Movies about Unreliable narrator
The Unreliable Narrator: Gump (Tom Hanks) himself, who views the world through his own rose-tinted glasses and often has a somewhat surprising take on events.
Biggest Whopper: Not really a lie, but a characteristic mis-interpretation, is when Forrest believes that Jenny’s father is a good dad because “he was always kissing and touching her and her sisters”.
Monster A Go-Go (1965)
The Unreliable Narrator: A disembodied voice who attempts to make sense of this B-flick’s nonsensical plotting.
The plot, such as it is, involves astronaut Frank Douglas, who disappears on a mission. Meanwhile, a strange humanoid monster is discovered.
Biggest Whopper: In the final act, it’s revealed there was never any monster at all. Huh?
roadtrip (2000)
The Unreliable Narrator: Campus tour guide Barry (Tom Green), who seems to have a few screws loose, meaning his telling of this singularly odd story is somewhat suspect.
Biggest Whopper: It’s probably safe to say that most of the story is made up, but his bizarre conclusion to the tale (Jacob became a cult leader and killed himself, Rubin became a weed manufacturer) is — hopefully — entirely untrue.
Bazén (2003)
The Unreliable Narrator: Novelist Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling), who has to contend with her publisher’s daughter throughout most of the film – which is particularly troublesome considering said daughter enjoys to dabble in murder.
Biggest Whopper: The daughter in question turns out to be a total fabrication.
Mazací tuk (1978)
The Unreliable Narrator: In their duet ‘Summer Nights’, Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) both sing different versions of their summer romance.
His is rough and ready, hers is sunny and swoonsome.
Biggest Whopper: “I saved her life, she nearly drowned.”
Really, Danny? Really?
Rango (2011)
The Unreliable Narrator: A band of mariachi owls, who begin the movie by telling us that Rango (Johnny Depp) is going to die.
Biggest Whopper: Except that turns out to be a bunch of hooey.
Rango survives to see another day, and the owls modify their prophecy to reveal that of course Rango will die one day. Just not today.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
The Unreliable Narrator: After having his memory erased, Joel (Jim Carrey) starts remembering things incorrectly.
Biggest Whopper: Impossible to say, considering it’s never entirely clear just what is fact and what is false in this trippy drama.
My Best Fiend (1999)
The Unreliable Narrator: A man who’s used to providing narration, Werner Herzog discusses his rocky relationship with actor Klaus Kinski, who died in 1991.
Biggest Whopper: Without Kinski there to verify or deny any of Herzog’s outlandish stories, it’s impossible to tell if the great director’s making any of this stuff up.
Velká ryba (2003)
The Unreliable Narrator: A reversal of the traditional Unreliable Narrator, this, with Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) assumed to be a great big liar because his great big stories are just too, well, big.
Except then, of course, his stories turn out to be true.
Biggest Whopper: Will (Billy Crudup) believes that his father’s biggest whopper is the story of a big fish.
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Unreliable Narrator: Screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) tells us about his fateful encounter with faded silent movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson).
Biggest Whopper: Well, considering Gillis is dead as he narrates this tale, we’re not sure how much of his narration we can actually take as fact.
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Some Kind of Abstraction: A Look at Unreliable Narrators in Movies
Traditional storytelling relies on a coherent linear plot that ends with a satisfying conclusion — ideally leaving no questions for the audience. However, the ambiguous storytelling offered by an unreliable narrator often leaves an audience with a lot more to think about, examine, and analyze.
The execution of an unreliable narrator can vary; however, an unreliable narrator’s story is never trustworthy. They may simply be impaired in such a way that they are unable to give an accurate account of events in which they are involved.
Here, I intend to examine unreliable narrators in film and discuss how their fallibility creates a depth that can drastically alter the way a story is told. Since a discussion of unreliable narrators concerns examining crucial plot elements, this article will contain spoilers for “American Psycho,” 2000, “Fight Club,” 1999, “Forrest Gump,” 1994, “Joker,” 2019, “The Usual Suspects,” 1995 and “Rashomon,” 1950.
The simplest use of an unreliable narrator is for the purpose of a plot twist. Typically, the protagonist becomes aware that they are an unreliable narrator. “Fight Club” and “Joker” use this technique.
