Narrative Theory essay

The Spectacular Now is a movie about Sutter Keely who is focused on living in the “Now”. Sutter loves to party and has no plans for the future, he is an alcoholic but refuses to see so. Sutter meets a girl Aimee Finecky who is different, she dreams of a future while Sutter lives in a delusion of having a spectacular now.

Todorov theory applies to The Spectacular Now, the movie starts with everything being fine, Sutter is happy living with his beautiful girlfriend, he has an amazing job and is the popular guy. This changes when a problem occurs as Sutter’s girlfriend dumps him and Sutter starts to drink more. This disequilibrium is the start of the main story line is the film, without this problem happening Sutter would have not met Aimee. According to Todorov there is a new equilibrium, which happens in the movie as Sutter and Aimee start becoming close and everything becomes happy and the problem is solved. However this Todorov’s theory repeats itself as a disequilibrium happens when Aimee forces Sutter to go and visit his father which didn’t turn out well, the disequilibrium became worse when Sutter gets angry with Aimee and tells her to get out of the his car and she is hit by a bus. As Todorov said there is a new equilibrium which was Sutter going after Aimee as she moved city.

Levi-Strauss believed there are binary opposites in films, this is evident in the spectacular now, as Sutter lives in a “Spectacular now”, while Aimee plans for a future and wants to go to university. A clear binary opposite in the movie is between the two main characters, Aimee is innocent the ‘nice girl’ while Sutter is a bad-boy who is a budding alcoholic.  There are binary opposites of love vs hate, Aimee is in love with Sutter but he doesn’t think he is worthy of love. There is binary opposite between Aimee and Sutter’s ex-girlfriend (Cassidy), Aimee is the innocent girl who doesn’t wear any make-up, unpopular, reads fiction novels, and has never kissed a boy where Cassidy is the popular girl, wears a lot of make-up the “whore”.

In the spectacular now, there are some of Propp’s 7 broad character types. In the film Aimee and Sutter take on different roles of the character types. During the course of the film, Aimee is mainly the princess as she ends up being together with Sutter at the end of the film, but Aimee changes course in the film from the helper, to the dispatcher. She makes Sutter realize he has a problem and help him try and solve it to make him realize he is living in a deluded world of a specular now. Sutter goes from being the villain to being a hero and this role switches back and forth for Sutter. He is fighting his own demons therefore making him the Villain but also makes the hero when he realizes he is the reason he is not moving forward.

Barthes believed a film was either closed or open. The spectacular now is a closed film. There is only one obvious storyline, one obvious ending which is Sutter going after Aimee. The film has an obvious narrative and there is no room for it to unraveled different ways because the narrative is very clear from the beginning.

There are elements of Barthes action code in this movie such as Aimee calling Sutter while in a different shot Sutter is looking at the phone, the audience is left wondering if he will pick the call or not. Unlike action/thriller movies there are no action codes like a character pulling out a gun so the audience is left wondering if they will shot another character. There are a lot of Enigma codes in the spectacular now, the audience is left with questions which are later answered in the movie. The first Enigma code is when Sutter wakes to find he passed out on a stranger’s lawn, this leaves the audience with questions of how he got there, this is later revealed in the movie, and the audience’s questions are answered. Another unanswered question was if Sutter was going to get back with his ex-girlfriend, this question is dragged on till the end of the movie.

The spectacular now is in a linear narrative, the movie goes in story starting from the beginning till the end, however the first few scenes are of Sutter having flashbacks to how amazing his previous life was. The movie has elements of non-linear narrative, when Sutter gets drunk again he gets flashbacks of the people he’s let down and disappointed. Apart from the flashbacks Sutter has, most of the movie goes in an order, it has a beginning, middle and an end.