Watching Film Through Literary Theories: A Structuralist Reading of Rocky, Kickboxer, Kill Bill I & II, and Southpaw Movies
Subject Areas : Applied LinguisticsKeywords: Keywords: Structuralism, Tzvetan Todorov’s Theory, Semiotics, Action Films, Narratology.,
Abstract :
Abstract Structuralist film theory focuses on how the meaning is conveyed through films, while the significance originates from the elements lying in the "system" or "structure" of a movie. Tzvetan Todorov introduced his narrative theory consisting of five main steps: equilibrium (happy beginning), a disruption (a problem comes up), realization (chaos), restored order (repair the damage), and equilibrium again (normality). As Scholes noted the study of literature must involve the study of the communicative process in general—or semiotics—and in particular the development of the codes that govern the production and interpretation of the major kinds of literature, and the subcodes that inform the various genres that have developed in the course of literary history. This paper aims to investigate the narrative module, and the structure of action films finding some of the verbal and non-verbal codes according to Tzvetan Todorov’s Theory in Rocky, Kickboxer, Kill Bill I & II, and Southpaw movies.
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