I’ve just settled into my new place in Washington DC (Alexandria, Va specifically.) The move was fairly sudden; but my husband Shawn (http://shawnrider.com) was offered a job a PBS and I was too good to pass up. I’ve been exploring the city trying to look the local that I am - which is hard to do with camera in hand. These shots were mainly taken in and around the museums and galleries on the Mall. Shot with my favorite canon digital and the lens baby these images are just a taste of photos to come.

I few weeks ago I made a post on Miroslav Tichý - http://sarahwichlacz.com/?p=12 A little later I was lucky enough to get a comment on the post from Brian Tjepkema, Tichý’s own apprentice. I claimed that Tichý was a bona fide outsider artist, one that might not be fully aware of what he is doing artistry- Brian disagreed. He elaborates on his website-

Although Tichý was in large part rejected and even ridiculed by the authorities and by regular society, he did have friends and he was often seen amongst people in the pubs of Kyjov. Although Tichý is often presented as not only an outsider but also as a loner or hermit, Tichý spoke with many people on a daily basis. Needless to say, Tichý’s chosen friends were mostly outsiders themselves. According to Tichý, the writer Veselsky was a “nutter” as were the artists Petr Cmelik and, even, Tjepkema. Tichý was by no means a loner and many people from Kyjov have spoken with him over the years.

Okay, Brian I agree that Tichý is aware that he his creating art - and sees himself as part of an artistic community. But, I think that he is clearly on the outside of the “established” art world; making work (especially these girly photographs) for his own pleasure. This is what makes his work so damn appealing; it is not over thought and overwrought imagery made to please an academic gallery audience. Tichý’s techniques are interesting and unique; the subjects timeless and erotic. The academics have plenty to talk about - but what they see and what Tichý originally had in mind when creating the image may be vastly different. Then again this could be said about most art..

I finally shot the animal sculptures surrounding Buffalo Zoo; I only wish I could tell you more about them. Again, I shot digital with the lens baby; I just can’t get enough of the selective focus.

The Buffalo Zoo is the third oldest institution of it’s kind in the country; it was permanently established in 1875. I live near Delaware Park, home to the zoo, my husband and I often walk our dog around the the perimeter of the zoo. I’ve always enjoyed these animal sculptures that are posted on either side of the now unused zoo gates. I don’t know anything about these sculptures; the zoo was slowly constructed over many years. I guessing they were put in as part of or sometime between the construction of the famous elephant house in 1912 and the large WPA project that built the reptile house finished by 1942. Hopefully more information on the origins of these beautiful sculptures forthcoming. 6-13-06

I’ve been trying to think of something profound enough to say about Li Wei’s fantastic images. I imagine his unique disembodied head and embedded head images, especially given the particularly Chinese locations, work as a metaphor for changing China. Wei himself says “The brain is the geography of the person. It is the home.” Li Wei’s work definitely walks that line between performance art and photography; he, like Andy Goldsworthy, sees his work first as a performance. I think all photography has a performative aspect - but in both these cases the artists rely on the permanent image to give audience to their work.

Li Wei lives in Beijing and represents the second generation, of performance artists working in China. He began his career in the late 1990s, and is most well known for his Mirror 2000 series, which includes over 40 site-specific performance pieces. Using a large mirror, three feet square, with a hole in the center large enough to accommodate his head and neck, Li places his head through the hole and “projects” his image onto various historical and urban environments.

Other Links

culturebase.net | The international artist database | Wei Li

I just wanted to put up some of my early scanner camera work (2005) - this is just a taste of a few early series. There is more to come…

From the artist statment-

These scanner camera images are cubist, allowing us to see multiple angles and perspectives on a subject in action. They are photographic equivalents to futurist motion studies, revealing the frenetic nature of the animated world. They are the discrete time photomontages of David Hockney bound within a single frame. But even more, they are all of these things in real-time, drawn directly from the real world

Narratives that transcend simple labels are often the most innovative and groundbreaking; these hybrid narratives can also lead to greater understanding of the forms, systems, and terms themselves. Not all voice-over narration can be neatly divided into two categories; those of first- and third-person narratives.

Issues of Narration: Voice-Over in Film

“Narrator: The bizarre and often amusing pages which make up this odd story were discovered at the bottom of a deep crevice in the Great Northern Desert by members of our Earth Probe, Nimbus-II.”
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

Introduction: Talking Over It

All narrative mediums: literature, theater, song, television, film, etc. rely on a “narrator” or “narrative agency” to convey the narrative’s story. This narrator can take many forms; in film it can describe both the camera and soundtrack itself as well as the overt narration of a voice-over. The voice-over is the easiest form of narrative agency to find and describe in film, in part because it is usually distinctly separate from the film frame. Not all off camera sound is narration, but the narrator is most often depicted as a nondiegetic sound or sound that does to emanate from objects inside the film frame. The voice-over track usually occurs during the beginning and ending of a film, but it can also occur anywhere within the film. Often the diegetic sound quiets and the voice-over becomes the predominant track. This separation of diegetic sound and voice-over reveals the connection between film’s voice-over narrator and the narrator found in written texts.

Like all parts of film, film narration borrows heavily from textual narratives (such as short stories and novels) as well as theatrical narratives. Many films that have been adapted from plays or novels choose to retain some of the original narration, especially when the narration creates a voice of its own. The narration can also reveal the inner thoughts of major or minor characters. Sometimes these inner thoughts reveal ideas of issues that wouldn’t be apparent without the voice-over. In many ways narration allows the viewer to have more information than even the main characters depicted in the story. To understand the functions of voice-over narration in film it is important to see its place in the overall structure or lack thereof, of narrative in general. The function as well as the form is influence by greater issues of narrative that encompass all types of narrative media.