These films don’t call into question the events of the film, but simply recontextualize them as the audience and protagonist become aware of their misinterpretation. In “Joker,” the audience is shown a budding romance between Arthur Fleck and a woman in his apartment complex. However, later in the film, when Fleck goes to her for help, she acts like she doesn’t know him.
This is because she actually doesn’t. A brief montage reveals the relationship to be imagined. This is a crushing moment for Fleck, which serves as a catalyst for his transformation into the Joker and his movement into the final act of the film.
“Fight Club” utilizes this similarly in the existence of Tyler Durden, who is revealed to be the protagonist’s alter ego. The narrator, often referred to as Jack, suffers from dissociative identity disorder, more commonly known as multiple personality disorder. Throughout the film, Durden is presented as a separate character, until we discover that this simply is not the case.
Contrary to the term of an “unreliable” narrator, these films don’t intend for viewers to doubt the narrator’s accounts, aside from the ways the character deceived themselves.
There is certainly an argument that even if not intended, the presentation of their characters as unreliable can raise doubt about sequences in each film. Fleck being violently assaulted in the beginning of “Joker” could reasonably be read differently than how the scene is presented.
The assault, which ends in the death of three men, is presented as self-defense, considering these men harass and start beating Fleck. However, if we reevaluate this scene as Fleck misremembering the event as a means of justifying his actions, much of the film is recontextualized and the overall messaging greatly shifts.
In this reading, “Joker” is a film that presupposes that the mentally-ill are violent, instead of one that depicts the mentally-ill as being abandoned and driven to violence.
The ambiguity in “Fight Club” can be seen in its ending. In order to kill Durden, Jack shoots himself in the mouth. Jack survives this injury and goes on to watch as Durden’s “Project Mayhem” plan comes to fruition.
The film suggests Jack performed a sort of handgun lobotomy, presumably killing the part of his brain in which Durden resided.
While there are cases of people who have survived being shot in the head, it seems far-fetched to presume the shot only hit one specific part of his brain.
Even more far-fetched is the idea that Jack got up and began talking again as though he didn’t have a gaping hole in the side of his head, as the film depicts.
Jack dying is the most obvious alternate reading of that scene. Even if we do assume that Jack survived, there is no real confirmation as to which personality took control of Jack’s body.
The film depicts Durden’s “body” falling to the ground — which would imply the death of the personality, but there is nothing to say his imaginary body wasn’t killed, because the Durden persona took residence in Jack’s body completely.
The next trend of use of unreliable narrators comes in the form of films focusing on perspective. These films examine the different ways in which people look at situations and as such, much of their commentary focuses on this aspect.
“Forrest Gump,” “The Usual Suspects” and “Rashomon” exemplify this. “Rashomon” is an Akira Kurosawa film and a terrific example of an unreliable narrator, as it depicts the murder of a man and the rape of his wife from the perspective of four different witnesses.
These films don’t prioritize the audience determining what is or isn’t true, but more so invite the audience to examine their perspective in contrast to the characters.
“The Usual Suspects” shows this through the police interrogation of the character Verbal, one of five criminals involved in a deadly shootout. Verbal recounts the story leading up to the shootout as the police try to figure out its purpose and the identity of the elusive crime boss Keyser Soze.
At the end of the film, the detective interrogating Verbal realizes the entire story he and the audience were presented was a fabrication by Verbal — who is in reality Keyser Soze — and he gets away scot-free.
Verbal being portrayed as a cowardly conman plays into his fabrication and the “don’t judge a book by its cover” takeaway.
It would be impossible to determine what truly happened in the film as we only have one account by a man who was lying from the outset.
All four of the people depicted in “Rashomon” are morally objectionable. None of the versions of the story paint any of the people, be it victim or perpetrator, to be a “good guy.” The different sides of this story are recounted by a woodcutter and a monk, to a commoner, and the morally bankrupt nature of the story grants three different reactions from the three men.
The monk finds himself to lose faith in humanity; the woodcutter takes a similar tact, but unlike the monk is shown to be not so innocent. The commoner seems to take it as the nature of the world and embraces this reality.
Trying to piece together “what actually happened” in “Rashomon” is a fruitless endeavor, and the point of the film is to examine the nature of truth and justice in the framework the film presents.
“Forrest Gump” is another film in which the focus is not the events themselves, but the meaning which the audience derives from them. Forrest Gump has a mental disability and the film depicts his journey through life placing him in the center of a number of incredulous and historically significant events.
