Chapter 109
Character Dialogue
Chapter 109 Character Dialogue
The opening scene of the movie David just finished filming serves two main purposes.
The first task, naturally, is to efficiently develop the character of Bud.
The film vividly portrays Bud's core traits of hating evil, walking the edge of the rules, and believing in violence to combat violence, all through a complete action chain of pulling colored lights to lure the other party out, inducing them to take action, and then subduing them. No additional background narration is needed to make the audience remember the character instantly.
The second is to grab the audience's attention.
Abandoning the conventional panoramic shots, the film directly cuts to Bud's facial expressions with close-ups, and then uses a tight camera rhythm to instantly pull the audience into a tense atmosphere of conflict. This completely avoids the common problem of a slow opening, and the control of the narrative rhythm is exemplary.
After David finished filming, it was Kevin Spacey's turn.
Accompanied by melodious and soothing music, Kevin Spacey and his female partner were dancing a duet in the center of the ballroom.
"What role do you play in 'Police Heroes'?" his female companion asked him.
This is a very important question, not just casual conversation.
Every line of dialogue in a good movie should serve a clear function, and there should be no meaningless or redundant nonsense.
When writing dialogue, professional screenwriters ask themselves three questions for every line: Does it advance the plot? Does it provide new information about the character? Is there a more concise way to express it, directly cutting out those ineffective, mundane lines, so that the dialogue accurately serves the narrative and character development?
Even Quentin Tarantino's films, known for their talkative style, are no exception.
Take the nearly 30-minute scene in the underground bar in "Inglourious Basterds" as an example. The characters have a very high density of dialogue, and they are almost always talking.
When David first watched it, he felt it was a bit wordy and should be more concise, but after watching it a second and third time, he overturned his previous opinion.
Knowing the plot beforehand, watching the dialogue reveals many previously unnoticed details and background information about the characters. No wonder his films have never performed particularly well at the box office, but are very popular on DVD.
"I'm the technical consultant," Kevin Spacey pointed into the distance, "I teach the lead actor how to act like a cop."
"But he doesn't act like you at all."
"He acted in the TV highlight reel; Americans aren't ready for the real version yet."
"Are you really the one who arrested Robert Mitch?" her female companion asked curiously.
But before the other person could answer, she continued, "Those actors really like playing police officers; being a real police officer must be so exciting!"
"Why don't we find a quiet place and listen to my story of how I solve cases?"
Unfortunately, he wasn't the main character, or at least not the absolute main character, and this was a serious police drama, so unsurprisingly someone came and interrupted their conversation.
Speaking of Kevin Spacey's movies, it seems like he never has a completely intimate scene with a female character. He's always interrupted for one reason or another. Could it be because he's not handsome enough?
Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't have this problem. Hollywood directors seem to have a natural inclination to arrange intimate scenes between him and female characters. In "Catch Me If You Can," Spielberg gave him several romantic encounters and kissed four or five female characters.
Needless to say, "The Wolf of Wall Street" was incredibly explicit and was rated R.
Judging from the box office, it seems that audiences do enjoy watching him film intimate scenes with actresses. Is it so that they can easily immerse themselves in the story while watching the movie?
"Jack?" A fat man walked over and greeted him.
"Vincent." Kevin Spacey shook hands with him naturally.
"Can I have it?"
"sure."
"Karen," Kevin introduced to his female companion, "this is Sid Hudgens from Hush Magazine."
The fat man seemed to know her. "Hello, Karen."
"You're something else," her female companion retorted, then left without looking back.
The original director deliberately had the female companion leave here.
David has watched many movies, and with so many movies, he naturally discovered some common patterns.
For example, in a movie, when a new character appears, the director often arranges for an older character to have a conversation with him or her, so that the audience can understand the new character and the relationship between him/her and the older character.
To avoid having too many characters that viewers might not remember, directors usually only arrange one-on-one dialogue scenes at this point, rather than three-person dialogue scenes.
Therefore, when three characters appear in a scene at the same time, the director will have one of the characters leave for some reason, leaving the space for dialogue to the remaining two characters.
After learning some theoretical knowledge, I discovered that this pattern is indeed a classic narrative and audiovisual design logic that has been verified through numerous experiments in film and television creation.
There are two main reasons for designing the characters' dialogue in this way.
Firstly, it reduces the cognitive burden on the audience. The information conveyed in a two-person dialogue is more focused, and the audience does not have to allocate their attention to multiple characters at the same time. They can quickly understand the identity and personality of the new character, as well as his relationship with the old characters.
Secondly, avoid technical difficulties in filming. Three-person dialogues can easily lead to confusion in the line of sight, making it difficult for the audience to distinguish who is talking to whom. Forcing the filming can easily blur the spatial relationships, thereby disrupting the narrative flow.
Quentin Tarantino's debut film, Reservoir Dogs, had this problem in the opening restaurant dialogue scene. When David watched it, he couldn't tell who was speaking at all.
However, by the time he was filming "Inglourious Basterds," he had clearly resolved the issue.
The dialogue between the Nazi officer, Fassbender, and the actress in the underground bar was filmed very well. First, the main shot establishes the positions and relationships of the three, and then the shallow depth of field and voice-over temporarily "blur" one of them, leaving the focus of the audiovisual experience on the two people having the core conversation.
However, in "L.A. Confidential," the director had the female companion leave voluntarily for some reason.
As for the reason? Kevin Spacey's character, Jack, will ask.
"What's going on?" he asked curiously.
"We have a report on Hollywood lesbians that mentions her name."
Kevin Spacey wore an "I knew it" expression, clearly unsurprised.
"Hey, Jack," the reporter said as he walked around, getting down to business, "I have a friend who sold some marijuana to Matt Reno, and he's currently at Tammy Jordan's house."
"Sorry! I wasn't paying attention."
Kevin Spacey, whose gaze was still fixed on the beautiful woman, finally snapped out of his reverie and explained somewhat apologetically.
This small detail also allows the audience to feel Jack's nostalgia for this kind of decadent place.
"Two actors from Metropolitan Films," the reporter had to repeat himself, "you arrest them, and I'll give you a big shout-out in the next issue of my magazine, plus an extra fifty dollars."
"No, this time it has to be fifty more. Twenty dollars for each of the two police officers, and the remaining ten dollars for the officer on duty at the Hollywood precinct."
Once the conversation got down to business, Kevin Spacey dropped his nonchalant attitude and started negotiating with the other party.