catty and chatty

Too much dialogue in a film and too little. Its a general that many very successful films have almost little dialogue. But what of the other extreme, where the cinematic effort is running after the dialogue like a car chasing green lights? This other can be represented by how the Gilmore Girls was crafted, with “hip” caffeine charged bursts of speed which comes off as equally trite and unrealistic as say a patriarchal series like James Bond. Its dressed up as a de-naturized appropriation of Jane Austen diluted with Emily Bronte, but without the layers of context, depth and profound search for a language of language. But, it serves the purpose of the image of quality as pretext to extoll the virtues of consumerism to a female audience. And it wildly succeeded through a tedious monotony of chatter with no space between the lines creating an inverted trance-like experience.

…it’s clear why most films and television shows put little importance on the art of dialogue; it’s a hell of a lot easier to focus on the action. Which is why I don’t think Gilmore Girls has ever received its proper due. Gilmore Girls is so unlike anything else on network television, it’s flummoxing. For instance, their typical script is 15-20 pages longer than any other show. Why? Because it contains that much more dialogue. There is less action. Less scenes of the obligatory heartthrob staring off into the ocean. Less of the scenes that all of us have seen a million times before. Gilmore Girls is dialogue. Read More:http://www.buddytv.com/articles/gilmore-girls/gilmore-girls-and-its-underval-2548.aspx

As a realistic representation, it is almost impossible that these characters can be that articulate; the wisdom of maturity and experience in the bodies of adolescent babes. Its possible to be smart and funny and sarcastic but not in long endless spasms as if they are constantly under hypnosis in which serves as a cathartic experience to flush out and spew the complete encyclopedia of the liberal, the rational and a king of pseudo-reason. Its all so logical. Except its not true or interesting. Or authentic.And its boring. To be real would be to question the story’s consumerist subtext which would mean the characters would have to roll in the off-base and out of touch, lost in a wilderness of lies. Real life is lived in that floating space between words and gestures where language is out of control and misunderstood, time is expanded and silence is a tension that can’t be timed or crafted with cues.

…That is the basis of the show. And it succeeds. This is kind of a big deal. No other show is like this. On Gilmore Girls, the viewers watch riveting scenes of characters TALKING ON THE PHONE. One of the first things they tell you in film school is to not write scenes of people talking on the phone, because it’s boring and it’s sloppy to film. Yet Gilmore Girls makes these phone conversations highly entertaining. Most shows rely on dialogue as a crutch, as a pragmatic tool that allows them to move the plot along. Gilmore Girls embraces the art of dialogue and has created a signature rhythm and cadence, specific to the main characters. It’s a verbal exercise for the audience. Read More:http://www.buddytv.com/articles/gilmore-girls/gilmore-girls-and-its-underval-2548.aspx

What the Gilmore Girls does is sell a slice of modern mythology which subtly promotes the idea of anti-consumerism as a cultural force but in fact reinforces and expands on it. Their particular critique of mass society is that they are ultra articulate and emotionally in touch. “connected” , which is their form of resistance to conformity and they’re tagged as unconventional and able to subvert the system. After all, they reject the demands that society makes on girls of their age: conforming to the awkward, and absence of foresight, guilt and responsibility. But they are distinctive consumers as they’re clothing indicates.

As critics like Thomas Frank would indicate, the values of consumption represented by the Gilmore Girls is not about conformity. Instead, its about distinction. And running after distinction is found in the chasing of the dialogue in the series. And that’s what drives the market economy.The problem is that the plot of all television and mainstream cinema is consumerism; the trick is to find newer and more ingenious ways

ell it in a way in which all comparative preferences lead towards generating competitive consumption.

ADDENDUM:

Writing: I suspect the dialog is written as follows. 1) Devise a trite plot and produce a basic script to support it. 2) Revise the dialog by randomly interjecting references to pop culture. 3) Revise the dialog by using a thesaurus to randomly replace smaller words with bigger ones.

Characters: I firmly believe that before every episode, each character draws his or her lines from a hat. If you were to ignore the actors and focus solely on the dialog, you would realize that every character is virtually identical. They all have practically the same interactions and reactions to other characters and events.

Acting and direction: I posit that the following direction is given to the actors before recording each episode. A) If you are female, speak quickly. B) If you are male, speak less quickly, unless you are excited.

Realism: Obviously, some aspects of the characters are universally shared among all people. However, I have trouble believing that the agglomeration of inanity and neuroses the characters represent could exist outside a mental institution in Fantasyland. In real life, their personalities could only arise if a town of clones was raised by circus performers in an amphetamine production facility. Read More:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238784/usercomments?start=20