Narrative Analysis

The music video I am analyzing is Valerie by The Zutons.

This music video supports Tim O’Sullivan’s approach as he argued that all music videos tell a narrative story. This music video tells a narrative story about a young man (the protagonist) in prison missing his girlfriend. The protagonist is doing chores during his time in prison such as, getting put in solitary confinements and escaping prison. Baring in mind this song is about his girlfriend or lover Valerie, the audience does not actually meet her.

This music video also supports the approach of Kate Domaille who argued that every story ever told can fit into one of eight narrative types. This music video fits into the narrative type: Romeo and Juliet. This is shown through the lyrics and the story the lyrics connote to the audience. There is a typical woman (who the audience are unaware of) and the typical man (the protagonist) who is singing a song to his female lover ‘Valerie’. They are obviously in love however he cannot see her as he is in prison.

This music video follows the work of Sven Carlsson, who argued that music videos in general fall into two rough groups: performance and conceptual clips. This music video falls into the category of performance as the majority of this clip consists of the band (The Zutons) performing whilst supporting the narrative of their music video. Performance can be of three types: song performance, dance performance and instrumental performance. My music video falls into the song performance category as it mostly features this band singing their song. However this music video does have a narrative to link in with the background music therefore it can also fall into the narrative category.

This music video follows the approach of Bordwell and Thompson’s fabula. The fabula is the story; all the events in the narrative that the audience see and infer. This fabula is the chronological series of events throughout the narrative of the music video. The protagonist starts off behind bars, then himself and his cell mates eventually escape from prison, go to the theatre and perform on the stage in front of no audience.

Pam Cook argued that the classic narrative system should require: the linearity of cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution, a high degree of narrative closure and a fictional world that contains verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and temporal coherence. This music video follows the idea of having a fictional world that contains verisimilitude; it is obvious to the audience where the protagonist and his friends are (in prison). However it does not follow the other aspects of her approach.