Narrative Theory 6: Pam Cook

Pam Cook (1985) like Todorov she similarly believes stories follow a path to solve a mystery. Through this she says all classical Hollywood narrative structures should have linearity of cause and effect within an overall enigma resolution. Stories must have a high degree of narrative closure, audiences like to feel the story has an end so the chronological line of cause and effect keeps going. The fictional world must have some verisimilitude especially governed by spatial and coherence.

Sacrilege, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Looking at the narrative structure in terms of Pam Cooks theory I believe it does apply to a certain extent. Cook talks about the story having narrative closure. By the end of the video we have seen what events led up to what we are shown at the beginning (the girl being burnt alive). Therefore there is some kind of narrative closure that the audience can feel, however from reading comments and my own experience watching the video only once doesn't always satisfy this. The video is open to interpretation of what the sequence of her and the other people mean (imagination or real events) therefore in this way some viewers may not feel a complete degree of narrative closure until they come to their own decision on what happened in the video. However with this in mind the narrative does start with the end which goes against Pam cooks idea of linearity therefore it doesn't follow the traditional structure Pam talks about.
Cook also talks about fictional worlds having 'verisimilitude'. Through the mise-en-scene I think it is very believable that the town and its people could be real. The locations all represent ideas of what people would imagine a stereotypical small american town to have.

The town has a sheriff which is stereotypical of small town.
We do not see any other police force therefore believe him to be the only one.
He seems to be well integrated into society as he attends the wedding we are
shown at the end.  We imagine he knows everyone in the town and their business. 

The place which she escapes from may possibly be a motel although
it could also be a block of small apartment. Motels in America which are
 found near or in small towns are often one floor and long in length.
 But the panels of wood on the exterior are similar to what is used
 on the exterior of american buildings. Again this reinforces the realism
of the location.

This scene also adds to the verisimilitude as most small towns
will have a mechanics. This also reinforces the realism of the
characters as we know that he has a job working in the town,
showing the younger boy here with his car will also support
the idea that within the town everyone knows each other and it
is a community.