It's only words
The Artist was a disappointment from the off when I discovered that it wasn't the long hoped-for Kevin Painter biopic. My heart didn't exactly race when I learnt it was also going to be black'n'white'n'silent, but what with all the rapturous reviews I was always likely to go see it, even though I suspected deep down that it wasn't going to be for me.
This has nothing to do with being contrary for the sake of it (for once). The film is lovingly crafted and deserves all the baubles it has been and will be receiving. However I am simply a fan of words, and to me a film sans dialogue seems a waste.
I know all the counter-arguments - film is a visual medium, creativity is as much in the direction as in acting and dialogue, yadda yadda - and of course you'd be right. But from a sheer bloody-minded, personal perspective, words and dialogue are all.
For example, I actually listen to the lyrical content of songs. The very act of making such a statement seems bizarre, because I still find it hard to believe that there are people who regard lyrics as background filler, or even less. I know that the lyrical content of some pop tunes is of the throwaway variety, and that in many cases the production is so gloopy that the vocals become impossible to decipher. But some people feel this way about rock songs too!
I guess such people’s minds concentrate purely on the music, which is of course fine - they can read books if they want undistilled word action. It’s a perfectly valid point of view but one which until recently I hadn’t seriously considered. To me though words are an integral part of songs. I love the way a lyric that can look bland or nonsensical on the page gains immeasurable meaning when wedded to a tune, in the same way that a catchy melody or riff itself is elevated by a great couplet, or at least it is in my head. This is why I've never really gotten into dance music, to be fair...
Back to films, and this recent Alexander Payne interview from the Guardian. Clearly a perfectionist, Payne expresses his regret that The Descendants is "too talky" - this strikes me as an incredibly odd thing to say from a man whose films live and die by the richness of their characters, much of which is conveyed through dialogue.
Yes, you're arguing, but it's not just dialogue that defines characters. The look and feel of a film are crucial and you'd be the first to criticise a film for lacking visual flair. And consider at The Artist - everyone has fallen in love with those characters and they barely say a word!
Well yes, but that film is clearly an exceptional case. It's a nostalgia piece which lovingly sends up old-fashioned tropes, telling a simple story and relying on all our collective perceptions of that era and those films to carry it through. We're not going to see a wave of contemporary-set silent movies (well, not good ones anyway), because we require more than knowingly hammy performances to get to the bottom of modern-day issues. Posterity will regard it as a clever novelty rather than a great cinematic leap forward - or backward, I suppose.
As an addendum to this, and to slightly undermine the above point, I saw Shame this week which like many arty films is hardly weighed down with excess dialogue and still managed to affect me considerably. In such cases, however, the words themselves become a necessary red herring, the emotional meaning coming precisely from what isn't spoken and by your own brain's filling of the gaps inbetween. If that sounds pretentious, well all credit to Steve McQueen for ensuring that his film isn't.
Words - you don't half miss them when they're gone.
This has nothing to do with being contrary for the sake of it (for once). The film is lovingly crafted and deserves all the baubles it has been and will be receiving. However I am simply a fan of words, and to me a film sans dialogue seems a waste.
I know all the counter-arguments - film is a visual medium, creativity is as much in the direction as in acting and dialogue, yadda yadda - and of course you'd be right. But from a sheer bloody-minded, personal perspective, words and dialogue are all.
For example, I actually listen to the lyrical content of songs. The very act of making such a statement seems bizarre, because I still find it hard to believe that there are people who regard lyrics as background filler, or even less. I know that the lyrical content of some pop tunes is of the throwaway variety, and that in many cases the production is so gloopy that the vocals become impossible to decipher. But some people feel this way about rock songs too!
I guess such people’s minds concentrate purely on the music, which is of course fine - they can read books if they want undistilled word action. It’s a perfectly valid point of view but one which until recently I hadn’t seriously considered. To me though words are an integral part of songs. I love the way a lyric that can look bland or nonsensical on the page gains immeasurable meaning when wedded to a tune, in the same way that a catchy melody or riff itself is elevated by a great couplet, or at least it is in my head. This is why I've never really gotten into dance music, to be fair...
Back to films, and this recent Alexander Payne interview from the Guardian. Clearly a perfectionist, Payne expresses his regret that The Descendants is "too talky" - this strikes me as an incredibly odd thing to say from a man whose films live and die by the richness of their characters, much of which is conveyed through dialogue.
Yes, you're arguing, but it's not just dialogue that defines characters. The look and feel of a film are crucial and you'd be the first to criticise a film for lacking visual flair. And consider at The Artist - everyone has fallen in love with those characters and they barely say a word!
Well yes, but that film is clearly an exceptional case. It's a nostalgia piece which lovingly sends up old-fashioned tropes, telling a simple story and relying on all our collective perceptions of that era and those films to carry it through. We're not going to see a wave of contemporary-set silent movies (well, not good ones anyway), because we require more than knowingly hammy performances to get to the bottom of modern-day issues. Posterity will regard it as a clever novelty rather than a great cinematic leap forward - or backward, I suppose.
As an addendum to this, and to slightly undermine the above point, I saw Shame this week which like many arty films is hardly weighed down with excess dialogue and still managed to affect me considerably. In such cases, however, the words themselves become a necessary red herring, the emotional meaning coming precisely from what isn't spoken and by your own brain's filling of the gaps inbetween. If that sounds pretentious, well all credit to Steve McQueen for ensuring that his film isn't.
Words - you don't half miss them when they're gone.
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