Narrative Theories (Opening) Jeepers Creepers

The four narrative theories for the opening

MOVIE: JEEPERS CREEPERS
YEAR: 2001 
DIRECTED BY: VICTOR SALVA
GENRE: HORROR



I am going to be applying the four theories of narrative in the movie Jeepers Creepers for the opening scene.


Here is the opening scene of the movie…

Propp (Introduction to the character(s)

Jeepers Creepers starts off with the two main characters Derry and Trish and the setting is of them in the car, the scene starts off with a extreme long shot followed by a long shot and then a close of the two characters.

The way the scene is started off show you see the relationship between the two characters and it shows you the typical relationship of a brother and sister, the sister who is the oldest is more of a stubborn and demanding character and seems very bossy and you can see this clearly due to the way she is being with him. Derry however who is her younger sibling is a very young, child-like bubbly character who is quite quirky and you see this very clearly in the first scenes as he is joking around with her and she's calling him names like 'brat' which shows he's the childish one and she's more of the stubborn one who's more serious.

The fact that the scene starts off with them two driving on a road that is very desolate and abandoned that fact that the scene looks like that shows me that something might happen to them on the road as that is the first scene and the first scenes are always very significant and kind of give you a hint on what is coming. 

Where is the story set? The story setting is on a road, which is very abandoned and desolate – looks very scary because it’s very abandoned. The events in the scene start off are after a few minutes into the scene a truck comes behind them very fast and it approaches there are trying to get into there way several times. What event starts the story? Driving, on long road shows the journey is long – something bad will happen along the way.

Todorov (Establishing narrative structure, captivating audience and interest)

The scene starts off with long shots showing us that the car that is approaching and this sets the scene as it shows us what the area is like where the characters are. The start off scene is a good scene because I think it gives you a good setting of the area so you warm to the characters more as you feel connected in terms of where they are.

Strauss (establishing the main themes) 

This starting off uses the use of iconography quite well as it tells us as an audience about the setting. Danger is a theme that crops ups a lot in the movie because there so a lot of it. Violence is also a key theme as its a motif and it reoccurs throughout the movie a lot.

Barthes (Establishing the sense of enigma)

The symbolic that are used in the start are good indicators of how the story will progress due to the fact that they show us animals like crows, this to me gives me the sense that death will happen in the story as crows represent death so you know it won't end quite well. The use of good and evil is shown through the use of colour because of the transport that they are in: for example the 2 main characters are in a light blue little petite car and that shows that they are calm characters. The transport which the villain appears in is  a large brown old rugged truck with blacked out windows - this enigma gives the audiences a sense of danger because of the fact that he is hidden in a huge truck and the fact that it looks very dangerous and compared to the little car it looks huge.

Enigma: The two characters start off playing a game of reading license plates and making out words and the fact that they do this is very significant because of the fact that the villain’s licensee plate they have read has a significance later on in the story. The fact that the truck is so big implies that its going to have such a big effect in the movie as well as on the characters.