Voice-over is an often criticised screenwriting tool, but Milk highlights how it can be effectively employed to enhance a biopic narrative…

*Spoilers* Milk is bookended with its protagonist’s assassination. Between the announcement of the death of (gay activist and politician) Harvey Milk on page 2 of the script and the events leading to his assassination, climaxing with his shooting on page 101, the screenplay tells of the final eight pivotal years in his life. In order to tie the whole narrative together, the screenwriter uses a simple but effective technique that incorporates voice-over and flashforward.

The first image of Harvey is him in his kitchen dictating his will into a tape-recorder, and this continues sporadically throughout. Beyond just dictating his final wishes, Harvey’s recording serves as a taped autobiography, as he introduces, explains and illuminates key moments and events that we then see played out on screen. While we return to the kitchen at various points during the script, some of Harvey’s dictation occurs in voice-over, as he speaks over the action, which unfolds in flashback.

When it comes to the use of voice-over narration in screenplays, the advice is often ‘avoid at all costs’. The main reason is that voice-over is often used lazily to make up for creative deficiencies. By this, we mean that it’s employed to either a.) explain exposition and/or b.) explain character motivation.

In terms of character, some literary adaptations use voice-over narration to retain the internal monologue technique readily available to novelists. However, film is a visual medium and writing for the screen requires writing visually (‘show, don’t tell’). Indeed, in his classic book Story, Robert McKee writes:

‘…When we allow ourselves the comfort of ‘on the nose’ narration, we gut our creativity, eliminate the audience’s curiosity and destroy narrative drive.’

Robert McKee, Story, page 345

Flashback/forward also fall into this category, where we continually break the narrative flow to return to some earlier events that explain why a character is acting a certain way in the present or skip forward to see how something plays out.

There are lots of examples of films that use voice-over narration (and flashback/forward) well. The difference in these scripts is that the screenwriter had the experience and creativity to know exactly how and why to use the technique.

With Milk, it is important that we a.) get to know Harvey, empathise with him and root for him; b.) understand the extent of his commitment to his cause; c.) understand his background; d.) leave feeling optimistic, despite his untimely demise.

So, how do voice-over and flashforward/flashback help to achieve these goals? These techniques let us hear Harvey in his own words, talking to us about his life and (on page 7) introducing us to his  ‘world’ of The Castro district of San Francisco in the 1970s, a location which is culturally specific and integral to the plot.

While it’s true that the voice-over and flashforward add exposition, they come with Harvey’s reflection and editorialization. For example, on page 28, he says: ‘So in 1976, against everyone’s advice, I really pissed off the Democratic political power houses, because I ran against “their boy”.’ There is a further example on page 39.

The use of voice-over also moves the narrative forward, so we quickly get the information we need in order to understand the context of the story.

Returning to Harvey’s dictation and hearing him in voice-over also keeps the spectre of his assassination hanging over the narrative, reminding us that his victories were bittersweet. The most emotive example is on page 103, when flashforward becomes flashback, as we see the crowd that turned out at his memorial service, with Harvey talking about his posthumous wish for the movement to continue and leaving us with his lasting message of hope.

McKee’s overall advice on voice-over is that if stripping it out would still allow for the story to be told effectively, keep it in. This ensures that the writer does not rely on voice-over to ‘tell’ the story, only to add something that could not be revealed in any other way.

If you’re considering working with voice-over, make sure you understand why you’re using it and what it adds to the narrative. If it’s there simply to convey (or narrate) the story in spoken words instead of images and actions, the chances are it probably won’t pass McKee’s test. However, if it’s used to add a counterpoint, juxtaposition or comment; to take us into the protagonist’s mind in a way that is essential to the plot; or to convey essential information that cannot be revealed any other way, then it likely has a place in your script.

In the case of Milk, voice-over is used sparingly but effectively throughout to add an extra dimension to the story, leaving us with a more rounded, intimate picture of our protagonist.

Milk screenplay: http://www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/wp-content/uploads/screenplay/scripts/Milk.pdf

Go further:

Find further (and more extensive) examples of well-used voice-over narrative in Taxi Driver (1976), Goodfellas (1990), and Badlands (1973).