Miranda July On Overcoming Doubts To Narrate Oscar-Nominated ‘Fire Of Love’: “What Do I Know About Volcanoes?”

deadline.com:

When filmmaker-actor-writer Miranda July was approached about narrating the documentary Fire of Love, she didn’t see herself as an obvious choice. “I was like, I don’t know,” she recalls, “I’m not like a narrator per se.” Then there was the subject matter of the film – which has gone on to earn an Oscar nomination – the story of French couple Katia and Maurice Krafft, who gave their lives to the study of volcanology. “What do I know about volcanoes?

Nothing,” July tells Deadline. But then the film took hold of her. “I watched this sort of early version, I guess an early cut.

And I was so shocked that at the end I was really emotional, as if volcanoes were my thing. And I realized, oh, it’s just this devotion that I relate to.

That just kind of punched me in the chest or something.” What ultimately convinced July to say yes to narrating was a conversation with director Sara Dosa. “I met Sara over Zoom, and I was like, oh, a lot of that devotion and sort of daring and passion is them, is the Kraffts, but a lot of it is this woman director who is just so emotionally present and there, in a way that I completely related to… We both realized that we process everything through our work.” July makes for an atypical documentary narrator – the antithesis of the “voice of God” authoritative style so common in nonfiction films of an earlier era.