FIRST-PERSON NARRATION: The telling of a story in the grammatical first person, i.e. from the perspective of an "I," for example Moby Dick, including its famous opening: "Call me Ishmael." This form of narration is more difficult to achieve in film; however, voice-over narration can create the same structure. Orson Welles achieves similar effects in Citizen Kane through, for example, the judicious use of POV and over-the-shoulder shots. Such narrators can be active characters in the story being told or mere observers. First-person narration tends to underline the act of transmission and often includes an embedded listener or reader, who serves as the audience for the tale. First-person narration focalizes the narrative through the perspective of a single character. The question of motivation or psychology is therefore often raised: why is this narrator telling us this story in this way and can we trust him? For this reason, unreliable narrators are not uncommon.

 

 

 

 

 

Visits to the site since July 17, 2002