Kozloff - Invisible Storytelling

Kozloff argues that The Naked City is an excellent example of a film using voice over narration to give the story a documentary-like feel, in order to make the point that there is truth to this story. Kozloff also states that the narration in this film is unique in its approach. It is not the melodramatic, detached “Voice of God” that was so present in other films of the day. The Naked City’s narration uses other methods to engage and include the audience. Foremost, it is self reflexive. In the beginning of the film we are told by the narrator that we are watching a film. He introduces himself, the cast and crew. Instead of the narrator existing in the fictional world along with the characters, he is acknowledging that it is all a construction at the hands of the filmmakers.
Kozloff claims that the filmmakers wanted the narration for The Naked City to have a literary feel, setting the tone of New York City in the gritty, hot summer through poetic descriptions. Mark Hellinger, the producer as well as narrator of the film, was in love with this idea of New York City, so the portrayal of Manhattan in this film is clearly biased. Normally this would be a problem, but since we are listening to a voice that is watching the film over our shoulder as opposed to being a detached god somewhere up in the clouds, the bias seems ok.
There is a sense of immediacy in Hellinger’s narration, as he directly addresses the characters as if they can hear him, particularly in the last sequence during the police chase. This makes the audience feel like the narrator is sitting in the theater along with them, as if he himself does not know the outcome. He also uses the present tense throughout the film. This is not narration that is hearkening back to the past. He is giving the audience facts as in a news report, furthering the documentary feel of the film.
Kozloff also challenges the opinions of Bonitzer and Doane, who say that narrators automatically have all the power because they come from a disembodied “other” that knows all and sees all, implying that that which cannot be seen is automatically powerful. Kozloff points out how we cannot see novelists or essayists, yet we still question and criticize them. This raised an interesting question: Why do we so readily accept what film narrators say as the truth? The Naked City played around with convention, but, in the end, the voice of Hellinger really did know everything. He stated in the very beginning that he had a hand in the film’s production. So for all his use of present tense, direct address and the occasional allowance of other characters to have their own (scripted) voice over, he was still the omniscient authority.