Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film

by Kozloff, Sarah

• ISBN13: 9780520067936
• ISBN10: 0520067932
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1989-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr on Demand

Summary

"Let me tell you a story," each film seems to offer silently as its opening frames hit the screen. But sometimes the film finds a voice--an off-screen narrator--for all or part of the story. FromWuthering HeightsandDouble IndemnitytoAnnie HallandPlatoon, voice-over narration has been an integral part of American movies. Through examples from films such asHow Green Was My Valley,All About Eve,The Naked City, andBarry Lyndon, Sarah Kozloff examines and analyzes voice-over narration. She refutes the assumptions that words should only play a minimal role in film, that "showing" is superior to "telling," or that the technique is inescapably authoritarian (the "voice of god"). She questions the common conception that voice-over is a literary technique by tracing its origins in the silent era and by highlighting the influence of radio, documentaries, and television. She explores how first-person or third-person narration really affects a film, in terms of genre conventions, viewer identification, time and nostalgia, subjectivity, and reliability. In conclusion she argues that voice-over increases film's potential for intimacy and sophisticated irony.

Author Biography

Sarah Kozioff teaches film at Vassar College, and has published articles in Film Quarterly, Cinema Journal, and Film/Literature Quarterly

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
The Prejudices against Voice-Over Narration	p. 8
Images versus Words	p. 8
"Showing" versus "Telling"	p. 12
"A Literary Device"	p. 17
"Redundancy"	p. 19
"The Last Resort of the Incompetent"	p. 21
Ancestors, Influences, and Development	p. 23
Lecturers and Intertitles in the Silent Era	p. 23
Radio	p. 26
Newsreels, Short Subjects, and Documentaries	p. 28
Fiction Films, 1930-1950	p. 31
Television and Postwar Documentaries	p. 35
Fiction Films, 1950 to the Present	p. 37
First-Person Narrators	p. 41
Genette's Taxonomy of Narrators	p. 42
Who Really Narrates?	p. 43
The Circumstances of Narration	p. 49
Story and Discourse and How Green Was My Valley	p. 53
Foregrounding the Act of Storytelling and All About Eve	p. 62
Third-Person Narrators	p. 72
Who Really Narrates?	p. 74
The Circumstances of Narration	p. 76
Omniscience	p. 79
Humanizing the "Voice of God" and The Naked City	p. 82
Gender	p. 99
Irony in Voice-Over Films	p. 102
The Interplay between Narration and Scenic Presentation	p. 102
Voice-Over's Contribution to Cinematic Irony	p. 109
Ironic Narrators	p. 111
Unreliable Narrators	p. 112
The Question of Reliability in Barry Lyndon	p. 117
Conclusion	p. 127
Notes	p. 131
Filmography	p. 141
Bibliography of Works Cited	p. 155
Index	p. 161
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