Structure and Post Structure of Film Narration

While there is much disagreement about the terminology used to describe narratives and their forms, there is agreement, in that a narrative ‘tells a story.’ Mieke Bal, a narratologist, or structuralist narrative theorist, describes the narrative text through the manner of its telling. “A narrative text is a text in which an agent relates (‘tells’) a story in a particular medium, such as language, imagery, sound, buildings, or a combination thereof.” (Bal 5) Bal notes that this narrating agent can be almost anything- from paintings to comics; most media have been used to express stories. The agent is who/what supplies the narration; who/what conveys the story is most simply described as the narrator. The narrator can be classified, if only contentiously, as first-, second-, and third-person. As Steven Cohan and Linda M Shires note in their analysis of narrative fiction, this distinction is largely linguistic. “Traditional criticism tries to keep agent and agency separate classifying narrators through linguistic designation: first- or third-person pronouns.” (Cohen and Shires 90) These divisions help to situate the narrator relative to the story being told, and thus allow for greater analysis of the narrative structure.

In traditional criticism the first-person narrator is described as being in the story. Cohan and Shires describe the first-person as character bound- “When a narrator is also a character in the story, however peripheral, the narration is character-bound, told in the first person …” (Cohen and Shires 90) First-person narration is often little more than internal monologue; monologues that play well on the stage and the page but seem false in the “neo-realism” of the screen maybe internalized into voice-over. Again, the narration is fundamentally giving the audience information that would not have been easily conveyed in the main body of the movie. When the first-person narration comes from the main character it helps to solidify them as the protagonist and aids the audience in sympathizing with the character. But the ‘truthfulness’ of the third person narrator is always under suspicion, because as a character the audience is more likely to suspect them of having a objective viewpoint.

In opposition to the preserved subjectivity of the first-person narrator the third-person narrator provides the illusion of subjectivity. The third-person narrative is that which has no character, a narrator that is not a player in the story. Film theorist George Wilson points out that first-person narration depicts events through being remembered, dreamed, and so forth and is thus subjective where as third-person narration is not. “Third-person narration then subsumes all film narration that is not tied directly to the subjectivity of a character in there ways.” (Wilson 127) He connects the idea of the invisible and passive camera to that of the narrator who is capable of only witnessing. In text, the narrating agency can be mistaken for the author; in film, the third-person voice-over might be mistaken for the voice of the camera.

The whole idea of third-person agency is under question. “In fact, the term ‘third-person narrator’ is absurd: a narrator is not a ‘he’ or ‘she’ – who might, incidentally, happen to be a narrator as well.” (Bal 22) Bal asserts that the narrator may become a character and even refer to themselves as “I” without figuring into the story as an “actor.” This voice-over narrator is part of the narrative agency, but it is not the final presence of narration. Sarah Kozloff, dialogue and voice-over film theorist, states that there is something beyond the narrator. “…behind the voice-over narrator there is another presence that supplements the nominal narrator’s vision, knowledge, and storytelling powers. This is the narrating agent of all the films (with or without voice-over.)” (Kozloff 44) The narrating agent is the sum and the system of the narration; it is the voice-over, the actors, the writer, the director, the story, the frame, the plot, the light—the story manifest.

While it is impossible to totally untangle the system of narration it is possible to observe and notate, despite the slippery nature of the terms and medium itself. It is possible to further define narration, noting the ‘registers’ between the narration’s history and discourse. Cohan and Shires define the qualities of history and discourse in relation to signs of agency. In other words, how truthful “versus” how “subjective” is the narration.

History and discourse, moreover, differentiate not between texts but between the narrational registers of a single texts. For a text narrates as both history and discourse, regardless of discursive narrator summarizes events matter-of-factly or recounts them scenically, signs of agency disappear form the text and this portion of the story is narrated as history. (Cohen and Shires 92)

History can be described as the ‘truth,’ when it is ‘tainted’ by perspective discourse is created. Even the passive third-person narrator narrates with discourse; even the use of any adjectives reveals the narrator’s biases and subjective. While the terms and ideas of history and discourse help to unify theories of narration, they also help to undermine the strict structure of narratology critics like Mieke Bal subscribe to; though in recent interviews Bal has begun to distance himself from dogmatic adherence to linguistic/ mathematic styled formulas in narratives.

One of the foremost experts in narrative film theory, Gérard Genette, creates his own system of terminology regarding voice-over narration. Genette separates narration in to two major categories. heterodiegetic and homodiegetic. Heterodiegetic narrators, like third-person characters, do not affect the story. Homodiegetic narrators, like first-person narrators, do affect the story. He also defined extradiegetic narrators as those at the first or frame level, intradiegetic as those who tell an embedded story or a story with-in a story, and the metadiegetic narrators that occur in a doubly embedded story or a story with-in a story with-in a story. (Genette 244) These categories allow for greater specificity in defining narrative types, but do little to explain their meaning or significance. Sarah Kozloff writes that the “level of narrative” can affect the audience’s perception of the whole film.

