In this weeks reading Database as Symbolic Form by Lev Manovic, he talks about databases being symbolic form of the computer age. He defines a database as a structured collection of data. This term is most commonly used and associated with computer science, and you normally think that a database is a computer term, however he makes comparisons of things in the material world to a database, such as a museum, as it stores collection of artwork and several other items, I found this interesting, as I wouldn’t have thought of it in this way. He later takes his comparisons further by comparing narrative with a database, with he make his point by bringing up the fact that narratives can be a collection of images, sound clips, video clips.

This was an intriguing notion, however he never explored it further in this reading. So in order to wrap my head around this idea and to expand slightly and give it a bit more meat, lets say, I began thinking of film narratives as databases, and not just in the terms of films containing sounds and footage and all that jazz. To my understanding if a database is a collection, and with the comparisons to a museum, the data within the database can only be seen once it’s accessed somehow. That idea made me see more clearly on how a film or other forms of narrative could be considered as database. Apart from the technical or physical aspects of narratives, for example a written piece can be a book that has pages, a cover and texts, or film that contains the footage, sound; music and dialogue, narratives at its core are stories. The breakdown of what stories can be will help see how narrative can be seen as database.

A story is a sequence of events told in a particular order from beginning to end, but what can told, is a different matter all together. The type of stories I like, to read or watch are the ones that are firstly fictional, then within that my kind of well written story is one that has strong plot, strong characters, a journey, a good mythology or world built around it. Now when a story is well written and then put on film, it resonates with an audience and connects them in ways that it feels real. I well made film, doesn’t feel like actors reading off a script, or the special effects people rigged and explosive, it all feels like reality, and its in this way we can see narrative as database.

For example take the film Inception. It had strong characters, the lead being Dominic Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio, it had a mythology, which was in that reality people can access your mind through dreams, and it had a journey that the character of Cobb had to take. Every aspect of this film to me feels real. I don’t feel like I am watching a piece that was put together, I felt like Cobb is a real person, and I’m talking about the actor, the world of the dreams where so real it even felt like a possibility. Now all these factors are something that can only be seen in the film Inception, now do not misunderstand me, I am not saying no other film can have strong characters, a mythology and a world to explore, I’m simply saying these characters and this world can only be found in this film, and can be seen no where else. So in a sense narrative, is a data base for this film, because even though you can see over ten films with Leonardo DiCaprio in them, he isn’t playing the same character, he transforms every time, and if you wish to see him play a particular character you have to watch him in a particular film. In other words, if you want to see him play a man who can access peoples dreams you have to watch Inception.