Best Dialogue of All Time

A good conversation might be the most efficient way to tell a story. This week, we're looking at the best flirting, bickering, threatening and subtext-filled bantering. These are our picks for the best dialogue of all time.

'In Bruges': Morality In Dialogue

Here's an interesting analysis of a favourite film.

Actors, dialogue and the art of listening

Writers tend to worry about dialogue, with good reason. A bad line can kill a scene. A good line can become the buzz phrase of the year. And be quoted in the actor's biography, with all credit to them, but that's the business we've chosen.

This blog has borrowed a few quotes from Michael Caine's book Acting in Film. It was written for actors, but provides food for thought to writers as well. Here's one more.

Hannah and Her Sisters

Many writers fail to appreciate just how much a good actor can extract from a single word. Michael Caine explains:

You can bring new life to an apparently mundane reply by planning a thought process based on a key word and then never voicing it.

Other actor: "Would you like some tea?"

You:  "Yes, please."

"Tea" is the key word. The simple word "tea" can open up so many responses. Let's say you would have preferred coffee. The minute the other actor says "tea," your eyes will change because you'd really like coffee. Or maybe you're allergic to tea. Then you answer politely, but with a bit of anguish, knowing that you won't really drink it. The camera thrives on niceties like that; yet you often see actors missing out on these little presents that can open whole realms of possible action.

"Tea" could be an indication that he's too poor to offer you booze, or that he regards you as an alcoholic who shouldn't be offered a drink. Take the script and explore these possibilities because to pick up key words opens a repertoire of potential response that can lift a scene off the page and into reality. Don't make a fetish of it or you will complicate things unnecessarily. You'll seem a maniac if everything sets you off. But take it to reasonable bounds and you'll find that your performance is more interesting to you and more believable on the screen.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

I have been guilty, in my writing, of underestimating actors, with the result that I compensated by overwriting the dialogue. It's about trust, really. (If you've watched as many bad film actors as I have, you'll know the fault doesn't lie 100% with me.)

Back to Michael Caine: If you think an actor can do a lot with one word, look at what a good one can do with no words at all.

When I was very young and in repertory theatre, I was given some advice by a clever director. He said:

"What are you doing in that scene, Michael?"

"Nothing," I said, "I haven't got anything to say."

"That," said the director, "is a very big mistake. Of course, you have something to say. You've got wonderful things to say. But you sit there and listen, thinking of wonderful things to say, and then you decide not to say them. That's what you're doing in that scene."

And that's the greatest advice I can give to someone who wants to act in movies. Listen and react. If you're thinking about your lines, you're not listening.

David Niven listening to Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther 

I first encountered that advice, second-hand, from another great English actor. David Niven published his first autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon, in 1971. In it he provides an endless stream of anecdotes from the Golden Age of Hollywood, including the following:

Irving and Norma, like all top movie people, had a private projection room in their house. One night Lubitsch brought down a print of Bluebeard's Eighth Wife and they ran it after dinner for their friends.

I sat squirming with embarrassment throughout the showing but after it was over, everyone, with one exception, was overly flattering and enthusiastic. Fairbanks and Sylvia, Merle, the Astaires, Paulette Goddard and Frederick Lonsdale, all puffed me up most pleasantly. One guest sat silent in his chair. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

"What did you think, Mr. Chaplin?"

 His answer constituted the greatest advice to any beginner in my profession.

"Don't be like the majority of actors... don't just stand around waiting your turn to speak—learn to listen."

First posted:  17 November 2011

"Eight year olds, Dude."

My old writers' group is due to discuss The Big Lebowski (1998) next week. 

The film is a true cult classic. It has given rise to a religion (Dudeism), a drinking game, a trivia game, bobblehead dolls, a line of ice-cream, a gallery of paintings, and a festival.  The 2011 reunion of the cast was written up in Rolling Stone magazine. 

