Unconventional story-weavers and their "Ecstatic Truth": An analysis of voice-overs in documentary film

Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation takes theories of voice-over narration that are typically applied to fiction film and applies them to documentary film. It looks at issues of representation and truth values in the documentary films of Werner Herzog, John Marshall, Luis Buñuel and Karin Jurshcick. It argues that the choices filmmakers make regarding types of voice-over affect these issues and are therefore worthy of study. It argues that the unconventional story-weavers in documentaries like those of Marshall and Herzog‘s can inadvertently marginalise their subjects. It looks at Buñuel‘s Land Without Bread as an extreme example of an (intentionally) manipulative narrator. It suggests that a voice-over narrator that follows Chion‘s conceptualisation of the complete acousmêtre encourages audiences to engage on a more critical level. Finally, it argues that even a seemingly traditional narrator as seen in Jurshick‘sIt Should Have Been Nice After That can be unconventional and reveal an - ecstatic truth