…films often create the sense of character-narration so strongly that one accepts the voice-over narrator as if he of she were the mouthpiece of the image-maker either for the whole film or for the duration of his or her embedded story. We put our faith in the voice not created but as creator. (Kozloff 45)

Like Wilson’s connection of the camera to the third-person narrator, where the audience connects the voice-over’s point-of-view to the camera’s point-of-view. It is possible that the audience can be “fooled” into believing that the voice-over is that of the film-maker. Though there are a few instances where the director of a film narrates the film as the director, directly addressing the audience.

Form and Function of the Film Narrator

Before there was sound film there was narrative agency in film, as embodied by the film frame itself and well and more directly in the intertitles. Films were exploring new visual based narratives, quite unlike the narratives of theater and novels. Without sound, intertitles functioned as narration as well as dialogue. The moralistic narration of the D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920) clearly function as a narrator with heavy discourse, just like that of any third-person voice-over narration. Early film theorist, Rudolf Arnheim, asserts that while people watched silent films, the fact that they were silent interrupted the illusion of reality.

People took silent movies for granted because they never quite lost the feeling that what they saw was after all only pictures. This feeling alone, however, would not be sufficient to prevent the lack of sound being felt as an unpleasant violation of the illusion. (Arnheim 315)

Unlike Arnheim, Hugo Munsterberg earlier had reveled in the “photoplay’s” limitation, such as its lack of color, lack of dimension, freedom from the order of time, and expression via pantomime. He believed silent film to be free from the constraints of space and time and thought that film could “overcome reality.” This emphasis on free play encourages the mixture of narrative techniques, and exploring the film medium beyond the recording of ‘reality.’

Ironically, newsreels and documentaries were some of the first sound movies to utilize voice-over documentary. These newsreel films (especially the March of Time series) were noted for their voice-of-god, omnipotent narration. The association of narration with non-fictional subjects, gave voice-over narration in fiction films a air of reality. Other genres adopted the voice-over narration into their style. Kozloff mentions the genres that are most commonly associated with voice-over.

…epics, Westerns, and fantasies. In these genres filmmakers need to impart a great deal of expositional information of unify a story that ranges widely in time and space; narration accomplishes both tasks effortlessly. Furthermore, precisely because it is oral, voice-over can remind views of traditional storytellers, and so evoke the proper atmosphere for the legendary or pseudo-legendary subject matter. (Kozloff 73)

Much like the authority imparted by the voice-of-god narration of the documentaries, the narrators historic connection to the storytellers helps to reinforce the authority of the narration, especially the third-person narratives. The narration can help to lend reality to a fantastical situation, like the unifying narration in the recent fantasy film Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. (2001) The first five scenes of the film are narrated by the character Galadriel in which she explains centuries of back story integral to the complicated plot. This narration also helps to unify the environment and to set the tone for the films ahead. It isn’t surprising to note that the Lord of the Rings film trilogy was based on a set of novels, but in this case the first-person film’s narration is nothing like the novels’ third-person narrator. A large percentage of the third-person narration in film come from book adaptations that have ‘indispensable’ narrators.

While many comparisons can be drawn there are undeniable differences between verbal and visual narration. As Kozloff notes, “Unlike in literature, in film the distinction between telling a story through verbal narration and showing it on the screen through images and action is not so easily discountable.” (Kozloff 13) These differences are particularly significant due to the shift in the system of signs. Textual narratives use written langue to convey the story; in film there is an emphasis placed on the visual narrative. Film language relies less on textual language and more on the less “symbolic” visual language. This does not make film any more or less subjective than it’s written counterparts. It is also contentious to say that film is any less of a form language than actual written language; as both subscribe to forms and are ultimately subject to personal interpretation.

The reliance on the narrator in book adaptations is criticized by film theorist, Brian Henderson; Henderson argues that film narrators do not replicate the functions of written narrators. He also criticizes much of the voice-over in film for being redundant. Narration is often used to “pile” on unnecessary time signifiers. Voice-over can be a successful narrative technique only as long as it conveys something different than the visual narrative and the narrative conveyed in the dialogue. “Double telling” is a successful device only if the point of the narration is to highlight information or themes already expressed in the plot. The question of the narratives purpose is only answered in that it will always give the audience more information and perspective on the characters, events and themes in the film’s story.

Often the narrator is the implied author. In the case of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Peter George’s novel Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb the narrator is not identified with the author but rather the film’s creator. Narrator, a voice from the distant future, critiques the text and creates a report with the audience that could not possibly be the movie’s true audience. Narrator-“The quirkish author of this ancient comedy seems intentionally to have omitted the names of specific countries, possibly in the hope it would land a certain Universality to his theme.” (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.) In Cecil B. DeMille’s film, The Greatest Show on Earth; DeMille, the director, is in fact the uncredited narrator. In these cases the narration functions to make the audience give greater contemplation to the multiple interpretations of the texts by questioning the narrator’s position in regards to the story.

Voice-over narration can help form ironic tension. Post structuralist film theorist, Seymour Chatman, writes: “The different components of the cinematic narrator as diagramed usually work in consort, but sometimes the implied author creates an ironic tension between two of them.” (Chatman 484) This can be illustrated with the 1976 film, Taxi Driver; in the film the main character, Travis Bickle, is the source of the first-person voice-over. The narration becomes less attuned to the reality of the situation; it’s calm belies the frantic psychopath that Travis becomes. Travis’ first-person narrative starts with authority and truth, but deconstructs into an unreliable source. Reliable only to reveal the inner workings of the character’s thoughts. In most films voice-over narration is given authority by the audience; the authority can be lost if the audience recognizes the narrator as unreliable.