The Big Lebowski is, above all, a story about male friendship; in real life, as well as in fiction. The rug idea came from Peter Exline. Jeff Dowd, another of the inspirations for the story, has described it as "a Raymond Chandler-type story, you know, dosed on acid." It's an interesting reworking of The Big Sleep, a book which has been filmed twice before; once with Humphrey Bogart and once with Robert Mitchum. The Mitchum version is truer to the book by Raymond Chandler. 

People have different views, but The Big Lebowski is, indisputably, the finest film ever made in which a protagonist hatches a plot to confront an adolescent car thief, somewhere in the vicinity of the In-And-Out Burger, while watching his landlord (dressed as a tree) perform a dance quintet.

Part of The Lebowski Cycle - Joe Forkan

The film is eminently quotable. Which is to say, the screenplay represents a master class in the construction of memorable dialogue. A tiny selection:

• Look, let me explain something. I'm not Mr. Lebowski; you're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That, or Duder. His Dudeness. Or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing--
• Are you employed, sir?
• The old man told me to take any rug in the house.
• Way to go, Dude. 
• If you will it, it is no dream.
• Over the line!
• Mark it zero!
• Eight-year-olds, Dude.
• Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
• My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal. Which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.
• Do you like sex, Mr. Lebowski?
• It's a male myth about feminists that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise.
• He's a good man, and thorough. 
• Papers. Just papers. You know, my papers. Business papers.
• Isn't that what makes a man?
• Oh, you know, the usual. Bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.
• Oh, come on, Donny, they were threatening castration! 
• Am I wrong? 
• It's a complicated case, Maude. Lotta ins, lotta outs. Fortunately I've been adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind, you know, limber.
• There's a beverage here!
• Let's go bowling.
• Ahh, you know. Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.
• Yeah, well. The Dude abides.

The 2011 cast reunion of The Big Lebowski

When the film was first released, critics panned it. Later, after monster sales of video and DVD, and especially once the Lebowski Fests appeared, the critics revised their opinions. Here we have The New York Times film critic, A.O. Scott, talking about The Big Lebowski.

John Turturro, talking about his experience making The Big Lebowski.

 
And, to finish up, here's a montage of images from various Coen Brothers' movies, highlighting some common themes.

    Empire    Facebook    IMDb    LebowskiFest    Rotten Tomatoes    Wikipedia   

"Web Therapy"

Want to give your webseries a quick recognition boost? Cast a famous face. Or better yet, a bunch of famous faces. 

Web Therapy is an improvised online television series starring Lisa Kudrow as Fiona Wallice, a therapist who has conceived of a new form of therapy, called "web therapy".

The series has featured appearances by a number of prominent comedians and actors including Bob Balaban, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Selma Blair, Molly Shannon, Rosie O'Donnell, Conan O'Brien, Courteney Cox and Meryl Streep.

Is that approach effective? Well, the series was picked up by Showtime television, which is about to broadcast a second season so, pretty much, yeah.

Warning: the show is improvised. The sight of actors improvising usually makes me think fondly of good writers and good editors. Note: this episode runs for almost 15 minutes. 

While watching this, writers should focus on the dialogue. Ask yourself, is less ever more?

Here's the first of a three-episode run of Web Therapy with Lisa Kudrow and Meryl Streep.

    Facebook    IMDb    Showtime    Twitter    Website    Wikipedia   

Dialogue, Kenny Brooks, and the art of selling door-to-door

Even a great actor needs good dialogue to get some jobs done. No? Try selling bottles of domestic cleanser door-to-door without saying a word. 

Back in the early 1970s I tried selling encyclopedias door-to-door. That's a tough gig. I got a few stories out of it, but not much money. Maybe that's why I like this video clip so much.

I don't know who Kenny Brooks is, where he is, or where he got his dialogue. I'm happy to believe he wrote it himself, though the teacher/class joke is older than I am.

