How Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Plays With Narrative | Tom Nicholas
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- čas přidán 11. 01. 2019
- Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is the first interactive movie (certainly the first live action interactive movie) in some time to have achieved both popular and critical success.
Inspired by the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure series of books which reached peak popularity in the 1980s, it features a branching narrative structure and numerous different endings.
There are loads of videos here on CZcams which purport to be able to explain every Bandersnatch ending. However, in this Bandersnatch analysis, I take a different approach.
Instead, in this video essay, I seek to explore how the interactive movie form which Bandersnatch makes use of might not only alter the way we interact with this episode of Black Mirror but also change the way in which we derive meaning from it.
I draw on ideas from Jacques Ranciere’s 2009 book The Emancipated Spectator in order to consider how the interactive form might be seen as an intervention in the “traditional” power structures of the film or television experience.
In particular, I consider how Bandersnatch’s rendering of the viewer as active in creating narrative choices (as opposed to our usual passivity when watching TV shows or films) might also encourage us to be active in viewing the film critically and to find alternative meanings within it.
#bandersnatch #blackmirror #Netflix
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Twitter: @Tom_Nicholas
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This episode of Politix is perhaps slightly less well-structured than I usually aim for, apologies about that! Would love to hear your thoughts about Bandersnatch and the interactive movie form!
As a big fan of the "Choose your own Adventure" I thought Bandersnatch did an excellent job of introducing this concept to the masses. Black mirror has never let me down with its concepts and stories. I hope for more interactive narratives. (I apologize for my watered down review of this excellent opportunity)...
The irony of speaking of power dynamics in filmic material in a video...
I think this kind of interactive viewing was forecast in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Montag’s wife is watching interactive television but her choices don’t mean much as the story went on regardless. How a story ends or should end goes back as far as Shakespeare. I don’t think any audience is really passive like cattle at feeding time. The actor Luther Adler remembered at the opening night of “Paradise Lost” after the final curtain and the applause finished people turned around to the people in the seats behind them and said hello.
Great video, thanks Tom! Read Ranciere’s book over the summer and you summed it up very well, it’s not an easy book at times so I appreciated how you positioned it within that idea of power dynamics and likened it to Barthes Death of an Author.
Thank you. Always lovely to get a supportive comment so soon after uploading!
Here, I was mainly drawing on the first chapter (although I found the whole book really fascinating, I’m a big fan of Ranciere’s work). I agree that he’s not always the most easy to read scholar; some passages are really engaging and then he often switches to being somewhat more dense very quickly!
I think, particularly, I found the notion of being an “emancipated” spectator really resonating with Barthes’ notion of a reader being integral to the meaning-making process. Then the power dynamic stuff seemed to mainly be what differentiates the one from the other. (Although I mostly drew in Barthes here simply as I felt more people would be likely to have heard of his work so, hopefully, it provides a slightly more accessible way in to understanding the theoretical framework of the video!)
Thanks for making this video Tom. This is such a great film and pushes at the barriers of the genre.
Thank you for such an interesting video. I am currently studying the influence of video games on cinema and vice-versa. This is on point since we have to write an arborescent narrative in class, I was having trouble understanding what it was, but your video will make things much clearer to us.
Thanks again!
I found all the endings to be equally underwhelming. I mean, each time if felt like the story was just getting started when all of a sudden it came to a screeching halt.
I felt the EXACT same way. I thought I'd missed something at first until I realized I had actually discovered every avaliable ending. It feels incomplete.
perfect video tom, i really enjoy this format. would you be willing to share with us your favorite youtubers or in general online sources like blogs that you enjoy? i’m looking for new content, and yours seems so well thought out and purposeful - i thought you might have some good tips as well :)
I love this series! I can't seem to find any other CZcamsrs with a simular style to this channel, does anyone have any reccomendations?
Thanks for saying so! There's plenty of other Video Essay-style channels out there. In terms of film analysis type stuff, the real champion of this kind of work is Lindsey Ellis who I can't imagine you've not come across before but, if you haven't, is definitely worth checking out!
The thing I found hard about Bandersnatch was that it wasn't possible to choose the things I wanted, the things I felt was right, without almost imediately being sent back to the start. Ending up with the feeling of being forced to kill people and things like that just to get to the end of the story. For me it just got to painfull and I had to stop, and I absolutely hade not finishing a story.
Like a neverending loop, forcing me down a darker path each time I started over
I think a big part of the story’s theme was the Inevitability of (dark) situations, being caused by triggers long ago- & someone’s lack of free will.
I believe it was meant to be dark, Black Mirror often isn’t a light viewing experience
@@idontknowwhatmyusernamesho5540 Oh absolutely, and that's what I didn't like about it. Having to make those choices myself, to keep the story going, is very different from watching a regular episode.
@@agnesadjo3370 ah, I get you. Fair
This. I chose something made sense to me and it seemed the writer didn't like it and decided to hand slap me and send me back to try be a good boy and follow HIS idea of how things should evolve. I tried once more and tried something else to have the same result, which instantly annoyed me and made me loose interest. The endings should be made to feel organic to each person, but the decision to send me back as if in a "try again" move (like checkpoints in a game) ruined it for me. It felt like I was being punished for my choices.
Argentine author, Julio Cortazar, publiahed in 1963 the book HOPSCOTCH , which, although not exactly interactive, gives the reader many option for reading it.
only 6k views, what the heck?
15.14 just like reading a book again at 25, 40 or 50 will result in different views as opposed to 1st reading it at 15
I was pretty disappointed with Bandersnatch, I think it was because I felt like it was mostly railroaded. Though that didn't seem to bother me that much in The Walking Dead, so maybe the fact that the story didn't grab me either also had something to do with it.
Ugh you're making me do work??? (Jk that's a Fire-Emblem Three Houses Reference 😉)
Tom. I enjoy your content, but I think you need a better microphone