Narratively speaking, An American in Paris tells a pretty straightforward story. Jerry wants to be a superstar painter, and he wants to make Lise his lady. Sounds easy enough, right? Not exactly. But while Jerry struggles to conquer the art world and get the girl—not knowing that she's already got a guy—the movie's narrative weaves these two aspects of Jerry's story together seamlessly. The flick doesn't use any narrative tricks like flashbacks or talking heads to chart Jerry's development as an artist and as a man.

It does, however, use a trio of voiceovers to introduce the three main men in the movie: Jerry, Adam, and Henri. Jerry kicks the film off by introducing himself as a former solider who stuck around Paris after World War II to paint. Then he passes off voiceover duty to Adam, who explains that he's a concert pianist before tossing narrator duties over to Henri, who tells us that he's a singer.

The use of voiceover is abandoned for the rest of the film, but it's a nifty means of introduction for three of the picture's major players, as they tell us who they are, how they know each other, and what they're all about, all in their own words.