Since the question has been raised, we may really need to decide what
constitutes the "narrator" in film to begin with.  Seymour Chatman has the
"narrator" as our sense of the agency that presents the film's overall
narrative.  On the other hand, some of the responses on this thread seem to
localize the narrator to specific functions of camerawork, soundtrack, and
so forth.  The initial question seemed to concern especially cases involving
presentation of the narrative through a controlling character (especially
in voice-over narration) that is later revealed to be false, inaccurate or
based on incomplete information.
 
As the range of responses on this thread has indicated, there is a whole
range of possible complications between competing elements of narrative
information.  Sometimes these are quite deliberate--consider something like
Don Lockwood's "life story" at the beginning of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, where
the image contradicts the soundtrack.  Or it might be unintentional but
ideologically conditioned--eg., feminist critics have pointed to the contra-
dictions between the male character's voiceovers and the actual visual
detail in such films noirs as OUT OF THE PAST.  Or the contradictions might
be part of a pattern of unresolved ambiguities--for instance, Chabrol's
STORY OF WOMEN, which provides what seems to be an objective account of
the Huppert character until a scene when her son has been shut out of a
room and we get a POV shot through a keyhole.  Then, later, when she has been
arrested and condemned by the Vichy regime, we hear a voice saying "My mother
was executed on this day."  Are we then to assume that the entire film has
been a reconstructed memory by the woman's son?  How does that then account
for other camera shots that appear to be POV shots but have no actual source
in the film?
 
Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
 
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