"Show and Tell": The Difference Between Discourse and Story, and the "Hero" Who Does It All...

Everyone has a story to tell. Once, when I was 7, I nearly razed my quiet suburban home to the ground in a glorious yet ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prepare myself a bowl of cereal.

That, my friends, is my story (there are others, but due to privacy issues and statutes of limitation, this is the one I feel most comfortable posting on the internet).

The discourse of my story, however, is something entirely different.

According to Christian Metz, the "histoire" of a text is distinct from its discourse. The histoire, or story, is the actual narrative tale being spunk recounted by an "all-knowing, unseen intelligence" which relates the tale to the reader/viewer/consumer, so that they may understand the meaning being conveyed.

I was seven. There was a fire. I was trying to make cereal. I am sorry.

That is the meaning, the "story" being conveyed, and I'm sticking to it.

The discourse however, is the act of telling, the means by which a story's narrative sense is being conveyed. It is, as Metz's article points out, "the material practice of making meaning."

"When I was seven, I was trying to make myself a bowl of cereal. In truth, however, what I wanted was a bowl of oatmeal, which I thought was simply cereal that one placed in the microwave to warm up. It was a reasonable assumption, given that A) I had never made oatmeal before, and B) I was seven. Unfortunately, prior to my atdtempt at culinary mastery and nutritional self-reliance, no one had informed me of the exact mechanism by which a microwave oven operated; the reason for this being, I WAS SEVEN! Thus, there was no reason for me to think that my actions were in any way imprudent, and since the process of making oatmeal was, for all intents and purposes, a routine and automatic one, there was no reason why I should have to monitor the progress of my oatmeal-in-the-making. Had I known, however, that oatmeal was not, in fact, simply cereal one placed in the microwave, and I had I also known the exact process by which one correctly made oatmeal, I would never have left my cereal/oatmeal unattended for as long as I did.

And if I had known the proper mechanism by which a microwave oven operated, I would never have left the metal spoon in the bowl while I did so...

So you see, officer, there's a perfectly logical reason why the Fire Marshal in Wexford, Pennsylvania would have my name in his records, and this whole mix-up about 'outstanding warrants' and 'domestic terrorism' is all just a really big misunderstanding..."

Thus the "story" above (that I made cereal, and a fire ensued), is conveyed in a meaningful, entertaining way by means of an untrue police affidavit--or rather, an affidavit whose truthfulness I can neither confirm nor deny, on the advice of my attorney.

In the context of the Chinese film Hero, starring Jet Li, the dichotomy of "story" and "discourse" is even further examined, and analyzed to such an extent that the lines distinguishing between the two are blurred almost beyond recognition.

In Hero, the Nameless Hero (Jet Li) recounts to the King of Qin (Chen Daoming) how he brought about the downfall of the three assassins who posed the greatest threat to the King.

In the course of three tellings however, this single tale (this "story," if you will) undergoes multiple tellings (or "discourses..." I think you get where I'm going with this) in which each time the story is retold, a closer approximation of the truth is revealed, and the accounts which are given are described in different ways.

To begin with, Nameless' story about how he defeated Long Sky (Donnie Yen) and tricked the lovers Broken Sword (Tony Leung) and Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung) are illustrated by scenes dominated by red and yellow costuming and scenery (the "hot" colors reflecting the intensely emotional, ardently passionate themes of love and betrayal), and featuring liberal use of action and Chinese wire techniques allowing fantastic leaps and impossible feats of combat through the air (reflecting the ultimately whimsical, impossibly surreal nature of the story, which is proven to be a complete fabrication).

In the second "discourse" of the story, the King realizes the falsehood of Nameless' story, and exposes them in his own retelling of what truly happened, generating a wholly different form of discourse in the film, despite the ostensibly similar "story" of how Nameless arrived at the King's palace (which, in reality, is the "story" of the film itself). These new suppositions are instead illustrated by predominately blue and green colours (representing the "cooler" spectrum of reality, which the King of Qin embodies, with his cold logic and unaffected realization that he will most likely not survive his encounter with Nameless). This rendition, like Nameless' tale, again features extensive use of wire action, illustrating the King's incredulity at Nameless' ability and his impression at the intricacy of the plot against him.

In the third and final discourse, however, Nameless finally arrives at what the viewer assumes to be the "ultimate truth" of the story; that is to say, how Nameless truly came to be seated the requisite ten paces away from the King's throne he needed in order to kill him. In this telling, the discourse adopts white costuming costuming and imagery - lapsing into green for Sword's "cooler" recollections - and make minimal use of sensationalist wire techniques. These white images indicate the "pure" story is being conveyed, and cue the reader/viewer that what they are witnessing encompasses the entire truth (much like how a white light encompasses the entire spectrum of visible electromagnetic radiation), and the realistic (comprably, anyways) depiction of the action cues the reader to interpret them as being closer to the truth and within the realm of possibility; the fact that some wire techniques make it into the recollections is a symptom of the King's (and our own) impression of the sheer skill and power of the warriors being described, and the fact that the special effects team probably had to justify their budget to the producers...

(Hey, it's an action film with discursive, philosophical and film theoretical elements, but its an action film nonetheless. Like how The Matrix can technically be read as an allegory of Christian mythology, but is what it is at the end of the day: a bad-ass-kicking, kung-fu-ck-you-in-the-SFX-guru's dream. Analyze that if you dare!)