“From the beginning, film aficionados have felt the need to defend cinema as an art and to do so by setting it apart from other media, especially theater and literature. What makes film distinct and special, these theorists argue, is its capacity to convey information nonverbally—through mise-en-scène, editing, camera movement, POV, facial expression or pantomime.” This quote explains how some people like to say that cinema should not need a narrator in the background to explain everything. The film should be able to affect the audience nonverbally. Another point against voice-overs is explained in this quote, ” A fallback charge against voice-over narration is that using it is insulting to the audience. Voice-over narration is suspect because it is a means of “telling” rather than “showing.” “Telling” is judged as a mark of laziness and/or condescension.” This explains how voice-over narration can be perceived as insulting the audience because they can’t figure out the movie with out it being told to them.

I believe Kozloff is defending voice-over narration because she states positive comments towards voice-over narration, such as, “Voice-over narration is no more or less inherently valuable or cinematic then any other element of film. And when this device is well-executed, it opens up inimitable avenues for filmmakers.”This quote directly proves how Kozloff feels about voice-overs.

I am fairly familiar with voice-overs. I have seen several films with voice-over narrations. Kozloff’s writing intersects with my familiarity because I have never put any thought into the voice-overs and Kozloff has completely analyzed them in depth. It makes me think about how much really goes into a film.

One film that I enjoyed was, Stranger Than Fiction (2006). I feel that the voice-overs within the film were essential to the film because the entire movie was based off the narrations. In this sense, the argument about voice-overs being condescending towards an audience does not apply because the movie is completely based off of voice-overs.