An Analysis Of The Godfather From A Perspective Of Narrative Paradigm

The Godfather, a1972American film, has been widely praised since its release, and is honored as a classic in the history of cinema. It is generally acknowledged by American critics as one of the greatest movies in the history. Though this movie was never on release in Chinese cinemas, on Douban Movie (the largest cinecism website in Chinese Mainland), more than two hundred thousand people have watched this movie and spoken highly of it, which makes it one of the most favored films on Douban’s high-score-movies list.Judging from the comments and reviews, the reasons why The Godfather is so approved of by the audience are varied, including the intriguing plots, pregnant and subtle lines, excellent performance of the actors and actresses, beautiful music, the vintage-style pictures with a lasting appeal, the arousing sentiments and emotions, etc.This thesis utilizes the theory of narrative paradigm to analyze the reasons for the favorable responses to The Godfather received from American and Chinese audience. This theory is proposed by rhetorician Walter Fisher. Fisher argues that all forms of communication of human beings are to be seen fundamentally as stories, and narrative is the basis of all human communication. As film is a form of human communication, the narrative paradigm can be utilized to analyze The Godfather. According to the narrative paradigm, people can determine if a story is a good story, that is, if the story can be accepted or bought by the audience and why it can be accepted or bought, by way of testing its narrative rationality. The Godfather has received high acclaim, which means that the story told in the film is well accepted by the audience. Hence, the reasons for its high acclaim can be explained by a test of its narrative rationality. Narrative rationality consists of narrative coherence and narrative fidelity, so this thesis tests the rationality of the film from the aspects of narrative coherence and narrative fidelity respectively. With consistent narration, sufficient details and reliable characters, The Godfather achieved narrative coherence. With the values and beliefs reflected in the film matching the experiences and ideas of American and Chinese audience, The Godfather achieved narrative fidelity. By analyzing narrative coherence and narrative fidelity of the film, this thesis reveals that The Godfather successfully achieved narrative rationality. Therefore, from a perspective of narrative paradigm, this film undoubtedly can be judged as a good story by the audience. As a result, it is confirmed that narrative rationality has a crucial impact on whether the audience accept a story or not. In addition, for The Godfather is appreciated by American and Chinese audience despite its cultural background of Sicilian tradition, this thesis can also offer some reference to intercultural communication:in order to be successful in intercultural communication, effort must be made to give the story coherence and fidelity, which means that the story must not only be coherent in narration, but also be able to touch the audience in values and beliefs.