A Series of Unfortunate Events, Netflix series, not the movie…
Is there a name for the particular acting style being used in this show, particularly the way the dialogue is delivered? Specifically, it strikes me that the dialogue comes off sounding as though it’s being read directly from a book, rather than “natural” conversation. Note, this isn’t a bad thing, in the context of this show. It’s consistent, and I enjoy the effect. It helps to convey the oddball feeling of the story. I’m simply curious if there’s a name for this style/technique.
I didn’t notice anything in the tropes page for the series (but I might have missed something–it is a long list.) The narrator’s style is called (appropriately enough) the Lemony Narrator.
I’m not sure if there’s a name for the style, or not, but Barry Sonnenfeld is the series’ executive producer; he was also the executive producer of Pushing Daisies. When I first watched the Netflix Unfortunate Events series, my initial reaction to it was, “wow, this feels a lot like Pushing Daisies.”
That is a really good comparison. I’ve got a few messages out to my friends in the actings community to see if there is a word for it, but it’s interesting to note that in the books for both “True Grit” and “Unfoirtunate Events,” the dialogue is being related to the reader as the account of a character narrating the events - Mattie Ross in the former, Lemony Snicket the character in the latter. The stilted, formal style is implied to result from that. It’s certainly not campy or overacting - the acting in both these examples is, if anything, quite dry and subtle.
True Grit is a little different in that people in the nineteenth century often really did talk like that, though. The dialogue in the movie comes from the book, and the dialogue in the book is there because it is historically accurate. People in that time were very prone towards very verbose, sounds-educated ways of saying things - they didn’t always, of course, but many people TRIED to sounds educated, and as the book is written as Mattie Ross’s recollection, her character (she is immensely proud) will tend to remember it that way. That doesn’t really apply to Unfortunate Events, but whatever.
Anyway, I’ll come back with an answer of an official term of art if there is one.
No, only Lemony, himself, is deadpan. As befits his role as narrator.
The kids (both Baudelaire and Quagmire) are almost naturalistic - a bit stilted, but a ‘natural’ stilted, if you will - their word choices are weird in a ‘smart kid trying to show off that fact’ way, but their delivery is essentially natural. As befits their roles as tragic protagonists. (Sunny excepted, of course.)
Count Olaf is overdramatic in a manner befitting his villainous role and his character of a mediocre actor. Same for Esme Squalor.
Olaf’s henchmen are generally in a one-note mold, as befits their henching role. The same goes for Mr Poe and the short-lived guardians.
The heroes (or attempted heroes) - Jacques Snicket, Larry, Jacquelyn, the Librarian - have a highly stylized, old-school, frequently rapid-fire thing…sort of a PG-rated Mamet Speak, but even that’s not quite right. Which is what I wager Master Rik was referring to.
As a slight hijack - is there a name (apart from the Lemony Narrator above, which doesn’t directly address this) for the style where the narrator actually physcically shows up in the scene, but the other characters are unaware of his presence? I believe at least at times, the action pauses while he’s narrating as well. This happens all the time in Unfortunate Events - Warburton probably gets nearly as much screen time as NPH.
The Beaudelaire kids are actually exactly who I mean. Although, watching another episode after posting my question, I noted that the “style” I’m describing applies mostly when they’re speaking to adults. When they speak to each other, they’re more “natural”, but when they speak to adults they’re very “reading off the page”.
More often then not, when they are speaking to adults, they are exasperated that the adults are idiots, and resigned that trying to explain anything to them will, yet again, be fruitless, but still feel compelled to correct the fallacies, excuses, and errors that said adult is spewing. It’s the “i’m too tired of this crap to keep arguing, but I can’t let that BS slide” voice, which has a similar flat-ness to reading off a page.