The name Sam Elliott may not immediately bring to mind a face, but upon hearing his voice, most people find him instantly recognizable. It may in fact be one of those voices that for most people a face is never put to, a bodiless entity that exists in a form too pure and thunderous to belong to an actual human being. His slight southern drawl and deep bass voice makes him seem like a natural fit for any voiceover work that requires dialogue dripping in cowboy masculinity, you know, like truck commercials. This impression is played up for comedic effect, and fantastically so, in The Big Lebowski. A movie whose concluding moral is “the Dude abides” is well served by this kind of vocal authority.
There comes a point in a medium when all the styles start to sound the same, and this can be as true to movies as it is to radio announcers or TV newspeople or stage performers. It’s the ones that stand out that really make an impression, and I suspect that this is just a unique gift that a person stumbles upon, and one that I envy greatly.
Are there any great voices in movie narration that you personally treasure? Voice your thoughts in the comments section below.