How Rohmer would have laughed. Matt Damon, in his
latest Jason Bourne film, only says a total of 288 words, just 45 lines in the
entire film. With Damon rumoured to have been paid around $25 million that
works out at around $86,000 per word. The
disappearing of dialogue can be partly blamed on our increasingly dumbed-down
short attention spans. However the cost of translating and dubbing a large
amount of clever dialogue is a relevant factor with international audiences
being increasingly prized. China is now
the second-largest movie market in the world and is predicted to surpass the
United States by the year 2020.
If fewer and fewer words are
spoken in Hollywood blockbusters, some of the new made-for-television series
are a welcome compensation. For me, however, the films of Eric Rohmer,
criticized as static, verbose and boring, still are the best reminder of what is
possible. The late Andrew Sarris noted that “there’s nothing more cinematic
than the spectacle of a man and a woman staying up all night talking”. For Rohmer and those who loved his work, there is
action galore in his movies but it is the action of what was said colliding with what
one did. Kent Jones wrote that "over the years Rohmer has received
a great deal of attention as a creator of films structured around talk. He has
also been noted as a lover of beautiful young people, as a teller of tales and
as some kind of moralist.”
Rohmer’s films leave the viewer
with something to think about for a long time afterwards. I doubt if the same
can be said of the movies of the Bourne franchise.
1 comment:
Word!
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