Gump is an unreliable narrator in that his disability often cuts through the filter of cynicism and broader social context through which the audience views the film. Gump misinterprets Jenny’s sexually abusive father as a man who “really loves” his kids; however, the audience is able to see clearly that he’s an alcoholic who has been abusing her.
Gump describes events that seem far-fetched, such as his founding of the Bubba Gump Shrimp company, his journey running across America several times, and meeting Elvis and inspiring the King’s signature dance style.
“Forrest Gump” is retelling a tumultuous time in American and world history through a lens which most people don’t have a frame of reference. You can sit through the film and scrutinize the plot but to do so would largely defeat the purpose.
While parts of Gump’s story may seem unreasonable, there are also elements that would indicate some of the events are true.
For example, when Gump recounts meeting President Nixon, he mentions that the president arranged for them to have better accommodations, relocating to the Watergate Hotel. The audience is then shown Gump calling in the Watergate break-in. However, Forrest glosses over this fact in his narration. To him, this incredibly important historical event is little more than an innocuous detail.
The film’s main point is examining perspective and how it shapes our outlooks on life. Jenny and Lieutenant Dan are miserable. Despite Gump suffering in many of the same ways, he sees past much of the misery that engulfs them.
One interesting reading of the film is that Forrest is the presence of God in the lives of others. In this interpretation, all of the events in the film are true, but Forrest is a stand-in for a divine influence on normal people.
It could be framed in the way “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones frames the devil’s involvement in historical events like the Bolshevik Revolution. Instead of “Sticking round St. Petersburg,” Gump was helping Lieutenant Dan cope with his lost sense of purpose following his survival of the Vietnam War.
Unreliable narrators can entirely alter the frame of the film and color the commentary. “American Psycho” is a film that does this. The film follows Patrick Bateman, a businessman, as he falls further into bloodlust. Bateman is a psycho not in just the colloquial sense of being “crazy” but a character who literally suffers from psychosis.
His retelling of the story can’t be trusted, as he will see and hear things that aren’t there. What makes “American Psycho” so intriguing is the ambiguity as to how many people Bateman killed, if any.
Many sequences in the film are absurd and would undoubtedly get Bateman caught were they real. Such as his running through his apartment complex in his underwear covered in blood, as he chases a prostitute while wielding a chainsaw; or openly shooting a man in the lobby of an office building.
In addition, Bateman’s secretary comes across his notebook, which is filled with depictions of murder, including kills shown on screen. Bateman is shown taking antipsychotics as part of his daily routine and before some lethal encounters such as the one with Paul Allen.
As the film goes on, Bateman becomes more and more paranoid about getting caught, reflected in the character of Detective Kimball who investigates Paul’s disappearance and frequently alludes to knowing things he couldn’t possibly have known unless present for the depicted killing — indicating he may be a figment of Bateman’s paranoia.
The film examines themes of a shallow corporate culture of social hegemony, where people are interchangeable. It depicts a social structure where elites treat the common man as disposable with a commentary on mental health and consumer culture. Which of these commentaries takes precedent largely comes down to whom you think Bateman actually killed.
For example, if the only murders that actually happened in “American Psycho” were Bateman’s murder of homeless men and prostitutes, the meaning of the film skews more towards a commentary on the social elite’s abuse of the lower classes. This reading emphasizes the film’s theme of the rich treating the poor as disposable and being able to kill them with impunity.
If you read the film with the assumption that Bateman killed Paul Allen, it takes a harsher stance toward a commentary of social hegemony in corporate culture. All of these businesspeople are so similar that they wouldn’t even notice if one of their own went missing. They already mistake their peers for other people.
The reading in which none of Bateman’s kills occur emphasizes a commentary on lacking mental health support and simply depicts a man going insane. Bateman wants to be stopped, but he can’t because he hasn’t actually done anything. He simply needs help, and feels trapped in a world where he is successful by social standards, but feels unfulfilled.
The point is that “American Psycho” — and all of these films — are granted a complex level of depth thanks to their leveraging of an “unreliable” narrator. What each viewer takes away from any of these films can be vastly different depending on their personal perspective — an interesting parallel to the way unreliable narrators riff on perspective themselves.
Autor Bio:
Garrett Hartman is a contributing writer at Highbrow Magazine.
