Narrative Structure and The Crazies (Eisner, 2010)

1) Do 'The Crazies' follow the CHN? Why not?

  'The Crazies' does not follow the 'Classic Hollywood Narrative) of an initial equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium. The beginning of the film starts with a flash back of the town being blown up, therefore indicating that something is wrong that will lead to that, ruining the initial equilibrium. Although there is no equilibrium at the start, there is somewhat a form of disequilibrium because things go from bad to worse, as the military tried to exterminate everyone in Ogden Marsh and therefore containing the biological weapon that has spread there. At the end, there is a false equilibrium, as we see them walking away from the burning town, therefore thinking they have escaped, but right at the end there is a view of the land, highlighting the couple, from the sky, with the voice over that says 'initiate containment protocol', alarming us to the fact that their fight to survive is not yet over.

2) How many of Propp's character types can be identified in the film?

I identified 4 of the 8 of Propp's character types in the film 'The Crazies', although I found that some characters had some character blurring and could be categorised under more of the one types. 'The Villain' is one of the types that I noticed, I identified the people suffering from Trixie (the biohazard disease) as 'villain' type characters, but also the military/government, as they are the ones trying to exterminate the people in the contaminated area (even if they aren't infected themselves).
Another character type I noticed was the heroes, the main character for this category was David, although Judy also came into this category, but David fits better into this category as he has the stronger role of looking after the others.
'The helper' in the film was Russell, he aided the two heroes in escaping from Ogden Marsh, even before the outbreak, he was David (The Sheriff's) deputy, aiding him even then. Eventually by giving his own life (after acknowledging that he was infected) in order for Judy and David to sneak past a military blockade. This sacrifice of life could also make Russell the donor, as he gave his own life to them as so they could live.
There was some character blurring, especially in 'Judy's' character. She was a hero, as she was a victor at the end, similarly to David, but at times she was also the helper, aiding David in surviving (the tables also occasionally turned and he became the helper to her). Judy also was the 'Princess' character type, as the whole film is based around David trying to help himself and Judy surviving, because she is pregnant, therefore her, and his unborn child are the reward for all his hard work.

3) Give 5 examples of binary oppositions in the film and explain them briefly.

The first binary opposition i noticed in this film was 'Known and Unknown'. At the beginning of the film seems relatively normal (from the view of the characters), and it is unknown why some people are acting so strangely, but as the film goes on, they discover more and more about this (The pilot and the crashed plane) and eventually find out the whole truth when they crash a government car and the official inside tells them about the biological weapon that had accidentally been released there. For example at the beginning of the film, David presumes Rory was drunk when he was acting strangely, but it later becomes known that he had contracted Trixie.

The government and the people was the next set of oppositions that I noticed. The military were called in to execute any people in the town of Ogden Marsh, and they start culling them to prevent the disease from spreading. Nobody is allowed to escape the town and save their lives, and eventually the government blow up the town (and at the end we realise they're planning the same with the surrounding towns, just incase anyone had escaped).

Normal v's strange is another binary opposition that could be applied here, with the survivors and uninfected people (mainly David and Judy) being the normal, and the infected being the strange (which was why the biological weapon had originally been engineered - to make those infected act strange and 'crazy', hence the title). It is strange for people to trap their family in a cupboard, and then set their house alight (as seen in the film by someone who was infected).

Another set of oppositions that could be applied to 'The Crazies' is the idea of good v's evil. Characters such as David, Judy and Becca could be seen as good here, and the government as evil, as they were the ones that engineered the biological weapon in the first place, and saw total innihilation as the only solution. Those infected could be seen as also being evil, or more the disease could. The people that were infected would not normally have done all of these horrendous things, and the illness changed what they thought was acceptable, making Trixie the element that was making them evil. The infection caused the crazies to attack the group in the carwash, smashing the back window and putting a rope round Becca's neck, meaning when David pulled away, she was flung out of the back of the car and effectively lynched.


Lastly, Civilised and Uncivilised. At a first glance you would think this is split into the uninfected being the civilised, and the infected being the uncivilised. As much as this is true, I think that the government and military could also be seen as uncivilised, as they chose to nuke the town rather than to contain or quarantine
it, which would have been a lot more socially acceptable than the option they chose.

4) Identify the three 'durations' and give an estimate of the time each duration covers.

The three durations are;
Screen duration, (the time the film takes to show)
Plot duration, (the length of time the plot covers)
and story duration, (the length of time the story covers including all inferred events).
The screen duration of the film is around 92 minutes of actual film, but including the credits, it is 101 minutes. The plot duration is around 3 or 4 days. I estimated this as in the scene where they crash the government car, Judy comments on the fact it has been 3 days, and they hadn't been effected by the virus, and therefore they hadn't got it. They were then travelling at least for another day, making it 4 days in total. The story duration is harder to estimate than the other two, as we are given very little information about the creation of the virus. It could've taken anywhere from 6 months to 10 years to develop, so I am going to estimate around 5-10 years for the story duration.

5) Give two examples of events that cause later events in the film but which occur before the film' starts'.

The most significant event that happens before the story starts but effects the events later in the film is the creation and release of the Trixie virus. In the beginning, everyone (characters and audience) don't know why people are acting strange, and it is later revealed that it is caused by a plane crashing into the lake and contaminating the water source with the virus, which people then drunk and became infected and therefore crazy. The main way the characters find out about Trixie being the cause of all the commotion is via the government official that they crashed the car of.

Judy getting pregnant also has a big impact on the plot of the film. Without Judy being pregnant, neither of them would've escaped Ogden Marsh. Judy and David were separated
due to her having a high temperature (which she blamed on pregnancy) and she was taken away for testing. David was put in quarantine but decided it was more important to be with Judy and his unborn child, and therefore avoiding being executed along with the others in quarantine.

6) List two events from the film that happen in a different time and space to the one that we are shown.

Throughout the film we see several different unnamed characters that have been infected from the water source. Since this happened within the time frame of the film, they must've been infected without us seeing but is still part of the plot line of the film. The most prominent example of this is Rory's parents, Peggy and Curt, who we see normal in the beginning, but then infected later within the film. They are the crazy couple hiding in the babies bedroom who try to kill Judy and David in an act of revenge as David was the one who killed Rory.

Russell is a key character when it comes to this, as there are several elements of his story that we don't see on screen. Firstly, we see him and David normally in the beginning of the film, when they find the aeroplane crashed, and later in the film we find him and David united again in quarantine. Russell explains that he tried to leave Ogden Marsh, but his tires got spiked. We did not see this part of the story but it is made obvious in the time after the event. Later on in the film, Russell obviously escapes from quarantine somehow, as he appears later in the film. We find out as he is explaining how he escaped, that Judy in fact saw how russell escaped but didn't know it was him. She saw a red truck crashing into the barriers at quarantine, and all the people inside escaping, and russell was one of those people.