The male voice of authority has long been associated with the conveyance of truth and perspective. The male voice carries with it the historical connection to power. For most of film history the most reliable narrators have been males: doctors, police, detectives, judges, professors, and writers among others. Mary Ann Doane asserts that the male voice has been unquestioned in its power. “In the history of the documentary, this voice has been for the most part that of the male, and its power resides in the possession of knowledge and in the privileged, unquestioned activity of interpretation.” (Doane 369) Even the contemporary film, Personal Velocity (2002,) which was written and directed by a woman (Rebecca Miller) includes a male voice-over narrator. The film itself is about three women each fleeing from the men in their lives, each for the own reasons, each in their own way. The question remains, why would such a female oriented movie use the voice of a man to give the third-person narrative. Are men just more authoritive, and thus a natural choice for the third-person voice-of-god. In this case the choice of narrators was probably aestetitic rather than a political statement; but the lack of female narrators in general is more obvious that the dearth of female directors. The lack of both indicates issues of gender equality within the contemporary film system.

Examples of Voice-Over Narration in Film
The ‘voice’ of the narrator was heard in even in the earliest silent films via the use of intertitles. Griffith’s moralistic narration is a perfect example of the narrative voice in silent film. In Intolerance (1916) the narrator states, “When women cease to attract men, they often turn to reform as a second option.” The intertitle functions as the third-person narrator, giving details but interjecting a substantial dose of discourse. Pickpocket (1959), written and directed by Robert Bresson, has typical first-person narration. The main character Michel, begins the film with voice-over narration describing some of his exploits. The narration returns at the end of the film, to explain Michel’s trip abroad and to reveal his inner thoughts; i.e.- love for Jeanne. While the narration provides some information it is certainly sparse; not providing very many details for the audience to examine. Lady from Shanghai (1947), written and directed be Orson Wells, also includes traditional first-person narrative both at the beginning and at the end of the film. In the science fiction film Blade Runner (1982) the main character, the android Deckard (Harrison Ford), begins to narrate during the final moments of the film. Deckard’s voice-over functions as an epilogue, solidifying the ideas presented in the film. Deckard is forced to confront his connecting to the androids he has just slayed. Like Taxi Driver; Apocalypse Now (1979) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) feature a psychotic and/or unreliable first-person narrators. In A Clockwork Orange the narration directly refers to the audience. The main character, Alex, narrates frequently throughout the film; referring to the audience as “brothers,” “only friends,” and to himself as “your story-teller.” This voice-over style is particularly effective in making the audience feel connected to the killer. Thematically this makes sense; as the Kubrick is making a point about society’s joint responsibility to create a moral code of conduct- to prevent the emptiness that is Alex. As a first-person narrative To Kill a Mocking Bird is an interesting case as the narrator, Scout is an adult looking back and narrating a story that features her as a girl. So while Scout is technically a character in the story, thus a first-person narrator. The adult Scout is unable to effect the storyline and is markedly different from her younger self. This draws into question the use of the term first-person anytime when time has passed between the instance of the story and that of the narration. The passage of time can create a separation of the first-person narrator and the character that they were.

Both Little Foxes (1941) and Star Wars (1977) have long screens of written narration, setting the scene for the rest of the film. These narrations are clearly third-person, they attempt to be purely informative and objective. This is in opposition to the very visible third-person narrator in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), at first the narrator takes the form of authoritative professorly scholar, shown in his office characteristically filled with books. As the film progresses the narrator reveals himself to be more in tune with the wild goings on in the film than would first be suspected, but the narrator retains his dry detachment form the entire situation. In a stranger take on the third-person narrator Woody Allen’s film, Mighty Aphrodite (1995) uses a historical Greek chorus to provide the narration. The chorus at times directly communicates with the main character, Lenny (Woody Allen); but they maintain a separation from the ‘real’ story and thus are more third-person characters/narrators than they are true characters or first-person narrators. The Western Cat Ballou (1965) is narrated via song, Professor Sam the Shade (Nat King Cole) and The Sunrise Kid (Stubby Kaye) play minstrels that occasionally stroll through the scene and relate their narratives in song form; existing as both first-and third-person narrators. The narrator in the film-noir classic, Naked City is the prototypical omnipresent and omnipotent voice-of-god. The dry, pithy narration has obvious connections to the narration of the March of Time newsreels.

There are a number of films that include voice-over narration that is not easily categorized as first- or third-person. One such film is Wes Anderson’s family epic, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). The narration references that of a book; but the film is not a book adaptation it was originally written as a screenplay. The film opens with a shot of a book, the first edition of The Royal Tenenbaums, the book opens and the page reads “Chapter One.” The voice-over narrator (Alec Baldwin) begins to read the text as the scene cuts to a five-story house and a older man ringing the doorbell. “Royal Tenenbaum bought the house on Archer Avenue in the winter of his thirty-fifth year. Over the next decade, he and his wife, had three children and then separated.” The narration continues, in typical third-person style, by describing past events and introducing the main characters. But the narration continues into the body of the story, as do the glimpses of the chapter headings consistently reminding the viewers of the ‘book.’ This constant illusion to a non-existent book could be a way to draw the audience’s attention to the allusions to literary classics such as authors like Joseph Mitchell, A. J. Liebling, Lillian Ross, J. D. Salinger, John O’ Hara, E. B. White, James Thurber, and John Irving. This use of book trappings helps to reinforce the literary heritage from where the film’s plot springs forth.