For Highbrow Magazine
Top 10 Unreliable Narrators In Film
Who doesn’t like seeing a good movie? Whether it be from the comfort of your own home or venturing out for the silver-screen experience , there is something about the stories captured on film that brings us together and gives us something to talk about our shared experiences. And then, there are those films that make us stop and go “Whoa!” at the end, giving us something to think about for days, months, or even years after the closing credits. Many of these thinking movies feature the “unreliable narrator,” a technique where the narrative is told through the eyes of someone that turns out to be…well, maybe not the best person to have told us the story, either because of limited viewpoints, extreme biases, or personal agendas, to name a few. Here, we are going to look at some of the top feature films that use unreliable narrators to tell the tale.
10. Briony Tallis In Smíření
“How old do you have to be to know the difference between right and wrong?”
— Briony Tallis
In this 2007 Best Picture Oscar nominee and Golden Globe Best Picture- Drama winner, Saoirse Ronan (Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner) played teenage Briony who witnessed and misinterpreted the relationship between her older sister and their housekeeper’s son. This misunderstanding led Briony to accuse the young man, Robbie, of a horrible crime, the repercussions of which play out over several years. Sometime later, when Briony tried to make amends for the accusation that she levered against Robbie, her sister called her an “unreliable witness.” In the last scene of the movie, we find out exactly how unreliable her version of the story is.
PŘÍBUZNÝ:
9. Teddy Daniels In Shutter Island
“That’s the Kafkaesque genius of it.”
— Rachel Solando
In this Martin Scorcese film, Leonardo DiCaprio played Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall who went to the mental hospital Ashcliffe on Shutter Island, looking for a patient who seems to have disappeared. As his investigation went deeper into the intricacies of the island, Teddy suffered migraine headaches and flashbacks to his days as a soldier liberating the concentration camp Dachau in World War II. These episodes, along with the subtle incidents that took place during the course of the investigation, led up to the final scene when everyone’s roles on the island come to light.
8. Arthur Fleck In žolík
“I’ve got nothing left to lose. Nothing can hurt me anymore. My Life is nothing but a comedy”
— Arthur Fleck
The character of The Joker has been around for 80 years in one incarnation or another. Most of us are familiar with Batman’s criminal foil . The 2019 movie starring Joaquin Phoenix showed a different version of the Joker’s origin story from the generally accepted story where he slipped and fell in a vat of poisonous chemicals. This account delved into Fleck’s early childhood abuse and struggles with mental illness. The depiction of mental illness in the film generated talk and caused a few doctors to weigh in on the topic and the stigma of mental illness. Dr. Valentin Skryabin from Moscow Research and Practical Centre for Narcology of the Moscow Department of Public Health wrote an article attempting to diagnose Arthur Fleck’s character for Cambridge University. His character in the movie had hallucinations of dating his neighbor and then moved on to kill anyone who did not shower him with admiration or who opposed him in any way. The Joker is not someone we can trust.
7. Leonard Shelby In Memento
“I have to believe in a world outside my own mind.”
— Leonard Shelby
Stejně jako hlavní hrdina v Shutter Island , the main character in Christopher Nolan’s 2000 Memento is also on a quest to find a killer . In this case, Leonard Shelby was looking for his wife’s rapist and killer. During this attack, Shelby was also clubbed in the head, causing him to become an amnesiac who cannot form new memories. Shelby resorted to using Polaroid (remember those?) pictures and even tattooing information onto himself so he could have something to refer to in his search for the attacker . Not only did the audience need to keep track of these clues, but the story was told in reverse chronological order. When another character in the film said to Shelby, “You make up your own truth,” it was most likely a warning to the audience as well.
5 And 6. Nick And Amy Dunne In Gone Girl
“The primal questions of a marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other? What will we do? ”
— Nick Dunne
WARNING: MILD SPOILER ALERT FOR GONE GIRL
In Gone Girl , the Dunnes seemed like a warm and loving couple until Amy went missing. Then, we discovered the dark truth behind the seemingly loving public relationship filled with resentment, betrayal, and deception. Nick had been cheating on Amy, who resented him because they moved from New York to Missouri for his family obligations. The first part of the movie was through Nick’s perspective as he realized that his wife had disappeared and the clues that the police were following all led to Nick killing her. Then, the perspective shifted to Amy, who was alive and well, reveling at the cryptic web she created for her husband. The viewers ended up seeing how two people who should not be together were trapped in this relationship to live out a twisted fantasy.
