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In Reply to: Re: You probably dislike Pollock or other posted by Bulkington on April 19, 2004 at 10:35:41:
Apocolypse Now
Platoon
American BeautyThese films would have suffered sans narration. I'm sure there are plenty more.
Follow Ups:
BladerunnerO Lucky Man
Moby Dick
"And then, as it must to all men, Death came to Charles Foster Kane.""The magnificence of the Ambersons began..."
There has been at least one filmmaker who knew how to use narration.
Also Kubrick's "The Killing" and (the beginning of) "Dr. Strangelove" and "A Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon".
nt
Hey den.
______________________________
Stranger than that, we're alive!Whatever you think it's more than that, more than that.
-Incredible String Band
I think, I think I am, I think.
Of course you are my bright little star.
I've miles
And miles
Of files
Pretty files of your forefather's fruit
And now to suit our
Great computer
You're magnetic ink.
I'm more than that, I know I am, at least, I think I must be.
keep as cool as you can
face piles of trials with smiles
it riles them to believe
that you perceive the whip they wield
and keep on thinking freeI feel like I Left something out.
I assume you know that he considered this but eventually discarded the idea.
;^)
I think becomes twice the film when you watch it while pretending the narration isn't there. Take the opening. Everything the narrator describs is exactly what is happening on screen. Why do we need him? That he leads a sad, suburban existence and that he's wearied by it is clear. The narration adds nothing to that film, as far as I'm concerned, apart from "brightening" it. Take the narrator out and it becomes much more dark and the ending more unsettling.I think narration serves Apocolypse Now well. To provide the same information to the viewers dramatically instead would have been unmangeable, would have required dramatic exchanges contrived purely for exposition.
I need to revisit Platoon.
Spacey's voice is the critical piece: it's "welrschmerz" incarnate. The cold-bloodedness in his expression shows the power of the spoken over the written word (try reading "Hamlet" and then just listen to...Richard Burton's interpretation on cd).
All your impassioned argument aside, you do seem quite prejudiced.
I think American Beauty provides an interesting test-case, though. Next time you watch it, ignore the narration as best you can and think about how different (not necessarily better, but certainly different) the movie becomes without it. I'd like someday to get a hold of editing equipment to make a narratorless American Beauty (and a narratorless Sheltering Sky, and original theatrical release of Blade Runner--I think the director's cut is superior for lacking narration, but some of the violence has been edited out and looks abridged, to me at least, at those moments).
Next time I watch American Beauty, I will try to imagine it without the narrative. An interesting option for DVD releases of such movies would be to allow the viewer to omit the narration. The scene in Apoc Now in which Martin Sheen is drunk in his hotel room would definitely suffer without the narrative.
I agree. One of the many briliant touches here is that we are told the entire story at the outset of the film, just like in the newsreel in "Citizen Kane". There's even a quick flash forward shot showing Willard coming up out of the water, something we see again at the end.
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