My first post was about the use of voice over. This movie breaks most of the rules about the good use voice over.
But first I'm going to tell you a quick story. Last weekend I saw William Goldman speak. A person asked him the question: "Tell about time you were stuck writing and how solved the problem." Goldman told the story about when he started writing the book (I presume) for The Princess Bride, he had all these great ideas but he couldn't figure out how to string everything together. Then he realized that he wasn't the one writing the story Morgenstern wrote the story and his father had told him the story. When you're working with an oral story, not everything fist together perfectly. Details are forgotten. Details are embelished. It doesn't matter what the actual story is.
In the film version, the story is read by the grandfather, who skips parts at the request of the grandson and takes breaks. We accept the fact that not everything is going to be there, because we've been there. We've been the kid listening to the story begging the reader to get to the good parts, and we've been the storyteller trying to keep the kid interested.
Because of conventions we not only accept it but we expect it, and the fact that all the story isn't there makes the story more believable.
In one of my screenplays I have a problem with exposition. It needs to get out, but the way I had initally was way too obvious. then I realized, one of the conventions of the heist genre is that the cops always talk about the history of the criminals. If I have them do it, it makes sense and the audience is expecting it.
When I'm blocked the next time I'm going to remember this story and try to figure out a different way to get to where I need to be, and maybe use the conventions of the genre to solve the problem.
The Princess Bride - http://www.sendspace.com/file/91i86u
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