Friday, March 21, 2008
The Narrative Paradigm - Good Will Hunting
This clip is from the movie “Good Will Hunting.”
Here Matt Damon’s character, Will Hunting, is at an interview for a job at the National Security Agency (NSA). Will Hunting is literally a genius, but at this point in the movie lacks any motivation to do anything substantial with his gift. When the interviewer asks Will why he should work for the NSA, Will uses Narrative Rationality in the Narrative Paradigm to tell the interviewer why he in fact should not work for the NSA.
Narrative Rationality has two parts, coherence and fidelity. Three types of coherence are structural, material and characterological. Structural coherence deals with the way the story’s plot unfolds. While it is apparent that Will’s story is based purely in hypotheticals, his thought process of how his work at the NSA could theoretically affect a neighbor or friend from his hometown is believable. He believed that taking part in codebreaking overseas would inevitably affect lives, oil, and fish.
Material coherence has to do with the facts in one story as compared to the facts in another story concerning similar people and events. Codebreaking is known to be used in breaking foregin transmissions. The military would use the information garnered from this code to attack the enemy there and it certainly would result in death. This new ally of a country would potentially be a site for outsourcing and could indeed cost a returning soldier a job. Human beings are sleazy creatures and would in fact manipulate war, death, and the oil market to line their own pockets.
Characterological coherence refers to the believability of the characters in a story. Will uses stereotypes to prove his point. Politicians who would rather send Marines to their death instead of their own children, scheming oil companies that would manipulate war to make a profit, and a down-on-his-luck veteran to accentuate that repercussions of his potential job at the NSA. Though, yes, the story is not based on actual events the point gets through as to why taking the job would be detrimental.
The other part of narrative rationality is fidelity, the credibility of a story. As stated above, the movie watcher is aware of the fact that Will's story is not based in actual events. While the events in the story are vague, they are plausible even if they are a little far-fetched.
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4 comments:
Good analysis, though a little more on fidelity would be better. For example, how the logic of good reasons is applied to his story?
I really like this clip! The funny thing is that the story in and of itself really does not make sense and is completely ridiculous, but because Will is so smart there is a credibility to his thought process, we actually believe the story. I have often found this to be true with friends of mine. Sometimes my friend will tell stories that seem a little bit "out there," and if someone else told them, I might not buy into it, but because I trust and respect her, I often find her story resonates with me.
Good Will Hunting is one of my all-time favorite movies. Although the story Will told to both his psychiatrist and the man interviewing him didn't entirely make sense, it clearly demonstrates the need for Will to tell a story in order to convey his point and view on the NSA. If Will simply stated he didn't want innocent people dieing, it probably wouldn't have the impact of a narrative on the same topic. Overall, I feel this clip was effective in demonstrating the necessity of a story in certain situations.
I agree with Allie's thoughts on the clip. While the story is ridiculous, and would generally be viewed with a certain amount of incredulity, Will manages to convince the audience of his viewpoint. I think this demonstrates that fidelity has a certain amount of elasticity to it-while Will's story does not appear to be credible, he manages to make it resonate with the audience.
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