For my first year within media, I decided to create a film opening with a romance genre. I decided to do this because I thought it was different and interesting for me personally. Within my film opening I used an widowed old woman who was the main character. She was seen to be reminiscing about old times with her husband through photographs and letters.
In terms of narrative, Roland Barthes can be related to my film opening. This is due to the fact that some of his five codes can be linked to it. For starters, the enigma code can be relatable to my opening. The enigma code refers to the way the story avoids telling or revealing all the facts/truth. This therefore creates a mystery. I thought that this related to my opening because within it, we see a flashback that shows the woman with her husband when they were younger. This flashback shows the couple hugging, but does not show what happened to the husband. This therefore gives the opportunity for the clues to be dropped further on during the film and therefore eventually allows for the audience to understand what happened to the husband - why/when he died. The second code that can be relatable to my opening is the referential code. Although it is not 100% obvious within the opening, there is a use of historical knowledge during the flashback. The two main characters are seen to both be white. This was an important factor within my opening because of the timescale that the flashback was set in. The fact that the old woman was in her 70s/80s when it was filmed indicates that the flashback would've been in the 1960s/1970s. During that time, it was not seen as 'normal' to have a couple of two different ethnicities. It was therefore important that I had the couple as the same ethnicity to ensure that I was following historical factors. Another code that can be related to my film opening is the symbolic code. This code can be used for the expression of the old woman. There can be opposite expressions seen within my opening. During the flashback, we can see the woman is smiling and looks particularly happy to be with him. But in the rest of the opening, we can see that she looks low and sorrowful. This contrast allows for the audience to be able to see that he meant a lot to her and indicates that their relationship was something special and important to the main character. This therefore informs the audience in a way that creates a greater/deeper meaning and allows for the audience to establish the couple's relationship within the first couple of minutes of the film opening. A different code that can be related from Barthes theory is the semantic code. Additional meanings can be found within my film opening. The first one being the use of the photograph in the frame. To the naked eye, it is just a photograph in a frame. The connotation of this however, can be that he is her husband and is on her wall because she loves him. This is also similar to the photograph of the couple that she pulls out during the reading of the letter. At first look, all we see is a photograph. But, the connotation indicates that the photograph has meaning and shows that the couple is the old woman and her husband when they were younger and therefore has a connection with the old woman who is holding it.
Another theorist that can be linked to my film opening is Claude Levi Strauss. He links to my film opening because of the 'binary opposites'. He said that narratives are based about 'binary opposites'. A huge part of my film opening was the ages seen within it. The main opposite being the use of an old woman as the main character. I also used a young couple to do the flashback and therefore indicates a binary opposite of young vs old. This was essential when making the flashback - ensuring that the woman was younger so the audience were able to understand that it was her. Another binary opposite that can be seen within this film opening was happy vs sad. During the flashback we can see that the woman is happy - because she is with him. Whereas when she is alone, we see her being sad and not looking like her happy self. This indicates an opposite in emotions that can be seen/felt within the film opening.
Overall, I think that the narrative theorists Barthes and Levi Strauss are the two theorists that link most to my film opening because of the codes and opposites that can be seen within it. I think that these two theorists were fairly easy to relate to my film opening because of it's context.
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