Many of the Coen Brother’s films include voice-over narration, from their first film Blood Simple (1984) to their later films such as Hudsucker Proxy (1994), and O’Brother Where Art Thou? (2001) In Blood Simple the narration is clearly in first-person; the private eye, Visser, begins narrating during the film’s opening scene. A barren Texas landscape cuts to a car rushing down a rainy road; the narrator speaks-

The world is full of complainers. But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. I don’t care if you’re the Pope of Rome, President of the United States, or even Man of the Year–something can always go wrong. And go ahead, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help–watch him fly. Now in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else–that’s the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas… And down here… you’re on your own. (Blood Simple)

This is the only occurrence of the voice over, in part because the Visser character dies at the end of the film. The narrator does little to fill in the viewer; instead it functions to set up the general themes of the film, self-reliance in particular. The Man Who Wasn’t There is another Coen Brother’s film that includes a first-person narrator. In this case the main character, Ed, is the source of the narration. The Ed character rarely speaks, but give frequent and detailed narrations that give the audience incite into this character and his plot. The narrators in Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski and O’Brother Where Art Thou? are far more complicated; they are both first-and third-person narrators.

The narration in The Big Lebowski is an example of Coens’ post structuralist approach; from their overt genre switching to the breakdown of the narrator’s authority. The narrator, the Stranger (Sam Elliot), is first introduced as any other third-person narrator. He introduces the main character and sets the scene. As the camera moves across the desert to the edge of Los Angeles the Stranger speaks:

A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin’ parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that’s a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, like- wise. But then again, maybe that’s why I found the place s’durned innarestin’. (The Big Lebowski)

The narration begins normally enough, but halfway through the film the Stranger returns, this time as an actual character. This time we see him as a cowboy, sitting at the bar in the bowling alley. The stranger engages the Dude in conversation, while the Stranger/narrator exists in the film as a visual character he does not effect the story and returns to his duties as the narrator at the end of the film. The fact that the narrator is a cowboy in a film that is best described as anti-film-noir is typical Coen genre switching. The cowboy narrator is probably referring to the common narration in Spaghetti Westerns. I Shot Billy the Kid (1950) a B Western includes voice-over narration in a fail attempt to class up the film. The Big Lebowski is a film-noir detective story starring the worlds most inept and unlikely detective. Noir-films often include voice-over narration, but the usually mode is the hero telling the audience his story with the use of flashbacks. The Coen’s have turn the narrative structure of film-noir on its head and then turned around and switched the genre of the film’s narrator. Perhaps they want the audience to question the films the accepting genre forms, or maybe they’re just having a bit of surreal fun their film narration.

Conclusion

It is impossible to discuss film without using terms to describe phenomena and systems; but all ridged systems are doomed to fail. Thus it is important to acknowledge the limits of the terminology. It is often very revealing to study the areas were the terminology breaks down. Narratives that transcend simple labels are often the most innovative and groundbreaking; these hybrid narratives can also lead to greater understanding of the forms, systems, and terms themselves. Not all voice-over narration can be neatly divided into two categories; those of first- and third-person narratives. There are many examples of these complex and uncategoriable films; The Big Lebowski and The Royal Tenenbaums bring up issues that can be found to lesser degrees in all film narrations. The location and function of the voice-over is key to understanding the effects that it has on the story itself. But what the narration accomplishes is the most important issue involved in voice-over narration.

Works Cited

Arnheim, Rodolf. “Film and Reality.” Braudy and Cohen, 312-6.

Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985.

Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Chatman, Seymour. “The Cinematic Narrator.” Braudy and Cohen, 473-86.

Cohan, Steven and Linda M. Shires. Telling Stories: A Theoretical Analysis of Narrative Fiction. London: Routledge, 1988.

Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1980.

Gunning, Tom. “Narrative Discourse and the Narrator System.” Braudy and Cohen, 461-72.

Henderson, Brian. “Tense, Mood, and Voice in Film: Notes After Genette.” Film Quarterly 36, no 4 (1983): 4-17.

Kozloff, Barbara. Invisible Storytellers: Voice-Over Narration in American Fiction Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Lothe, Jakob. Narrative in Fiction and Film: and Introduction. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Wilson, George M. Narration in Light: Studies in cinematic Point of View. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Bourke-White marks the evolution from the machine aesthetic to the more human approach. She was perhaps the most famous and respected photographer of her time, she moved the art of photography and science of journalism ahead. By exposing the truth and documenting the time Bourke-White has made a positive impact on this world. … Mark has followed Bourke-White’s humanitarian calling. Mark continues to photograph the small people and the everyday problems, unlike Bourke-White who was the best photographer on the scene, Mark wants to be the only photographer.

Margaret Bourke-White to Mary Ellen Mark: Documentary Heritage

Mary Ellen Mark and Margaret Bourke-White are both considered classic documentary photographers. Though their careers may seem to differ radically they actually have a lot of similarities in their style and their lives. In 1971, the year that Bourke-White died of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 67, Mark was thirty years old and still doing film stills and other freelance work. Mark had not yet decided to fully pursue documentary photography, but she had already photographed all over the world and produced her first book, Passport. In a few years Mark would become devoted to documentary photography. After photographing her famous Ward 81 series she never returned to the movies. Earlier in her career, after freelancing in New York City for a year, Mark headed to India following in the footsteps of Bourke-White. Even before the Ward 81 series Mark was continuing Bourke-White’s work and style of documentary photography. Marks’s photos are the late 20th century version of Bourke-White’s early and mid 20th century work. Bourke-White and Mark share many themes, some of their works differ drastically- this is because the are responding to different times, different worlds, but they deal with these vastly different worlds with the same techniques and methods.

