Daily Dialogue — August 13, 2014

“If so, you’ve come to the right party… You see, the body of a young man was found floating in the pool of her mansion, with two shots in his back and one in his stomach. Nobody important, really. Just a movie writer with a couple of “B” pictures to his credit. The poor dope. He always wanted a pool. Well, in the end he got himself a pool — only the price turned out to be a little high…”

— Sunset Blvd. (1950), written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder & D.M. Marshman Jr.

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Voice-Over Narration. Today’s suggestion by Eric Harris.

Trivia: In one of the opening shots the camera looks up from the bottom of the swimming pool at the face of Gillis’ body floating in the pool with police on the poolside looking down. It’s not possible to shoot through water and get a clear image beyond. This was solved by placing a large mirror on the bottom of the pool and shooting into it’s reflection. This wasn’t the original opening and was filmed long after completion of filming.

Dialogue On Dialogue: We see something of an homage to this V.O. monologue in the opening to another movie: American Beauty:

“My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighborhood; this is my street; this is my life. I am 42 years old; in less than a year I will be dead. Of course I don’t know that yet, and in a way, I am dead already.”

In both cases, we are hearing the voice of a dead man, providing us the ending of the story. We call that audience foreknowledge. It plants a big question in our minds: How does the guy end up dead? That plays under everything that transpires throughout the story.

A great use of voice-over narration.

If you have any suggestions for this week’s theme, please post in comments.

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