Voiceover

A voice heard over the image, from outside the scene. Memory, confession or guide; a choice, never a patch.

Voiceover breaks the frame from above: a voice outside the scene, memory, confession, address, granted the right to speak over the world. It creates instant intimacy and a second timeline, the telling now and the told then, and the gap between them is a story of its own.

A choice, never a patch is the discipline: narration earns its place when the voice itself is an event, an unreliable teller, a letter, a last testament, and disgraces itself when pasted over scenes that failed to speak. The test is removal: if the film still stands, the voice was crutch, not character.