In the early twenties Bourke-White went to seven different colleges before she finally got her BA from Cornell. Just out of school she began photographing the industrial goings on in Cleveland, and three years later in 1929 she began doing freelance work for Fortune magazine. She continued doing industrial photography for Fortune magazine, but also broadened her horizons and began to photograph an assortment of other things—from ad photography to feature articles from inside the Soviet Union. In 1936 she became one of the first staff photographers for Life magazine, it was her photo of Fort Peck Dam that graced the first cover. During this time she was also working on photo essay books on Americans. During World War II she photographed in the Soviet Union, was the first female photographer in the US AirCorps, and was one of the first photographers to see the Concentration camps. After the war she became interested in India and began to photograph the Indian people as well as Gandhi. Later in her career she started to do documentary work for Life and Fortune again, visiting the mines in South Africa and Korean War. She had to stop her photographic career short because of Parkinson’s disease and died 1971. Bourke-White is one of the most famous American photographers, she was also a woman succeeding in the male dominated world of the 1920’s through 1950’s she was the first women and even the first person to do a lot of things (like photograph Lenin smiling). She is truly an American hero.

The life and times of Mark are as impressive as those of Bourke-White. Mark was born in Philadelphia in 1940. She got a BFA in art and art history in 1962. It was during her graduate studies at Annenberg School of Communication she turned to photography. After graduation she applied for and got a Fulbright scholarship to go to Turkey and photograph. Mark continued to travel and photograph after the scholarship expired and for the rest of her life. In 1968 she like Bourke-White went to India for the first of many times. She returned to America and moved to New York City were she took many freelancing jobs doing movie stills. This lead to her 1970 photo essay “What the English are doing about Heroin” published in Look. She published her first book Passport, in 1974 as a sort of journal of her earlier and more recent travels. Again movie stills led Mark to a photo series. Mark was shooting movie stills for the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on location in the Oregon State Hospital. She met the women living in ward 81. The next year she returned to stay thirty six days documenting the women. This collaboration with Karen Folger Jacobs became the famous book Ward 81. After the success of Ward 81 Mark returned to India, the first time in 1979 to photograph Mother Teresa and her charities and again in 1989, this time to photograph for Life. Most recently she has been in India to photograph its circuses. In 1988 Mark earned the Worlds Press Award for Outstanding Life’s Work, and at the age of forty eight- she has not showed signs of slowing yet.

The life stories of Bourke-White and Mark are similar, they are both women succeeding the world of documentary photography. But the true similarities lie in their subject matter, style, and lastly career. Their subject matter is sometimes shockingly similar. Take for instance Bourke-White’s Sweetfern, Arkansas, 1936 (pl. 1) and Mark’s Damm Family in their Car, 1987 (pl. 2). The subjects here are of the same demographic separated by six decades. They both depict a family suffering due to poverty, a man and wife with a child (children). The house behind Bourke-White’s Sweetfern, Arkansas becomes the car in Mark’s Damm Family in their Car. In both photos the house and car are the families most important possession, in reality are worth very little. Both families seem to teeter at the edge of destruction. Both mothers look off into the distance as if the struggle to survive each day has taken a immense toll. The men adopt a supportive posture, in Sweetfern, Arkansas the father sits defensively while holding a stick and looking at the camera, he leans in towards his family. In Damm Family in Their Car the father holds the mother and, like the other father, stares in to the camera. The two families wear shabby attire, the boy in Sweetfern, Arkansas doesn’t even have pants. The tonal ranges are more similar than these reproductions show. The Bourke-White has a more gentle contrast than shown. The major difference lies in the composition, though diagonals are prevalent in both. Mark photographed the Damm family for her “Homeless Family” series, Bourke-White photographed the family in Sweetfern for her book You Have Seen Their Faces. Bourke-White and Mark are using the same methods and treating the subjects. The viewer does not only feel pity for these families, they also feel a sadness for them because the photographs treat them as people so they are able to feel for them like they would their family and friends. Mark and Bourke-White got to know their subjects, though it is apparent in these photos that Mark knew her subjects a little better, they seem more comfortable and relaxed. The two photographs invite the viewer in the world of the subjects by portraying them in their typical surroundings. Both Bourke-White and Mark feel sympathetic for these poverty stricken families and are striving for change with these photos. Documentary photography is trying to say something, these photos are revealing as to inspire help for people in these situations.

There are many other Mark and Bourke-White photos that are very similar from the same time periods, like Bourke-White’s East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, 1936 (pl. 3) and Mark’s Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago, Illinois, 1987 (pl. 4). Both pictures show a young African American boy (with a dog in East Feliciana Parish, or a little brother in Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago). Without a parent in frame both boys stand in their cheap and worn housing. From the newspaper wallpaper in East Feliciana Parish to the mattresses sans bed sheets in Robert Taylor Homes, the homes that these boys live in give a good idea of how their life is. The boy in the Mark’s photo is staring into the camera as is his little brother, still in diapers he seems jaded as does his brother who is already bandaged. This clashes with the boy in Robert Taylor Homes who stares off to the side avoiding the camera’s gaze. The light comes from the side of the fame and lights his youthful face with a angelic glow, making the viewer think of innocence exploited Whereas the Mark photo Robert Taylor Homes with the confronting stare of the young boys is about lost innocence. Like Sweetfern, Arkansas and Damm Family in their Car the boys in Bourke-White’s and Mark’s photos are of the same poverty stricken demographic.

