Great Movies with Narratives - Need Help

[BillyTucci]

Hello all,
So can you help me  compile a list of great movies with narratives that worked?  You know, like the Princess Bride?  I wrote Gremlin Effect like a story book and will post the opening scene.  Some out in L.A. are telling me it doesn't work and the intemitten V.O. slows down the film.  I really feel that it does.  I need some help here...

[BillyTucci]

FADE IN:
INT. RAF MUSEUM AT HENDON -- DAY

From the rafters of the cavernous Royal Air Force Museum we FOLLOW the patter of a child's footsteps and the tears of a YOUNG BOY carrying a broken model aeroplane.

The six-year old races through an honor guard of steel - veterans of the greatest air battle in history now silently resting across one another upon a field of gray carpet.

The boy darts up a flight of stairs to the gallery level and GREAT GRANDFATHER, 80's, nostalgically staring out at the Museum's BATTLE OF BRITAIN HALL and its vast array of BRITISH and GERMAN WORLD WAR TWO AIRCRAFT below.

                                    BOY
                          Papa?
                       (nudges Grandfather)
                          Papa?
                       (holding up the model)
                          Can you fix it?

                                   GRANDFATHER
                         What?  Oh.  Let me see.
                       (smiling)
                         Spitfire?  

Like every human we will encounter, Great Grandfather's face is never seen in full.  Instead we focus on his various WAR MEDALS, facial expressions and weathered hands fumbling with the broken wing and propeller he vainly tries to reattach.

                                  GRANDFATHER
                         Where's a gremlin when you need one.

                                   BOY
                         What's a gremlin?

                                  GRANDFATHER
                         You mean to tell me you've never heard of gremlins?  

Grandfather sits in a nearby leather club chair where a sign reads:  "Need a rest?  Take a seat."  The old man lays the pieces on an end table and CALLS the boy onto his lap.

                                  GRANDFATHER
                          Well, it was a long time ago when I wasn't much                   more than a boy myself...

FRAMED by a small SQUARE PORTAL, we PULL OFF the two, THROUGH the portal and out the far side of a camouflaged FIGHTER PLANE.  

We will soon learn the name of this aircraft and that the portals are actually opened ACCESS HATCHES located just aft and on either side of the cockpit.  

We continue PANNING down to the inner multicolored RAF ROUNDEL painted on the fuselage which WARMS into a MORNING SUN cinched in a ring of dancing dandelion fluff.

                                  GRANDFATHER (V.O.)
                        It was the summer of 1940.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. MEADOW - ISLE OF WIGHT -- DAY

                                   GRANDFATHER (V.O.)
                        "The Spitfire Summer."

A flash of WHITE and TEAL skims across a rolling countryside of green hills called "downs."

Sky surfing atop a SHRIKE FEATHER is ROO-BOY ROBBINS, a teenage GREMLIN who darts in and out of flower patches, tree branches, twigs, and scattering mice and quails.

Having the time of his life, and standing no more than 8 centimeters (3 inches) tall, the red-haired rebel wears overalls and sports a rooster-like MOHAWK.  

Pulling hard on the quill, our pointy-eared sky-surfer directs the streaking feather towards a picturesque CLIFF-SIDE FIELD, whose grass blades undulate back and forth like an inviting sea of green.

Suddenly, a FRIGHTENING ROAR followed by a HURRICANE-LIKE GALE tosses Roo-Boy head over heals and tumbling into a patch of forget-me-nots.  

And the wispy form of the feather is replaced by the elegantly elliptical lines of a SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE that streaks directly over our diminutive daredevil and gently bounces onto the open field.

One more Spitfire soon follows.

Then another.

And another.

All told, SIXTEEN of these camouflaged prop-driven fighter planes (the aircraft we passed through in the museum) land in the meadow, now abuzz with activity.  

                                    GRANDFATHER (V.O.)
                   It was early August when 13 Squadron arrived at Royal Air Force satellite base "Totland."

And as the ROYAL AIR FORCE STANDARD rises into the summer sky, hundreds of uniformed humans suddenly appear to strategically direct these powerful steeds into line.

