What's Wrong with Dialogue


I saw this on in an article by Jane Ridley in the NY Daily News about Tarantino's next film "'Inglourious Basterds", which premiered at Cannes:

"However Jones attacks its length, adding: "its director should certainly have trimmed more of its flab".
Mike Goodridge of Screen International agrees. He says it "offers considerable challenges to the attention span of mainstream audiences" and "devotes much of the running time to dialogue"

I'm tired of people thinking dialogue is a waste, or boring. For those with short attention spans please leave, and keep playing your video games. I guess I can go on, and on about this, but if you take a look at a lot of the films of the 40's and 50's there was nothing but dialogue, and it was GOOD dialogue at that.

Maybe I'm an old fart, but damn just watch the movie for the story. If the dialogue is too pretentous you'll know. If you liked the movie good, but if you were bored by the all the dialogue stop going to movies. Instead just continue on going to those amusement parks. I'm sure you won't be bored there.

The article is pretty interesting about how critics see Tarantino. I've enjoyed his films, and he takes his material from some very obscure, but interesting films. Tarantino is also original, and I just want to say that. He's a favorite, and I'm sure his film will just do fine.

Comments

Len Esten said…
I like dialogue in films. I like Quentin's movies.

Dialogue is action using words instead of physical movement and thus can have a place in the telling of any story. But I do realize that heavy use of dialogue in films works against its nature. Films are at their best when they concentrate on what they do well: convey story visually.

Most people think a movie is a single thing: lots of action and visuals. Where really that is just the thing movies do best, not the only thing a movie can be.

So I can see where people are coming from. Though I don't agree.
5/28/2009 5:14 PM
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