The differences in their housing and attitude reflect the changes that America has experienced during the fifty one years separating them. The poorer neighborhoods have been getting increasingly violent, younger and younger children are committing and dealing with violence. The number of violent acts committed by children under the age of 18 has been on the rise since the early 1980’s. The confronting stares of the young boys in Robert Taylor Homes signifies the alertness and attitude a child in the projects must grow-up with. The housing in both photos also offers an insight into their lives and the changes that have taken place over those 51 years. The Bourke-White photo show the boy in a run down house- but the house was his at least rented and kept up by his family. The neighborhood probably had an assortment of different members from the law abiding hard working people to the out of work and out of luck families. In Robert Taylor Homes the boys’ house is in the infamous Robert Taylor housing project in Chicago, Illinois. Housing projects are usually in the poorest and most crime ridden area of town (Robert Taylor is no exception), the schools are usually subpar and the housing inatqutite. People on welfare are sent to these projects by the hundreds, but there they do not find a supportive community, they simply find urban decay. East Feliciana Parish is about the rural poor and Robert Taylor Homes is about the urban poor. In the 1930’s when Bourke-White took East Feliciana Parish the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression were at hand. The country (even the government with the FSA) was watching the rural lower class (and even middle class) lose everything they owned. This is not to say that urban poverty was not a problem in the 1930’s it just wasn’t the focus of the country’s attention. Today America is focused on the failure of the projects and the rapid decay of many urban centers. Bourke-White and Mark know what was important to the country and the time- they photographed it and brought it to the attention of the world.

The similarities between Bourke-White and Mark go deeper than their mutual interest in the American poor and their sympathetic portrayal of these people. They shared a fascination with India and it’s people, they both spent extended periods photographing there. Bourke-White was able to meet and photograph Gandhi, over thirty years later Mark was in India photographing India’s other saint, Mother Teresa. They both enjoyed travel and photographed abroad extensively in the Soviet Union, Europe, and Asia. The middle and end of Bourke-White’s career is most akin to Mark’s. From the very start of her career Mark’s focus has been people, it wasn’t until the 1930’s and later that Bourke-White began to use people as her focus and even then not always. It is the way these women view and capture people that is so similar. In 1963 Bourke-White was quoted about her photographs during the Dust Bowl, “this was the beginning of my awareness of people in a human, sympathetic sense as subjects for the camera and photographed against a wider canvas then I had ever perceived before.” (Callahan 13). This “sympathetic sense” can be seen in her Life photos, her documents of the concentration camps, and in her pictures from India. From the first of her documentary work Mark has had clear concept about how she wants to use documentary photography and what she is trying to achieve through it. She strives to find the universals, to show real people to real people. “To touch on people’s lives [in a way they] haven’t been touched on before, it’s fascinating. You know, it’s one thing if [a celebrity] has an incredible character and you’re really going to be able to delve into their personality—that’s great. But you can never get real purity if people have been spoiled by the camera and don’t trust you. I like feeling that I’m able to be a voice for those people that aren’t famous, the people that don’t have the great opportunities.” (Fulton 26) These two women can be easily described as humanist in their desire to show people something they hadn’t seen or cared to noticed before, a by doing so illicit change.

It is obvious that the careers of Bourke-White and Mark are far from being identical; they are different people photographing at different times. The world is changing at an ever increasing rate. The world that Bourke-White grew up in and photographed was a vastly different place than the one that Mark, thirty six years her junior, did her growing up and photographing in. Bourke-White started her career photographing the industrial aesthetic in epic form. Architecture and machines were her subjects, not the people of her later years. Thanks to Alfred Steglitz and Paul Strand the machine aesthetic was in full swing. America was booming and production was at an all time high, the photographs and other art from this time reflect this excitement. America was, for the first time, the superpower it is today. Electricity, indoor plumbing, cars, planes, factories, grand architecture, and other industrial achievements had come so fast people were in awe of it. Bourke-White found it easy to photograph these factories, buildings, and workers in an epic way. It was from her industrial base that Bourke-White discovered and explored other subjects. She didn’t lack skill in tackling more emotional charged subjects like her India photos or her photos in Korea.

