Voice-over Narration in Film - Essay Example

? Voice-over Narration in Film number 17 November Topic 5 Compare the role of voice-over narration in any two (or three) films screened in this course (Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver, A.I., Blood Simple, The Big Lebowski, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou). How do these films—and their directors—adhere to or challenge classical narration in their use of voice over? How does this practice fit with the more general aesthetic and thematic tendencies of these directors’ films? Filmmakers have many unique devices with which they can engage and provoke thoughts and ideas within their viewership. One such device is the effective use of the voice-over narrative. This technique has been employed to varying degrees since film gained a foothold as an art form. The classical Hollywood film noir tradition relied significantly on voice-over narrations, as they were particularly popular with the audiences. The voice-over narrations in the classical tradition featured prominently where mysteries of murder were concerned. These voice-overs were also efficient in films that featured significantly high levels of tension. Directors of classical films on women also preferred to use the voice-overs to highlight certain themes that revolved around the element of women. These were classical films whose central characters were women protagonists. Some of the classical films that relied on voice-over narrations sought to bring out the plight of women within the domestic space. Before the voice-over narrative, silent film used similar mechanisms. The director, or a responsible entity, would use words flashed on the screen to allow the audience a brief glimpse into the action from an omniscient perspective. Such a film device is not in any way new or inventive; it is a story-telling technique used by directors to elaborate on a plot, based on the needs of the plot and the messages they wish to convey to the audience. This analysis will track and consider the ways in which directors of three distinct films—Dr. Strangelove (1964), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and The Big Lebowski (1998)—employ this technique. The analysis will reveal the different nuanced levels of meaning that the individual directors hope to invoke using story-telling techniques, such as the voice-over narrative. Kubrick himself, when discussing how he would cast and direct a satire on the lunacy of the Cold War, noted that it should be presented to the audience in a form of dark humour. In this way, it could more readily convey the levels of truth and the different meanings that are portrayed (Bilandzic & Buselle, 2011, p. 30). To accomplish this end, Kubrick employed many techniques that sought to mirror elements of true life that the audience would readily identify with, and appreciate. One of the most powerful mechanisms that he employed, was presenting stories to the viewer in factual way, regardless of how utterly insane they might be in content. Kubrick further sought to provide a type of societal commentary that housed the work in a convenient, yet detached framework. Rather than allowing the individual characters to stand out, ultimately diminishing Kubrick’s message, the director used a central, omniscient or seemingly omniscient, narrator as a better mechanism. Kubrick was able to present serious and gripping subject matter in a satirical way, from a detached standpoint. The effect of the monotone voice-over narration, impressing an influential point of view on the viewer, further compounds the detachment. It was only necessary for the director to add elements of realism into a script already tinged by elements of absurdity, since the satire engaged the viewer with the preposterous nature of the Cold War and the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) (Kirshner 2001, p. 40). In this way, the voice-over narration provided the necessary ethos that Kubrick required to accomplish a sense of realism and authority. Iguarta (2009, p. 58) offers a comprehensive insight regarding Dr. Strangelove (1964), particularly from the perspective of using the voice-over technique: Voice-over narration in Kubrick's films evolves from an element that shows the mastery of the text by itself and an element of coherence that assures the perfect fitting of each element in the first films. They also show a more detached, ironic relationship of narrator to the text, which hints at the growing feeling in the later films that reality cannot be controlled, and that the text is unable to present it to us in a clear, reassuring way. This passage seems marked by the absence of voice-over narration in 2001, a reference to the organizing, clarifying function it had fulfilled in Kubrick's films up to then, which would not have been coherent with the spirit of this revolutionary film. What is of particular interest with reference to the way that Kubrick employed the voice-over narrative in Dr. Strangelove (1964), is the manner in which the narrator spoke to the audience. Although this paper has already referenced the fact that the narrator spoke in much the same way that a news broadcaster of the time might do, there were also similarities to the fireside chatting style of others who were household names when this movie was released. This was at least nominally