Painted on the fighters fuselages are large LETTERS coded  "GB" followed by a single alphabetical letter identifying and personalizing each aircraft (i.e. "GB-A", "GB-B", "GB-C" etc.).  

                                 GRANDFATHER (V.O.)
                 Coming from Newcastle, the Isle of Wight seemed like a   beautifully green, rolling paradise.  But of course, the island's inhabitants already knew that.

[BillyTucci]

Of course the true formatting gets a little bogged down here, but you can see where I'm going.

[sattch]

Here's what I got:

Stand By Me
Goodfellas
Fight Club
A Christmas Story
Sunset Blvd.
Adaptation
A Clockwork Orange
Taxi Driver
American Beauty
Magnolia
High Fidelity
A River Runs Through It
Shawshank Redemption
Forrest Gump

I've worked as a reader and I think, like car crashes and CG, VO is looked down upon because most writers never grasp how to use it.  In good movies, it is used to serve the story, either by articulating the emotional stakes (American Beauty, Taxi Driver, Christmas Story), counterpointing a situation (Forrest Gump, Goodfellas, Adaptation) or becoming a self-referential subplot itself (Fight Club, Princess Bride, Adaptation).

Most bad VO's in scripts I've read tend to slow the story down with exposition.  A little exposition is fine in the first act, but after that, you're shootin yourself.  

Exceptions to all rules though... Jerry Maguire has a ten minute opening VO sequence that, 'on the nose' as they say, tells you everything about the main character and his struggle.  Citizen Kane used expositional VO throughout the movie, at the start each of the flashbacks.  

If you've written the script, go back thru and take out every line of VO and see if the story stands alone.  Seems like that'd make a good test....

just my two cents

T

[suryanijan]

Just off my head, two foreign movies -

Like Water for Chocolate
Cinema Paradiso

And then you have ...

Moulin Rouge
Hucksucker's Proxy

Will post any others I remember once I wake up ... sleep posting is hell.

[JCVaughn]

Just off my head, two foreign movies -

Like Water for Chocolate
Cinema Paradiso

And then you have ...

Moulin Rouge
Hucksucker's Proxy

Will post any others I remember once I wake up ... sleep posting is hell.

The Longest Yard.

[BillyTucci]

Most bad VO's in scripts I've read tend to slow the story down with exposition.  A little exposition is fine in the first act, but after that, you're shootin yourself.  

If you've written the script, go back thru and take out every line of VO and see if the story stands alone.  Seems like that'd make a good test....

just my two cents

T

Thanks Saatch!  I understand too that some V.O.'s could bog down the story, but think it works here.  The premise of the story is a veteran explaining the BoB to his great-grandson utilizing Gremlins and Goblins.  But to truly appreciate the sacrifice of this very important stand in history, I couldn't take out all reality and also needed to give a nod to those veterans who sacrificed so much...

I will heed your advice and re-read the script again to see if I can do without it, or at least lessen it.  I'm open to anything that would improve it, but still feel the V.O. works for this particular script.

Thanks!  I'll keep you up to date.

[Doc Furious]

Mckee story seminar mocked big time in "Adaptation" says VO narrative is a crutch which is why H'wood frowns on it.

Most of your seminal noir classics are VO narratives and certainly Sam Fuller's "Big Red One" is narrated by the Fuller character played by Robert Carradine.  Howard Hawks classic western Red River eschewed traditonal voice over narrative but cut repeatedly to a "history book" moving the story along.

The real problem with Hollywood mentality is that they would rather remake everything than deal with something fresh and original.  The concept of combining wartime action with a kid's fantasy (albeit delineated as "the good fight") may blur the lines of what corporate
lawyers and faceless minions concur as solid B.O.  That being said, LOTR regardless, there are companies like Pixar willing to take chances and even split from the Disney monolith.  Even Paramount is gambling a little with "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow".

Don't be discouraged by the acolytes of McKee whom Ive never taken and have no intention of ever taking.

Ive done 3 feature scripts and finally sold one myself sans agent to the folks I did "Flesh for the Beast" for.
Sure it's the ultimate B-movie but it'll give me street cred.

Stick to your vision, Billy.

Rich

PS Stanley Kubrick's 3rd person narration directly from the novel BARRY LYNDON