this scene, call it the Matrix scene, the audiences have the feel of combining another example of binary oppositions between the future and the past. Everyone that has seen the Matrix must know that it is a movie about the future while Shrek is a fairytale that sets in the old kingdom days.
All the signs in the movie have lead to the language of film. According to Monaco, J (1977,