The route of invisible voices. Narrative voice in Spanish fiction cinema of early Francoism

Abstract

The use of a voice-over narrator in the outstanding early Franco fiction comes directly from those other voices from comments, tutelary and persuasive, used already on the news and documentaries from the Civil War (from which there are traces in these films). At the same time, the recognized self-conscious nature of some of these films is due to the use of this voice, to a great extent, of the sometimes melancholy and sometimes parodic but always thoughtful burden that characterizes them. From the tone of fable of El hombre que se quiso matar (Rafael Gil, 1942) to the manipulative will of Bienvenido Mr. Marshall (Luis García Berlanga, 1953), narrator intervention involves, in different degrees depending on the case, the will to establish a good communication with the interior of the diegesis, in the direction of the characters, or to the outside, seeking the involvement of the subject-spectator.