show, don't tell

This is an old rant, probably best suited for a blog:

Attention screenwriters: voiceover is a cheat. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, and every now and then you can make it work in your favor, but as a general rule:

If you can’t come up with a way to show something on a screen, maybe the thing you’re writing shouldn’t be a film.

I’m not proposing MPAA regulations–rated HV, for heavy voiceover, or MV for moderate voiceover?–but at the very least movie critics should warn us about this stuff. How you can give a positive review when a film hasn’t quite been written is beyond me.

So in lieu of professional warnings, someone needs to compile a list of voiceover offences so that we can avoid those wasted trips to the theaters and video stores.

Why bother with dialogue or visuals when I can just quote the novel?

Fight Club
Here’s a strange case: heavy voiceover at the start of the film, and then there’s that section more toward the middle where Ed Norton explains the things Brad Pitt does (remember the catering and projectionist stuff?) that’s not voiceover, but a direct address to the camera, which worked so much better. And, given the nature of the situation, I think they needed some voiceover to pull it all off. Still, half of it could have been easily pulled out.

Jesus’ Son
Apparently this film got much better at the end. I didn’t make it that far.

Personal Velocity
Nonstop voiceover, from a man who has nothing to do with the film, including gems like, “She felt the ambition drain out of her like pus from a lanced boil.” The worst offender I’ve seen to date.

The Virgin Suicides
I spent the entire movie trying to figure out which one of those boys was supposed to be narrating the thing. That and making a mental list of synonyms for “vapid.”

Wonder Boys
Few things are more off-putting than Michael Douglas’ voice emanating from nowhere, pointing out the obvious in every scene.

Is voiceover less tiresome in another language?

Amélie
It’s stylized, and clearly intentional (as opposed to pure laziness), but there is an awful lot of it.

Y Tu Mamá También
The first time the narrator interrupted this film I thought I was in for a torturous two hours, but I think the writers pulled this one off by giving the narrator distance from the main characters and a touch of omniscience.

Voiceover Success Stories

Election
Proving yet again that rules were meant to be broken, this film effectively uses dueling voiceovers.

Pride and Prejudice (BBC mini)
Darcy’s letter (episode 5?) is just that. He wouldn’t say those things out loud, yet the information must be conveyed to Elizabeth and the audience. Bonus points for giving the novel’s famous opening line to a character.

The Singing Detective (BBC mini)
Voiceover is the only way to ease the transition between fantasy (that the main character is writing as we watch him) and reality.

i heart skype

Better yet, make that, “I Want to Heart Skype”–because the jury’s still out.

Skype should be solving a handful of phone issues at once:

• My cell phone doesn’t work at my house. The reception’s so bad that the phone doesn’t even ring half the time. Of course, if I’m anywhere besides home, my cell phone is the best way to reach me.
• When it comes time to put a phone number on anything official like a script or DVD, the land line is a bad choice (because who knows how many eons could pass before someone wants to call), but again the cell phone doesn’t work half the time. And did I mention that it swallows messages for weeks at a time? Great.
• Long distance providers (for the land line)–I can’t even deal.

So with Skype In and Skype Out combined, I can make as many long distance calls as I want, through the Internet, for cheap. And I can set up a local phone number the forwards to both my cell and land line, letting me answer the call with whichever happens to be working at the moment, also for cheap. Awesome, right?

Yes, but the first call I get through the service doesn’t connect. My phones both ring at once–hooray–and I pick up the land line, and Hello? Hello? Hello? I can’t hear a thing.

Wrong number, maybe. We’ll see.