Bearish Bumbles

01/03: Stop Justifying - keep being.

Category: Hums | Posted by: Cads

I'm going to try and post something at least once a week in this category. Stuff that I have learned during my short tenure here. Some of it will be personal and some of it will be funny (I hope) and some will just be weird, but I'll try to get the balance of everything right.

Today's comment is something that I was speaking to Piglet about last night. If you have to use a voice over in a movie - you've probably got something wrong somewhere. I was watching (don't laugh) a Hillary Duff movie called Cadet Kelly (link - contains spoilers - like you care). Toward the end of the movie there's a nasty voice over from Ms Duff herself. Apart from being trite and obnoxious, the whole concept of a film is to provide a visual telling of a story.

Obviously there are notable reasons to do a voice over. Derek Jarman's "Blue" is a prime example of pushing the boundary of film and creating an experience that is dependent upon the environment and the image as much as it is the soundtrack - and there is only one image throughout the entire film - the screen is filled with Blue. That's it. But that's experimental film and works because playing the soundtrack on its own destroys the singularity of staring at a swathe of unchanging colour.

Another reason for a voice over is one of style. Imagine pulp-detective films without the voice over... It wouldn't be the same - but that's INTERNAL monologue that cannot be shown, not an explanation of the film. Using a voice over to cleanup a message or provide exposition is just lazy film-making. It's lazy TV too, and Grey's Anatomy (link - image intensive) is one of those that gets on my nerves. We can SEE what has happened, Meredith! We don't need your inane babble to get the message. Of course Grey's is one of those stylistic things too, but it is a pale style in comparison to Desperate Housewives (link - again from ABC). The narration in Desperate Housewives was innovative and provides the external point of view of an internal character. Mary Alice commits suicide in the first episode of season one and as such is in a great position to be able to provide judgment and more importantly rationale for the decisions of the still extant characters. Rationales that are not themselves obvious to the characters and which therefore cannot be portrayed visually.

The annoyance of a voice over that explains a film is fairly well known in lots of circles - including Science Fiction. Blade Runner's final Cut does not have a voice over - no narration. The narration was known for being dire. In fact it was so dire that Harrison Ford was rumoured to have given a deliberately bad reading in the hopes it wouldn't be used (link). Watching the final cut is like seeing a fully restored pre-raphaelite painting - everything stands out so much more and is not blurred by grime or extraneous exposition.

So - this is something that I have learned. Not that Voice Over Is Bad, but that one does not need to provide extraneities when the effect is obvious.