Narrative theory

Taken:

The movie trailer is full of Barthes's enigma and action codes. These are designed to draw the attention of the audience which will encourage them to watch the entire movie to answers all their questions. The main enigma codes which the audience would like to resolve would probably be whether Liam Neeson will find his daughter or not. However, there are many other enigma codes such as what happened to his daughter while she was drugged. In the genre of biography, action codes are not that important. However, it portrays this movie could be critical. The films narrative is clearly introduced in the trailer which leads Todorov's theory of equilibrium. The state of balance is Liam Neeson was living happily with his family. The disequilibrium is introduced when Liam Neeson’s daughter travels to Paris and gets kidnapped. The New equilibrium is when he found his daughter in Paris and how he executes the guys who kidnapped Liam’s daughter. The trailer for Taken uses many narrative techniques applying Propp’s character theory such as a protagonist (hero) Liam Neeson. Although Maggie Grace is also a major character, she doesn’t really fit in the role of a heroine. In many ways Famke Janssen is exposed as a powerful character as he helps Liam find his daughter.