From the earliest days of Mark’s career people were always her subjects, from the people in Passport to the people in her movie stills. The interest with industry has faded as we become more accustom to living with new technologies. But now the focus becomes the human condition, which is due in part to World War II and the very personal effect it had on most of the world. Mark tries to find out about her subjects, to talk to them and get to know them some. Some documentary photographers and critics criticize this saying that she isn’t being objective- some say it’s great and she is getting deeper more powerful pictures. Unlike Bourke-White, Mark refuses to cover current news—Bourke-White did this a lot during World War II and in India. Now Mark only photographs what she wants and how she wants it. She goes for the long term stories rather than short term glory, she picked projects that she felt personally attached too. Mark was thrilled when she got the go ahead from Life to photograph Mother Teresa Missions of Charities. The subjects Mark’s photos of India are much like Bourke-White’s. Two of the most comparable works are Bourke-White’s The Monsoon Failed this Year, India, 1946. (pl. 5) and Mark’s Goudi at Home for the Dying, Mother Teresa’s Missions of Charity, Calcutta, 1981. (pl. 6). These photos are both of women, again probably of the same class. The subjects are remarkably similar in nature, both women are suffering in many ways. Bourke-White’s The Monsoon Failed this Year shows a older woman getting rice- she is almost skeletal with the bones in her arm showing through her skin. The same can be said about Goudi in Mark’s photo. Goudi’s arms and legs poke out of her gown like sticks. from. Both pictures depict almost identical subject with an immense emotional presence. Bourke’s photo is high in contrast with a harsh light coming from the upper right of the subjects. The woman is alone, she looks as if she has been caught mid motion, as looks out away from the camera. In contrast Mark’s photo has a large tonal range and flat lighting and little shadow. Her subject, Goudi, looks into the camera as does another women behind her, they seem comfortable but interested with the camera. Mark captures a larger picture, she includes Goudi’s surroundings as well as the people that she shares it with. In Bourke-White’s the woman stands alone out of context—as Americans the viewers can only guess where she is or what she is doing. Without the eye contact that Goudi gives, the women in Bourke-White’s picture is disconnected from the viewer and thus not as powerful. By allowing Goudi’s eye contact with the camera and by simply letting the viewer know Goudi’s name, Mark draws the audience into Goudi’s world and makes them see her as a real human. While the subjects are very similar and the sensitive way the two photographers dealt with them is analogous, the actual composition and tonality is totally different. This maybe due to the fact that Mark was able to travel and photograph without a writer. She had no narrative to follow, she was in charge and had to make no compromises. [But for the most part the differences shown here are the most obvious differences.] Bourke-White photographed the whole picture, as with her industrial and aerial work, or the little picture, each person as single entity. On the other hand Mark photographs in between; her photos either have a great depth to them or they are full of significant details. Mark is more intimate with her subjects, she spends weeks at a time with them, Bourke-White was from a more strict tradition of documentary photography, up until recently documentary photographers tried to keep a distance between them and their subjects, to keep their objectivity. Photographers now know there is little objectivity to begin with, and it is now understood that getting a more personal knowledge of the subject leads to a more informative picture.

Since it’s origins with the advent of photography documentary photography has been evolving. Bourke-White marks the evolution from the machine aesthetic to the more human approach. She was perhaps the most famous and respected photographer of her time, she moved the art of photography and science of journalism ahead. By exposing the truth and documenting the time Bourke-White has made a positive impact on this world. Her photos of India are our historical documents of their revolution, her photos of the concentration camps made the world now the extent of man’s inhumanity to man, and her photos of the rural poor help to institute the works programs of the New Deal. Mark has followed Bourke-White’s humanitarian calling. Her photos have informed people about mental institutions, the problems in India, and helped to draw attention to homeless teenage runaways. Mark continues to photograph the small people and the everyday problems, unlike Bourke-White who was the best photographer on the scene, Mark wants to be the only photographer.

Bibliography

Callahan, Sean, eds. The Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1972

Fulton, Marianne. Mary Ellen Mark 25 Years. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1991

Goldenberg, Vicki. Margaret Bourke-White: a Biography. New York: Harper and Row, 1986.

Mark, Mary Ellen. Passport. New York: Lustrum Press, 1974

Mark, Mary Ellen. Ward 81. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.

Rosenblum, Naomi. A History of Women Photographers. New York: Abbeville Publishing Group, 1994.

Rosenblum, Naomi. A World History of Photography. New York: Abbeville, 1997.

I just noticed that Andrea Modica is showing at Chicago’s Catherine Edelman Gallery; wish I could afford a Treadwell print - but “…8 x 10″ platinum/palladium contact prints made in an edition of 20 with 3 AP’s … range from $2000 to $6000 depending on how many have sold in the edition.” It looks like Modica is doing well; I only knew of her Treadwell, NY work but the newer Fountainhead, CO work seems equally as good. A slight departure from the doughy girls of Treadwell, The Foutainhead series reminds me of Roger Ballen’s work (Ballen has also shown at Edelman.) I think it maybe the rustic environments and eerie newborn animals.

Other Links
Andrea Modica at Edwynn Houk Gallery
Andrea Modica: Artist at Sandy Carson Gallery
Andrea Modica at G. Gibson Gallery

I was reminded of this essay when I recently posted about Antoine D’Agata’s social documentary work. I wrote this essay back in 2001; I was taking an English course on narrative from Rick Fehrenbacher. Being a fan of Jim Goldberg’s work I saw great a great opportunity’s to address the story at the heart of his work. Jim Goldberg’s Raised by Wolves is purely narrative. It is a story, as true as any story can hope to be; it is a story told through many mediums; it is the story of the streets. Jim Goldberg, a photographer by trade, spent ten years on the streets of San Francisco and LA “documenting” the citys’ homeless teens. Raised by Wolves is the story of Goldberg’s experience with these teens. This story takes on many forms: a traveling art gallery exhibit, a book, a website, and an experience. All of these radically different modes of narrative function to tell the same story. Raised by Wolves is the fabula at the core of these different manifestations, altered by different mediums and orders. But multiple venues are just the tip of the multimedia iceberg.

** In Rick Fehrenbacher’s Narrative course I also created where the class posted great links and essays about many types of narrative - I highly recommend taking a look.

Narratech: Storytelling in the Digital Age

This is one of my favorite photographic websites of all time. Photographer Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek have made a thing of beauty. A fashion spread meets Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Typologies, but way better. Another wonderful use of the semiotic photographic grid; Susan Eder and Marion Faller’s work also comes to mind. There are also shades of Nikki Lee’s subculture projects.

From Wim van Sinderen:

They call their series Exactitudes: a contraction of exact and attitude. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity.