The narrator is the one who tells the story (narrates) and is seen as an instrument, a construction or a device. He is responsible for how the viewer perceives the story. The narrator can be characterized be the means of voice, focalization, distance and relieability. In the following text I´m particularly focusing on the movie “The Unusual Suspects “ in order to describe the function of a narrator.
In the Film we have two narrators. The main narrator is Verbal Kint and at the end we can see the police officer `Kujan` also narrating. Verbal Kint is not only the narrator he plays also a role in the film, he is responsible for most of the scenes we see and he is a voice over to the next sequences.
The first aspect we can analyse is the voice of the narrator. We can to this on a grammar basis or by looking at the actual voice. On the grammar side we can differ between several persons: 1st to 3rd person. In the movie we have mainly the 3rd person because even in the moments where Kint switches to the first person he always has refer to the actions of other characters in 3rd person. Only within the many voice overs we can hear Kint actually narrating.
The next point is focalization which means the lens through which we perceive the action. In the movie we can differ between the Inner and the Outer Frame: The latter one being Kint and Kujan in the police office. The inner frame is completely dependent on the information given by Kint which is spontaneously made up by him and gives the viewer no choice but to see with his perception (imagination).
Further the distance, describing the level of involvement of the narrator, is very important. With Kint as narrator we have an actual character as narrator, which means that he is deeply involved or distance is very small. In the film Kint makes up the stories around him.
The last point to characterize the narrator is the reliability. The reliability is determined by the voice, the focalization and the