On Wed, 6 Sep 1995, Matthew Mah wrote:
 
>  > What happens with the narrator in film? Can we accept the camera as
>  > a
>  > narrator? (in comparison to the narrator in literary works)I am
>  > thinking
>  > particularly about those films, like The Age of Innocence, where you
>  > have a
>  > narrator throughout the whole film.
>
> I wouldn't consider the camera a narrator.  If you've gone far enough into
> studying narrators, you'll recall things like intrusive narration, telescoping
> narration and the lot.  In all I think there are 5.  This is what narration
 is,
> it tells a certain side of the story.  Narrators are always biased in no
 matter
> what medium.  The tone of the voice, the relationship between the narrator and
> the character.  However, we have the camera.  The camera captures everything,
> and we have to assume that it is non-biased.  We have no way of confirming
> this, as we do in narration, so we have to accept it.
>
Which is why we need to add the notion of POV, as well as that of
*narration.*  What the camera *sees* has a different ontological status
than that of a verbal narration.  It has a very different psychological
effect on the audience.
 
Ron Hoffman
 
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