Hitchcock lurched into the front of the “one-room lockdown” list by changing the rules of the lockdown. All others on the list are dialogue films (many of which have been listed here), whereas Rear Window was balanced leaning towards visual.
I just saw [The Four Seasons](The Four Seasons ) last night for the first time in years. This movie was very much a Dialogue-centric films.
It was strange watching it though. Jack Weston’s character Danny Zimmer is the proto George Constanza. The other weird part was the morose daughter looked like the inspiration for Daria.
Jim
[QUOTE=Rodgers01]
I have to respectfully disagree on this one. Rear Window is one of my favorite movies of all time, and Hitchcock was working with one of his best screenwriters, (John Michael Hayes), who definitely wrote a great screenplay with some memorable dialogue (particularly the banter between Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly). But it’s not really a dialogue-centric movie. I think Hitchcock was mostly a visual director (which isn’t completely redundant – Kevin Smith is a dialogue director, if that makes sense), and Rear Window in particular is about the watching and being watched, rather than what’s being said. He could have made it a silent movie without losing too much of the movie’s power – and maybe it would have made it an even better movie.
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I see your point, and have to withdraw it from competition as a strictly dialog-centric film, but I’d like to point out that while the voyeristic theme is played out visually, there are a lot of great scenes which would be lost without dialog; particularly Thelma Ritter’s biting commentary. Still, as you aptly discuss, Hitchcock uses visual effects to great, er, effect.
Stranger
[QUOTE=Wendell Wagner]
TI think of them as “the children of Woody Allen,” since I think Allen is the original master of this kind of film. His characters tend to be bright, articulate people who endlessly analyze their relationships and themselves. They often don’t solve anything with their conversations but just talk their problems to death. The newer director/writers who work this way are Richard Linklater, Whit Stillman, Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, and Spike Lee. Although I don’t know his films very well, I understand that Noah Baumbach makes similar sorts of movies.
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Preston Sturges did it even before Allen, but he also had a lot of slapstick in his films, which makes them less dialog-centric.
Still the dialog in Sturges films is a marvel to behold.
Dangerous Liaisons (n’est pas?)
Well, my favorite, A Man for All Seasons has been taken already, so I’ll have to add My Dinner with Andre and the Tao of Physics-based [B[Mindwalk**. (I don’t agree with Fritjof Capra’s mysticism-as-quantum-mechanics thesis, but it’s interesting to see Sam Waterston arguing physics instead of the Law):
Proof recently. . .which was a play first, so no surprise.
See Wit. Wit was an HBO movie, also based on a play if I’m not mistaken and really really good. Heartbreaking. Great performance by Emma Thomson.
While not technically “dialogues,” there are the two great (late) Spalding Gray monologues - Monster in a Box and Swimming to Cambodia.
[QUOTE=Ol’Gaffer]
While not technically “dialogues,” there are the two great (late) Spalding Gray monologues - Monster in a Box and Swimming to Cambodia.
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Oh yeah–excellent!
Daniel
I miss Spalding Gray. Sigh… Sad story.
It seems every Jim Jarmusch film. Especially Coffee and Cigarettes.
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive]
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
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Are you sure that fits?
[QUOTE=flight]
Are you sure that fits?
[/QUOTE]
Sure. Subtract the conversations - and the Question Game - between Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, and what’s left?
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive]
Sure
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Statement. 15/love.
[QUOTE=flight]
Statement. 15/love.
[/QUOTE]
Heh. Been a while since I’ve sen it.
[QUOTE=Case Sensitive]
Heh. Been a while since I’ve sen it.
[/QUOTE]
Are you not getting this?
Damn, I clicked on this thread with Clerks in mind, and it’s the first one the OP mentions.
I got nothin’.
[QUOTE=garygnu]
Are you not getting this?
[/QUOTE]
Why are you pestering him?