I’m surprised no one has mentioned a film that has no dialog: ** The Red Balloon **
Hitchcock’s Rear Window qualifies in both catagories. The Jimmy Stewart scenes are almost entirely dialog, and what he sees is lack of dialog.
Any others like that?
The Breakfast Club is very word-heavy. It’s one of the few movies that feels like it was based on a play when it actually wasn’t.
Of course, an easy route to finding films with minimal dialogue is to look for silent movies. You’ve got an array of artists to choose from: Chaplin, Keaton, Griffith, Murnau, Pickford, Fairbanks …
Rear Window is a good example up until the end.
I’m not sure I agree with some of the films listed by Wendell Wagner. Sure, **Pulp Fiction ** may depend heavily on the dialog, but its pretty action packed. And for the sake of my OP, yes, I am excluding films with much action; I’m more interested in films where nothing else happens. **Being There ** is a prime example, IMO. Really, we just see the daily goings on in the house while he talks about his life. Nothing much happens.
Films based on plays will be driven by dialog.
The Odd Couple springs to mind.
People frequently critize Stallone or Arnold for having no dialog in their films.
Trigonal Planar writes:
> Sure, Pulp Fiction may depend heavily on the dialog, but its pretty action
> packed.
Which is why I wrote:
> Quentin Tarantino’s films are more dialogue-driven than you might expect,
> given that they’re action films:
The interesting thing about Tarantino’s films is that they are both action films and dialogue-driven films. In a film review I wrote (well before Kill Bill) where I talked about all of the “children of Woody Allen” group, I said the following:
> Quentin Tarantino is the weirdest case among this group. He’s the most
> talented one, with his brilliant dialogue and his clever plotting, but he’s also
> the most unrealistic. He’s applied his skills to standard action genres, so unlike
> the rest of this group he’s gotten big budgets for his films. His characters
> chatter away like typical Generation X intellectual types deconstructing popular
> culture in their discussions of songs, movies, TV shows, and hamburgers, but
> these people are supposed to be criminals, who are not generally known for
> their conversational skills. This is why Tarantino’s characters are really just
> fantasy images of himself and the people he knows. He’s still basically a video
> store clerk who’s watched too many action movies and dreamed himself and
> his friends into their plots.
Solaris
Three references to David Mamet so far, and yet no-one has mentioned Oleanna. Just two characters and a desk, more or less entirely dialogue. But it’s Mamet, so the dialogue is stunning, sizzling and brilliant.
I have never seen Derek Jarman’s Blue, but apparently it has no characters, plot or even images! It’s just a blue screen with a dialogue soundtrack.
Disney once released a wildlife doc called The Living Desert as a full-length feature film. No dialogue, just various wildlife sequences and some cheesy commentary. Fantasia has hardly any dialogue. Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie has only one spoken word, and the joke is that it’s spoken by Marcel Marceau.
Jan Svankmajer, a Czech filmmaker, tends to use little dialogue. (He also tends to use puppets, which makes things extra-interesting.) I really liked Faust and Conspirators of Pleasure.
The Big Kahuna, which Superdude recommended, is the first movie that came to my mind. I heartily recommend it. Before seeing it, I had no idea what a good actor Danny DeVito could be.
One of my favorites is Vanya on 42nd. Street. Basically, it is a film of a rehearsal of a play.
Interestingly, it features Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, of My Dinner with Andre fame, mentioned several times above.
Movies without dialog:
Black Moon by Louis Malle. I don’t believe there’s a single word said.
Several of Jacques Tati’s films: M. Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle, Playtime and Traffic have occasional dialog, but it has little to do with setting the plot.
Silent Movie (well, one word)
Movies that are dialog driven:
Just about any filmed play. Some that come to mind:
The Boys in the Band
Holiday
On Golden Pond
Deathtrap
Sleuth
Any Shakespeare adaptation
Alan Alda-directed films like The Four Seasons (all talk and nothing else)
Damn! Beat me to the punch. Great movie.
I’d have to disagree a little bit about House of Games and The Spanish Prisoner. They are certainly more “event driven” than some of Mamet’s other work, like Glengarry Glen Ross, The Big Kahuna, and Oleanna. Although they are also more dialog-driven than the average film.
There’s a great Australian film called The Interview that is very heavy on dialog. Hugo Weaving is magnificent in the lead role.
Speaking of Alan Alda and plays made into movies, a good example is “Same Time Next Year.” Everything is dialog.