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In Reply to: Three excellent films with narration pop right into my head. posted by dennzio on April 19, 2004 at 11:07:22:
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.
Follow Ups:
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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