intentional, since Murrow himself participated in a series of Cold War propaganda films that were not dissimilar to the subject matter satirised in Dr Strangelove (1964). This ‘news-like’ representation of the subject matter is further evidenced by the way in which the narrator justifies and categorises the film in the opening sequence. The nameless narrator’s ominous and eerie voice-over opens the film: There is a war in this forest. Not a war that has been fought, nor one that will be, but any war. And the enemies that struggle here do not exist unless we call them into being. For all of them, and all that happens now is outside history. Only the unchanging shapes of fear and doubt and death are from our world. These soldiers that you see keep our language and our time, but have no other country but the mind (Stillman 2008, p.489). Although purposefully vague and mysterious, the above quote is indicative of what Kubrick intended to achieve by employing the voice-over mechanism in the film. By employing this noticeable and unavoidable narrative, the director is able to use a greater degree of freedom in describing and defining the individual characters in the film, rather than the characters defining themselves, based upon a framework that Kubrik sets forth for the actors to engender. The narrator identifies the themes and underlying motives that define the satire. Rather than being a mechanism used to walk the viewer through the movie in a condescending way, the narrator radically and quickly sets the stage for the means by which the satire itself, and the proceeding characters, will interact within the larger framework of the issues involved. Conversely, in Spielberg’s A.I. (2001) the voice-over narration is used to a different end. In Dr. Strangelove (1964), the narration is generally targeted to appeal to the emotions of the viewers, and provides the elements of a news broadcast to explain the action occurring on the screen. The use of voice-over narration in A.I. (2001) provides helpful segues into what would otherwise be disjunctive portions of an already abnormally long film. The director does not seek to impart a sense of overarching understanding by means of incorporating the voice-over narrative; rather, the purpose of the narrator is to provide a smooth and effortless transition over the long periods and different phases of the child-robot’s epic journey. Uniquely relevant to the development of the child-robot, is the fact that emotional growth is not available to him at the same level that it is for a human child. The voice-over narration helps to bridge the gap between the level of emotional understanding and desire that exists within the child-robot’s programming, and the actualities of the external world. Similarly, the level of plot development within the robot’s journey can be traced to four distinctly different periods. The voice-over narration bridges these uniquely disjunctive periods, and segues into the new material and the development that Spielberg wants to incorporate into the plot. The director could have accomplished this by other means; however, the purpose was to save time. Without this technique, the development would need to be incorporated into the plot. Spielberg uses the voice-over narrative to shorten the length of the story and to rapidly grasp and redirect the viewer’s attention to the topics upon which he chooses to focus. Additionally, and much more traditionally, the voice-over narration in Artificial Intelligence, is used to bring the viewer into an unfamiliar world, and dispel his or her confusion. This technique has long been employed in film, as a rather popular method of rapidly introducing subject matter. It allows the director to cut directly to the plot or the action that has been discussed (Geraci 2007, P. 261). In this way, the mechanism provides an alternative platform to conventional methods used to engage with the viewer, gain his or her trust, and present the subject matter rapidly and succinctly. Yet, beyond this desire to impart a quick background to the story, there is a secondary reason for the director’s incorporation of a voice-over narrator within the film plot. The film itself deals with subject matter inextricably linked to religious themes. The viewer is reminded of the religious theme of ‘making man in our own image’, because the robot-child must mentally develop and form attachments, mirroring the relationship that a true son would have to the family into which he is ‘born’. The relationship between the son and his parents mimics Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. The comparisons to the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life underscore the religious tones that the director is trying to achieve. The juxtaposition of a voice-over narrative helps to reinforce the omniscient view of the narrator, giving the allusion that the narrator is acting as a type of deity who explains what precipitated the fall of humankind. This type of narrative style helps the viewer to categorise the story, from the very beginning, as a tragedy that will necessarily unfold in an ominous way. Regardless of the tone, the way in which the director engages the voice-over narrative to impress upon the viewer the overtly religious themes, serves to strengthen the director’s message. Both the plot and the mechanism of the voice-over narrative engage the viewer and draw them further into a story that contains strong religious connotations. This use of the voice-over narrative to reinforce the religious element is unique (Petlewski 1979, p.18). The Big Lebowski (1998) has vastly different subject matter and a different use of voice-over narrative, compared to the two films already analysed. The voice-over narration provides the viewer with a different level of understanding, and is a particularly nuanced mode of transmission (Ozguven. 