Full film analysis - The Nanny (1965)

I am analyzing a film called ‘The Nanny’ (1965), this film is a psychological horror, I intend to create a psychological slasher trailer. I aim to use the same techniques used in this film to create suspense in my own trailer.

Todorov theorized that every movie had a basic narrative structure consisting of five points: The equilibrium, at the beginning of the film when everything is calm; A disruption to the equilibrium, something happens to disturb this but the characters within the film haven’t noticed yet; Recognition of the disruption, the characters have noticed that something has happened which usually causes chaos of some sort; an attempt to repair the damage, resolve disruption somehow; back to an equilibrium of sorts, because of the chaos that has happened the equilibrium cannot be the same as before, instead a new equilibrium occurs.

This film follows Todorov’s theory nicely, the beginning is calm and light hearted music is playing, the scenes in the beginning are well lit. The calm equilibrium is disturbed when the child, Joey, moves back into his home with his parents, Joey strongly dislikes their Nanny and keeps accusing her of trying to cause him harm. Later, the disruption is noticed by all the other characters when Mr. Fane goes out of town on business and Virginia is taken to hospital because she had been poisoned. The Nanny had framed Joey and called for his aunt Penny to come over to look after Joey. The attempt to repair the disturbance happens when Aunt Pen realizes that Joey has been telling the truth the whole time. The new equilibrium is installed once the nanny realizes what she had done and leaves with her belongings, the family believe Joey and they are reunited.

Propp  also had a theory, his was about the character types within movies and how each one has characters that fit into these roles:
-The Villain, this character struggles against the hero

-The donor, this character prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object

-The (magical) helper, this character helps the hero on their quest

-The princess, this character is the person who the hero marries, often searched for throughout the narrative

-Her Father, this person usually dies during or before the film or book

-The dispatcher, this character sends the hero off on their quest

-The hero, this character reacts to the donor, marries the princess and kills the villain

-The false hero, this character falsely assumes the role of the hero

In ‘The Nanny’, there is almost a character for each of the character types listed above. The only character to have more than one type was Sarah. ‘The Villain’ in this film is the nanny, as she kills Suzy, Aunt Pen and attempts to kill Joey too. ‘The Donor’ is Sarah, as she offers to let Joey use her father’s equipment to kill the nanny. ‘The helper’ is also Sarah, she is the only character who believes Joey and tries to help him throughout the film. ‘The Princess’ is Virginia; both the nanny and Joey desire her attention but only one can get it. ‘Her Father’ is Mr Fane, instead of dying during the movie, he leaves town. ‘The dispatcher’ in the film is Suzy, her death causes Joey to realize what the nanny is capable of. ‘The hero’ is Joey, as he spends all of his time in the movie trying to capture/reveal the nanny as the villain. ‘The false hero’ is Aunt Pen, she tries to reveal the nanny as the villain but is caught by her and killed.
Barthes theorised that all films also have a Binary opposition, where there is good and evil in every film. In this film, the evil is the Nanny, as she kills the young girl, Suzy, and attempts to kill the young boy, Joey. The hero is Joey as he tries to show the other characters that the Nanny is evil and succeeds in the end.

The target audience for this film is teenagers both male and female. At the time when this film was released, horror films were aimed towards younger teenagers. This is because of the basic story line and the use of suspense in the film.

The only message portrayed in the film is that adults don’t always know best. The only child in the film knew the true motives of the nanny but all the adults brushed it off as just a child’s imagination.