The Butterfly Effect Narrative Essay free essay sample

The Butterfly Effect Narrative form is simply â€Å"a type of filmic organization in which the parts relate to one another through a series of casually related events taking place in time and space. † Narration usually occurs in a cause-effect relationship. There are many factors of narration but range and depth are the most important. The range refers to how much we know in the plot. Range connects characters and the audience through shared knowledge. One example of range in a story is ‘restricted knowledge’ where we can only discover things with the characters, meaning that we don’t know more than the characters know. On the other hand there is something called ‘unrestricted knowledge’ where we know just about everything that is going on, especially things that the characters don’t know. But we should all know that narration is never completely unrestricted, there is always an aspect of the film that will be a suspense to the viewer. â€Å"A films narration not only manipulates the range of knowledge but also manipulates the depth of our knowledge. Here we are referring to how deeply the plot plunges into a characters psychological state. Just as there is a spectrum between restricted and unrestricted narration, there is a continuum between objectivity and subjectivity. †1 Objective refers to characters facial expressions, which helps us understand a characters emotional state. Subjective narration shows us what’s going in a characters head. This could be shown through a memory flashback or a dream sequence. The Butterfly Effect, a movie written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, starts off with an interesting quote. The quote by Chaos Theory states â€Å"It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world† which simply means when a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it can create potential for a monsoon in some other part of the world. â€Å"The filmmakers use this provocative idea as a metaphor for the experiences of Evan Treborn as he hurtles back and forth through time. † In A Butterfly Effect, Ashton Kutcher plays a college tudent, Evan Treborn, who has suffered from a usual and violent brain disorder that causes him to have periodic blackouts since he was younger. As the film progresses we learn that when Evan blacks out he cuts out different disturbing events from when he was a child. These events not only changed his life dramatically but also his friends Kayleigh, Lenny, and Tommy’s lives as well. Throughout the years of Evans life he wrote in his journal every day, and kept every journal that he has written. One day in college Evan realizes that he can now read over his journals and suddenly be transported back to that moment. Evan realizes that he can now reclaim his memory and rewrite the past for the benefit of his friends—especially childhood sweetheart Kayleigh. But whenever he steps back in the past to right a wrong, Evan creates havoc in the present. † The narration of The Butterfly Effect is restricted. We only know things that Evan knows, and we, the audience, gets to learn along with Evan how to fix his problems that he caused by just changing a single thing in his life. In a way, through out the movie we are in Evan’s head because as he blacks out, we blackout as well. Evan’s blackouts make our own minds and imagination try to figure out what happened in between the blackouts. We only figure out what happens during Evan’s blackouts as he remembers, so we are in suspense through out the whole film. Each time Evan goes back to change something, we then discover how it has changed not only his life, but his family and friends lives as well. During one of Evan’s flask backs he goes to the time where Kayleigh’s dad is filming him and Kayleigh as kids. Evan decides to change one thing, by stepping up to Kayleigh’s dad, which follows by his whole life changing. A quick flash of Evan’s new life then comes after. Then the film hits a new scene of Evan and Kayleigh in bed as college students. Evan wakes up confused and out of place which is an example of objective depth. By Evan’s confused and nervous facial expressions we can tell what is going on in his head, we can tell that he is confused. Evan asks Kayleigh â€Å"Don’t freak out when I ask you this but, do you remember when your dad got that video camera? † Kayleigh responds with, â€Å"Yeah um, Why would that freak me out? By Evan stepping up to Kayleigh’s dad, the video camera then becomes just a prop in the film, when before it was a main motif of the movie. â€Å"Flashbacks offer a fascinating instance of the overarching power of objective narration. They are usually motivated as mental subjectivity, since the events we see are triggered by a character’s recalling the past. Yet, once we are inside the flashback, events will typically be presented from a wholly objective standpoint. They will usually be presented in an unrestricted fashion, too, and may even include action that the remembering character could have no way of knowing. In other words, Once you are in the flashback in the film, the narrative now becomes unrestricted, we know everything that is going on. The butterfly Effect is a perfect example of this because almost the whole movie is filmed as flashbacks. During the times of Evan going in to the past, in his new and improved life we know some things that he does not know. For example, when he comes back in time as a frat boy, we all know of his past roommate and how they aren’t going to be friends anymore because he changed his whole life around, but that is something that Evan does not know. We also know that since Evan is a new person, his teacher will not recognize him as the old student he used to be. We already know that everything is going to be different as Evan is just learning. This film’s narrative reminded me much of momentum, the way that it shoots back and forth in time. â€Å"As a tale, the narrative produces a convincing balancing act between science, human emotions, ingenuity and shock. Very much in the same category as Memento, youll want to see it again just to clarify everything that happens. Most important though is the ending, unlike some other intelligent movies there is no cop-out, the story is faithful to the very end and will leave you reeling. † The Butterfly Effect will keep you on the edge of your seat, not just because it is a thriller but also because of the crazy narrative that the directors choose to shoot the film. With its restricted and subjective but also unrestricted and objective at times narrative, The Butterfly Effect will keep you interested and trying to solve the mystery of what will happen in the end before Evan does.