Comments on: The Late Movies: Great Voiceover

By: Richard Dixon

Richard Dixon — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:16:55 +0000

Two words: Sunset Boulevard.

By: airship

airship — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:35:56 +0000

How about the crappy voice over that the studio made Ridley Scott include in Blade Runner? Harrison Ford has publicly said that he did a purposely crappy job on it in hopes that the studio would throw it out. No such luck.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:06:04 +0000

Apocalypse Now
Forrest Gump
Raising Arizona

Yeah, I remember the film school rule, and hating it, too.

By: Regina

Regina — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:13:09 +0000

Kill Bill, Vol.1 – Beatrix’ VO makes great story.

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:20:46 +0000

Speaking of great movie Voiceovers, what LITERARY ‘narration’ do you think could be excellent if they were translated to film?

Click my name to see my suggestion (the part I am referring to is the ‘Prologue’, on the pages following the 2 quotations

(I don’t know who’d be the ideal narrator for this, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman would’ve made an ideal ‘Bunny’, IMO)

By: John

John — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:09:20 +0000

Adaptation had a good voiceover and had scenes arguing whether it is ok to have a voiceover. Fun movie.

By: Zed

Zed — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:50:43 +0000

Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, and Fight Club come to mind as a few very successful movies with great use of voice over.

I think it largly has to do with how the voice over is used. If used to tell the story, your a lazy film maker. If used to get inside your characters heads it can be done really interestingly.

Another that comes to mind: Dune (81 version)

By: Jonny

Jonny — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:37:35 +0000

Yeah, which just proves what snobs film school professors can be for creating and fomenting this catch-all rule that clearly has too many exceptions to stand up.

I think The Outsiders had a pretty good voice-over too.

By: Marty

Marty — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:23:48 +0000

How about the great voice over in “Little Chidren”? totally omnipresent and funny…

By: Becky

Becky — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:59:25 +0000

What about The Princess Bride?