(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
2. Method of the Study
Similarities of genre films in terms of themes, characters, decor, costume, plot, music,
narration structure and cinematographic narration techniques enable the establishment of
certain conventions between viewers and films. Neale regards the components which make up
a genre as the institutionalization of a genre and states that the institutionalization of a type is
realized in three ways. They are narration, imaging and iconography and technical dimension
of cinematic narration (Guchan, 1999: 110). In this study, the influences of the film “Dark
Water” - adapted from Fareast cinema in Hollywood and shown in Turkey- on the film “Araf”
-directed by Biray Dalkiran and made in 2006- are studied in terms of narration structures and
imaging.
2.1. Cinematic Narration, Imaging and Iconography
Narration can be simply defined as getting across events, emotions and ideas. The need
for understanding and narration is the mother of sciences, religions, literature. Each narration
genre shows variance in terms of arrangement and articulation. Narrations are divided into
two as fiction and non-fictional. Filmic narration is in fiction genre and in Metz’s words it as
a means of story narration gives the experience “watching a story”. The most significant
feature that distinguishes story from other narration genres is that they have an arranged plot.
Filmic narration just as all other narrations is composed of two parts: story and discourse.
Story covers events, chain of actions or content and characters and environmental features. As
for discourse, it is the means through which content is transmitted, expressed (Guchan, 1999:
112).
In horror films, just as in other genre of films, traditional dramatic structure is valid. That
is, after environment and characters are introduced, the first small conflicts are born and
develop. In this process, violent attacks and thrills indicating danger emerge (Abisel,
2001:159).
When genres are creating narration structures, they use some codes and definite
characters. In time these codes and characters and turn into icons and every genre establishes
its own iconography (Guchan, 1999: 114).
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