2010, p. 164). In The Big Lebowski (1998), the voice-over narrative helps to prompt the unspoken audience reaction to the actions occurring on the screen. Thus, a type of third actor is interacting with the cast (Klinger. 2010, p. 15; Douglass & Walls in ed. Conrad 2008, p. 147). This narrator seeks to exhort from the audience the attitude they should adopt. The narrator influences how the audience analyses and considers the action that takes place with respect to ‘The Dude’. The Coen brothers’ use of the voice-over narrative encourages the audience to engage with the unique way in which the Coen brothers present their material, providing an overarching framework to understand the lead character (Igartua 2009, p. 19). The role of these voice-over narratives is not meant to be understood and analysed as a solitary entity. Each is distinct in its own way, as a type of mechanism designed, and incorporated into the film, to bring about a particular end (Butte. 2008, p. 277). Whether this end is to provide a level of differentiation and comedic relief, a story segue and development or a framework in which to quickly explain and frame the plot, each of these is more than a voice-over narrative. The voice-over narrative is a technique employed by each director to relate his specific story. Regardless of the different ways in which each of these voice-over narratives are employed, they are all a means by which the director can work to introduce and differentiate his story to the viewership. Buckland (in ed. Stringer 2003, pp. 84–97), examines the manner in which the auteur’s role has transformed over the years to add value and meaning to the art of film. The auteur ceases to be a distant technician by infusing his own craft into the film and adding some of his individuality in the craft of filmmaking. The film uses visual techniques to illustrate how science has replaced human feelings (Kolker 2011, p. 107). Neat and efficient machines are developed purely for warfare. The director mocks a progress that means the annihilation of humanity. Kreider (2003, p. 32) observes that Spielberg adopted peculiar ways of presenting subjects on the sidelines of mainstream thinking. The ability to look at the opposite end requires the adoption of techniques and styles that can effectively represent the deviation, (Morris 2007, p. 300). The mechanisms used to employ these voice-over narratives, and the ultimate ends that they accomplish in the minds of the viewers, are as diverse as the films themselves. Regardless of the subject matter that the director uses to engage the viewer, the implementation of the voice-over narrative is both an effective and versatile tool used to facilitate such an engagement. Regardless of the genre, using such a mechanism will differentiate the story and allow the viewers to engage with it in a way that they might not have otherwise have done (Wilson. 2006, p. 81). Rather than relying on the individual actors or circumstances to paint the image and grip the viewer’s attention, the voice-over narrative does so in an obtrusive way, forcing the viewer to engage and identify strongly with the subject matter at hand. Filmmakers can abuse this technique if they use it to preach to the audience on a host of topics. However, in the particular applications dealt with in this essay, it is the opinion of this author that, with the possible exception of Artificial Intelligence, the directors have used the technique sparingly enough to evoke the desired effect. Conclusion This paper explored the use of voice-over narrations in film. Focus was placed on three films namely Dr. Strangelove (1964), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), and The Big Lebowski (1998). The study explored the different ways in which voice-over narrations were used in this films and the levels of effectiveness in each. Generally, the use of narrations in these films is appropriate in the sense that helps the directors to provide some harmony into the play and to control the tone and mood in the play. There is also some sense of harmony achieved through the narrator. The created harmony serves the important role of enhancing meaning by clarifying on themes and elaborating on the important scenes and personalities in the play. The use of voice-over narrations was also noticed in many films that sought to offer insights into the historical account of some events or phenomena. The packaging of such films was done in a manner that enhanced the comprehension of the subject matter. The viewers were guided through the plot in a way that made it possible for them to comprehend the actual issues that related to the study. On this score, it becomes necessary to explore the origin and development of voice-over narrations from the perspective of utility. References A.I. 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