Movies with the best dialogue

[Blarg]

My Dinner with Andre

[Wynton]

His Girl Friday (or the original, The Front Page)

[Thug Bubbles]

Tough competition. Glengarry Glen Ross is pretty much the penultimate. Network is pretty amazing, though.

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Any Tarentino is a great choice. Also, i'm surprised Godfather 1/2 not mentioned yet. So much subtext.

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They are the pinnacle of complex dialogue that is deceptively digestible.

[Blarg]

Good point, the dialogue in GF 1/2 goes down real easy, but has more depth than it might seem to on first viewing. And it does it withbut without being coy or in any way tricky. A lot of the movie is like that and even seems to be about -- picking up on the unsaid and its implications.

Somehow Hemingway and Carver suddenly come to mind.

[Thug Bubbles]

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Good point, the dialogue in GF 1/2 goes down real easy, but has more depth than it might seem to on first viewing. And it does it withbut without being coy or in any way tricky. A lot of the movie is like that and even seems to be about -- picking up on the unsaid and its implications.

Somehow Hemingway and Carver suddenly come to mind.

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Absolutely. Some of it would ONLY be noticed if you were told so, read the book, or had a knack for putting things together in a most genius fashion.

An example for people who might not know what we're talking about: when Sonny and Vito are talking with The Turk about doing business with him so long as they allow trafficing drugs, The Turk says that he guarantees the cooperation of the other families. Sonny is immediately surprised and asks for clarification, in interest. The Don shuts him up, apologizes for his sons young aged rudeness, and moves on to his refusal to work with drugs.

This is actually the point that The Turk decides to put a hit on Vito, because he saw that given Sonny's response, he would be interested in the deal, and the drugs wouldn't be a road block for him like they are for Vito. So he figures he gets Vito out of the way, weathers Sonny's impending wrath (expected, due to his famous temper), and then use the weak 'brother' (Duvall) as a means to get Sonny to chill out and then due business like he would have anyways if he was head of the family at the time.

Stuff like that is all over both the first two films.

Hemingway is a great comparison because he's the classic novelist whom you read in middle school or high-school and then read later as if it was a different book.

[Blarg]

Yeah, that's a good example. Vito knew exactly what happened and how dangerous it was, and so did The Turk, but Sonny had no idea. Neither did I the first couple times at least. On first viewing, I thought the Turk just reasoned it out independently, taking a much bigger shot in the dark, not feeding off Sonny's unintentional cue. But if Sonny hadn't essentially wanted the Turk's deal in the first place, killing Vito wouldn't have worked, because then Sonny would be all rage with no potential to be persuaded until the Turk was dead, and maybe lots of other people too.

Only thing I'd disagree with is about Duvall being the weak brother. He was the smart and reasonable one. Sonny was so "strong" that he couldn't control his impulses or his temper and eventually took off without his bodyguards and got wiped out. Vito had the control and ability to think ahead that Sonny didn't, and so did Duvall. Fredo was all over the weak, and Sonny, for all his bluster, had plenty of weak in him too.

[J-Mac]

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Tough competition. Glengarry Glen Ross is pretty much the penultimate. Network is pretty amazing, though.



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"I don't think that word means what you think it means."

I love David Mamet though, and nominate "State and Main":

-"She's too good for him."
-"Takes all kinds..."
-"Is that what it takes? Always wondered what it took."

-"Get flowers for the dame, and get Bob...what does Bob like?"
-"14 year old girls."
-"Well, we can't get him that. Get him half a 28-year-old. How's my math?"

-(to a 14-year-old girl delivering sandwiches) "Shouldn't you be in school?"
-(stonefaced)"It's night."

-"We're in Waterford, Vermont....where is it? THAT'S where it is."



I love "Citizen Kane":

-"How did you find business conditions in Europe?"
-"With great difficulty."

-"Well, I don't know a lotta people."
-"And I know too many. I guess we're both lonely."



My all-time favorite would have to be Casablanca:

-"You despise me, don't you Rick?"
-"If I gave you any thought, I probably would."

-"What is your nationality?"
-"I'm a drunkard."
-"That makes Rick a citizen of the world."
-"...as you can see, we have a complete dossier on you. Don't worry, we're not going to broadcast it.'
-"Hmm, are my eyes really brown?"

-"And suppose you were to find these men and kill them? From every corner of the globe hundreds, thousands would rise to take their place. Even Nazis can't kill that fast."
-"Mr. Laszlo, you have a reputation for eloquence which I am now beginning to understand."

-"[congratulations for] Your work."
-"Thank you. I try."
-"We all try. You succeed."


Apologies for inaccuracies, quotes written from memory.

[Thug Bubbles]

Jesus. What was I thinking using that word? 'pen ultimate script', how about that instead, it makes half-way retarded sense. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

I always liked the simple but effective line from Mamet's American Buffalo: "I f*ck myself."

His dialogue in that play is tremendous.

[evolvedForm]

Suburbia
The Sacrifice