This footage was shot at someone's front door, somewhere in California, some time back in 2010. Here are a few of Kenny's better lines:

• Your neighbor said I remind him of Nicholas Cage, because I'm gone in sixty seconds.
• No water spots, no finger prints, no streaks. That’s why we can’t sell it to criminals. Don’t tell O.J. or Tiger Woods, okay?
• I been on a roll like toilet paper.
• You just go back and forth like a argument.
• That one bottle lasts longer than my last relationship.
• This is my last demonstration, then I'm outta your hair quicker than your favorite shampoo.
• Unlike Madonna, its never been touched.
• Your house is bigger than my whole neighborhood.
• Don't panic, its organic.
• I told you it won’t fade color, remember? That’s why we couldn’t sell it to Michael Jackson.
• Y'all cooler than the other side of the pillow.
• You can do cash, cheques, or chicken wings.

Okay, here's Kenny Brooks.

'Daily Dot' Report   

Actors, dialogue and the art of listening

Writers tend to worry about dialogue, with good reason. A bad line can kill a scene. A good line can become the buzz phrase of the year. And be quoted in the actor's biography, with all credit to them, but that's the business we've chosen.

This blog has borrowed a few quotes from Michael Caine's book Acting in Film. It was written for actors, but provides food for thought to writers as well. Here's one more.

Hannah and Her Sisters

Many writers fail to appreciate just how much a good actor can extract from a single word. Michael Caine explains:

You can bring new life to an apparently mundane reply by planning a thought process based on a key word and then never voicing it.

Other actor: "Would you like some tea?"

You:  "Yes, please."

"Tea" is the key word. The simple word "tea" can open up so many responses. Let's say you would have preferred coffee. The minute the other actor says "tea," your eyes will change because you'd really like coffee. Or maybe you're allergic to tea. Then you answer politely, but with a bit of anguish, knowing that you won't really drink it. The camera thrives on niceties like that; yet you often see actors missing out on these little presents that can open whole realms of possible action.

"Tea" could be an indication that he's too poor to offer you booze, or that he regards you as an alcoholic who shouldn't be offered a drink. Take the script and explore these possibilities because to pick up key words opens a repertoire of potential response that can lift a scene off the page and into reality. Don't make a fetish of it or you will complicate things unnecessarily. You'll seem a maniac if everything sets you off. But take it to reasonable bounds and you'll find that your performance is more interesting to you and more believable on the screen.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

I have been guilty, in my writing, of underestimating actors, with the result that I compensated by overwriting the dialogue. It's about trust, really. (If you've watched as many bad film actors as I have, you'll know the fault doesn't lie 100% with me.)

Back to Michael Caine: If you think an actor can do a lot with one word, look at what a good one can do with no words at all.

When I was very young and in repertory theatre, I was given some advice by a clever director. He said:

"What are you doing in that scene, Michael?"

"Nothing," I said, "I haven't got anything to say."

"That," said the director, "is a very big mistake. Of course, you have something to say. You've got wonderful things to say. But you sit there and listen, thinking of wonderful things to say, and then you decide not to say them. That's what you're doing in that scene."

And that's the greatest advice I can give to someone who wants to act in movies. Listen and react. If you're thinking about your lines, you're not listening.

David Niven listening to Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther 

I first encountered that advice, second-hand, from another great English actor. David Niven published his first autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon, in 1971. In it he provides an endless stream of anecdotes from the Golden Age of Hollywood, including the following:

Irving and Norma, like all top movie people, had a private projection room in their house. One night Lubitsch brought down a print of Bluebeard's Eighth Wife and they ran it after dinner for their friends.

I sat squirming with embarrassment throughout the showing but after it was over, everyone, with one exception, was overly flattering and enthusiastic. Fairbanks and Sylvia, Merle, the Astaires, Paulette Goddard and Frederick Lonsdale, all puffed me up most pleasantly. One guest sat silent in his chair. Finally, I could stand it no longer.

"What did you think, Mr. Chaplin?"

 His answer constituted the greatest advice to any beginner in my profession.

"Don't be like the majority of actors... don't just stand around waiting your turn to speak—learn to listen."