Narration, in a traditional documentary or non-fiction film, is straightforward: the words spoken are illustrated by images on the screen and the narrative itself progresses seamlessly; a story is told. In the video essay, however, narration can take advantage of the “liminal space between sound and image.” That is, narration no longer needs to illustrate the images on screen. Narration, in the video essay, can contradict the imagery of the video. These contradictions force interpretation when sound and image don’t coincide. In this way, the video essay “disrupts the smooth, impenetrable surface of standard cinema.”

The conflict between sound and image in the video essay not only forces a deeper interpretation, but also allows the essayist to say many things simultaneously. The video essay is layered; it expresses itself differently through two separate senses and captures the contradictory nature of the essay. As in all essay forms, the viewer (or reader or listener) either determines a way to accord the inherent contradictions of a contemplating mind, or accepts a détente. The difference, in the video essay, is that contradictions can happen immediately, in one moment.

One such example is evident in the first two minutes of “Ode to Every Thing”. The narration begins with Eula Bliss listing the items in her son’s books. The visual images do not correspond to the listed items (apple, cup, car, dog, doll, car, glove), instead, we see airplanes slowly swinging by, attached to a mobile. As Bliss continues to list items, the planes become fuzzy and distant, as if the camera is the baby’s perspective, and the plane has moved out of his/her near-sighted eyes. This juxtaposition allows the viewer to inhabit two perspectives: we listen to Bliss’s thoughts about objects; and we experience the objects as her baby does. It seems odd, then, when Bliss says, around 1:47, “part of me suspected it was not the boy that made the Velveteen rabbit real, but the rabbit that made the boy real.” The viewer sees images that correspond to a baby’s experience (as soon as Bliss says this, the scene goes fuzzy and black, and focuses poorly on candle-lit toys), and yet, through the narration, we hear Bliss question the experience. “Ode to Every Thing”, through sound and image, expresses a contradiction: The baby makes objects real; the objects make the baby real.

I wonder how far a video essayist could go with this layering. How many contradictory (or at least conflicting) layers could there be? Can sound effects and music further complicate the essay? I really want to say yes, but then again, at what point does the essay become confusing and the interpretation tedious? The essayist doesn’t want to “pander to a passive audience,” but neither, I think, does the essayist want to alienate them.