4. Malcolm Crowe In The Sixth Sense
“They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead.”
— Cole Sear
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT FOR THE SIXTH SENSE
One of the most talked about movies to end the 1990s, The Sixth Sense was a sensation with movie-goers back in 1999. Centering around Bruce Willis as child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, the film followed Crowe who had taken on a new patient after a former patient shot him and then took his own life. Crowe felt that by helping this boy, Cole, he would find closure in his failure to help the troubled young man.
He signs on to help this child after he has been shot by a former patient who is distressed that Crowe was unable to help him, and after shooting Crowe, he takes his own life. Crowe feels that by helping this new boy, Cole, he will be able to bring closure to his not being able to help the troubled young man. According to Malcolm, his patient’s death had affected him so much that his marriage suffered with his wife barely speaking to him.
The huge twist in the movie was that *VAROVÁNÍ: SPOILER* Malcolm had died from the gunshot wound. He did not realize his state until the end of the movie. It all made sense now why his wife acted that way and seemed to be ignoring him. He and Cole (who “sees dead people) had been helping each other so both could move on
3. Pi Patel In The Life Of Pi
“Mr. Patel’s is an astounding story, courage, and endurance unparalleled in the history of shipwrecks. Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.”
— The Writer
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT FOR THE LIFE OF PI
Život Pi was told through the eyes of 16-year-old Piscine “Pi” Patel, who was moving with his family from India to Canada. His family owned a zoo, and were transporting some of the animals via ship for an ocean journey to their new home. Unfortunately, a storm hits and the ship sank at the beginning of the journey. Pi was able to jump into a lifeboat, along with an injured zebra and orangutan. As the lifeboat floats away, Pi realized that a vicious hyena was also on board. He also saw another survivor in the water and went to help him into the lifeboat, realizing too late that it was Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger. As they floated along, the hyena killed the zebra and the orangutan before Richard Parker killed the hyena. Pi and Richard Parker learned to live together on the lifeboat for over 200 days until they reach Mexico. Upon exiting the boat, Richard Parker walked off into the jungle. Pi was rescued and taken to a hospital.
An insurance adjuster from the shipping company came to interview Pi, who told him about the animals . His audience was very skeptical of this version of the story. Pi retold his story, but this time, the zebra was a sailor, the orangutan was his mother, and the hyena was the ship’s cook. The cook killed and cannibalized the sailor, and then killed Pi’s mother as well. Pi then killed the cook. Later in life, he asked a writer who has come to interview him (along with the audience) which version of the story he preferred. The writer told him the first one, to which Pi replied, “and so it goes with God.”
2. Verbal Kint In Obvyklí podezřelí
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist..”
— Verbal Kint
WARNING: SPOILER ALERT FOR THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Most of 1995’s Obvyklí podezřelí took place in a police interrogation room. A criminal heist had taken place on a boat that exploded, leaving two survivors. One of the survivors was taken in for questioning. In a series of flashbacks, Verbal Kint explained how he and the other men involved were brought into the situation. As he spun his story, he explained how the mastermind, Keyser Soze, was behind everything. For the interrogating inspector, Kujan, the story checked out, bail was made, and Verbal Kint was set free. After Kint’s departure, Kujan looks around the interrogation room and realizes that what “Kint” had said was made up. Realizing it too late, Kujan ran after Kint, knowing that he was actually Keyser Soze. He got to Soze just as drove off in his getaway car never to be seen again. This left the audience with questions about who the characters actually were, if they are alive or dead, or if anything they just heard actually happened.
1. The Bandit, The Wife, The Woodcutter, And The Samurai In Rašomon
“It’s human nature to lie. Most of the time we can’t even be honest with ourselves.”
— The Commoner
This 1950 Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa, one of the directors who influenced George Lucas and Hvězdné války , is considered one of the greatest films of all time. It tells the tale of a murdered samurai found in the woods. The film also created a psychological term, the Rashomon effect, as none of the witnesses, including the ghost of the samurai, had the same account as to what really happened. It took an outside observer, The Commoner, to figure out the role one of the key characters played in taking the valuable dagger.
These are ten of the most interesting, yet untrustworthy, storytellers in cinema history. Keep in mind that there is usually a grain of truth in every story, and that grain of truth reflects on the person in the audience watching.
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