The way to tell a story

"Most film narrators are not so visible, and the majority of film narratives employ some version of a third-person narration." (pg 257 Chapter 7)

Most films are told from a outside prospective, though the focus usually on one particular character the story is told from a outside point of view. A view that either tells us everything, the character's thoughts and feelings as well as the characters around the protagonist the all knowing point of view or we have the narrator that only knows about the protagonist. A perfect example would be the Harry Potter series. The main focus of these films is clearly Harry Potter himself but it is not told in his words or through his eyes. It is told from a outside view or a restricted narration, we see what happends to Harry and only Harry, we see the events that occur to him, its a rare or impossible moment in these films to see a scene without Harry in it cause obviously its all about him. Another example would be the epic tale Titanic (1997) there are plenty of characters but the main focus is restricted to that of two lovers Jack and Rose. Th e focus is restricted we don't really get into the minds of the other characters as greatly as we do with Jack and Rose.

The all knowing narrator is another type of narration also know as omniscient narration. This type of narration knows every character and every plot and tells the audience what is going on in order of which it happens.

A example of this is movies like Armageddon (1998) The Breakfast Club (1985) St. Elmo's Fire (1985) all these films are focused on a group of different characters and how each of them effects the other. Restricted narration is most common because it is much easier to relate to just one character rather than a whole group of different ones.

The Social Network (2010) is another example of restricted narration however the narrator is one of the characters, most of the film is done in a first person narrative. We see the events through Mark's perspective. We see how he is brilliant but his brilliance cause him to be easily aggravated and difficult to keep a calm conversation with if you are not on his level of intelligence. Also his intelligence is what gets him into trouble and we see through his eyes that he doesn't understand why he is so hated. He doesn't feel he did anything wrong and that everyone else is below him. In the end he just wanted the attention of one girl who we never find out if she accepts his friend request. All of this we wouldn't be able to clearly understand without the narration of both Mark himself or the third person restricted narration.

Mark also develops like any other character in a film. In films as time went on with the help of technology developments and the ability to use dialouge between characters has helped create depth of characters making them more complex and real. And Mark from The Social Network is a complex character who grows through the film. "film characters usually change over the course of a realist filmand thus require us to evaluate and revise our understanding of them as they develop." (pg. 244 Chapter 7) Mark starts out as a know it all fast talking brilliant young man who saw everyone as inferior due to his intelligence. Mark we discover only has one friend though his facebook says otherwise, he only had Eduardo. He enIt takes the entire film for him to realize, to late, that it doesn't matter how many friends you have, it only matters if they care about you the way you care about them.
Another example of character development is the classic It's A Wonderful Life (1946) we fall for the character George Bailey not because hes a charming young every day type of guy but the fact that he discovers that the life he lives is the best life he could possibly have. He learns thats life is better if he was alive. He had a wonderful life even if it had its low points, he found that if he didn't exist a lot of the people he cared about were effected by his absence.

A perfect example of first person narrative is Stand By Me (1986) this film is told entirely through Gordie Lachance's point of view. He talks about his childhood and his three childhood friends when they discovered the body of a dead kid. He reveals everything that he felt and saw when he was young nothing that we could ever discover though any other narration. Though the voice of Gordie is a much older Gordie who we see only twice in the film he is the most important part of the film because he is the one that explains everything that is occuring.