Commentary in Night Mail

In Nichols book, a discussion takes place that expresses the idea that commentary in the expository mode should be separated completely from the images on the screen, and that the audience takes their cue from the voice commentary that they hear. While this was very true for both The Fog of War, and the Civil War, it was not nearly as true with Night Mail. The Civil War piece had an especially God-like voiceover tone, as we never saw the narrator. This was contrasted by The Fog of War, which was narrated by the literal subject of the entire documentary. I thought that the narration by Robert McNamara was extremely enjoyable to listen to, as the audience got to experience a little bit of his personality and character. That is something that was not available in the Ken Burn's piece, because it is impossible to get the real voices of people who fought in the Civil War. However, the commentary in Night Mail was different. Although there was an unknown, unnamed narrator that never appeared onscreen, the commentary did not feel completely God-like, as in the Ken Burn's piece. Instead, this commentary worked to combine with poetry, and seemed almost interactive with the film. This was especially accentuated in the scene where the commentary is an actual poem. We learned several things from this style of commentary. We learned again that the modes of documentary can overlap. Even though this piece was expository, there was definitely a poetic aspect to it. I also felt like this type of narration was closer tied to the images on film than some of the other pieces that we have viewed this week. This week was interesting, as it allowed us as viewers to see styles of narration that are not as common today, especially in the use of poetry to make an argument.