Narrative Theory Introduction

Narrative is looking at the story, meaning, idea and structure of my chosen music video. When analysing my music video I will look at narrative theories and structures and examine whether these apply or not to my video. I want to look at the video in-depth to create a detailed analysis of the narrative of my music video.

Theme
As a starting point I'm going to look at the overall themes of the music video and song.
'Sacrilege' is the song name, meaning 'a violation or misuse of what is regarded as sacred' - (Oxford Dictionary) words associated with it are blasphemy, desecration and impious. All these words generally are used in relation to religion, therefore with only the title as information we may see religion as a possible theme. Or it could suggest a rule has been broken and not relate directly to religion. To fully analyse the video I'm going to start by looking at the lyrics without comparing them to the narrative, this will then allow me to go back and comment on how the lyrics and narrative of the music video link. This isn't looking at the song structure but just the general narrative and what the lyrics may suggest.

First Lyric Analysis 

Comparison to the music video analysis:

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From looking at these lyrical analysis I think the main idea behind the story is the hypocritical views of the towns folk themes within the song and video are religion and love and how they interweave to create a sustainable story.
Below is my analysis of the song structure and how it is set out for effect.

The formal structure of the music video is played in a non-linear format (one scene leading to the next commonly with overlaps) and plays in reverse chronological order. Therefore the story starts from the end revealing how events led up to the 'beginning' (present). The fast paced shots and song make for an exciting, surprising story which for many people didn't predict the end. I also think the video is nondescript in that it opens the story up to the audience for interpretation. Many suggest watching the video more than a few times to fully create a theory of the story. After reading many comments of peoples opinion of the story it has allowed me to see all angles of how what may seem a simple story however there are many different viewpoints towards the story.

I also looked at the video as inverse, which shows it in chronological order instead of reversed. I think this shows how it changes how the audience will view the video. The idea of that the sequence showing her sleeping with each of the characters is in their imagination I do not think comes across as much in the inverse version and it appears more like she did commit adultery with all of them. However this is subject to individual opinion. But it is interesting to see the video 'backwards' to how it should be.