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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