Dialogue

Jirat protests that William sees the problem as an outsider.

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Jirat: The underlying problem is that there is corruption among those in power.

Wiliam: But you have elections. Honest ones. It’s not Zimbabwe.

Jirat: In the rural areas, candidates from the rich parties buy votes.

William: So they don’t win by the policies they promise.

Jirat: We have to say something. We have to protest.

William: So you cut off water and power to government offices and close the airports.

Jirat: But as we protest, we compromise. We realize that this suggests an unstable country, upsets the markets, makes tourists nervous.

William: So there’s little likelihood of an Iraq or Afghanistan scenario?

Jirat: We can do dialogue.

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Kamishibai remix

Atsuko borrows some techniques of kamishibai for an audition.

Oliver: Why is she moving back and forth?

Ned: Well, first she speaks one part and then she speaks the other.

Oliver: She’s telling a story?

Ned: Through dialogue, yes.

Oliver: And pictures too.

Ned: It almost looks like she has done a remix, putting together a ventriloquist act with kamishibai.

Oliver: Kamishibai?

Ned: A story told using pictures and a frame.

Oliver: Refreshing change from the gravity of Gore, but she could use a little coaching on voices and maybe a couple more pictures.

Atsuko's performance here >

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Action movie plug-in module

Quiz question. Identify the action movie these subtitles are quoted from.

Door opens, music plays.
Watch out, watch out.
Thud.
Grunt.
Gasp.
Sirens.
Let’s get out of here.
Engine roaring.
Tires squealing.

Show me a clip and maybe I could tell you.

See, change the location, change the actors but keep the sequence. That’s how Hollywood does movies now. A Photoshop plug-in to create a generic watercolor effect. A Hollywood plug-in to create a generic action sequence.

I often have this sense when I see another action movie I feel I’ve seen it before.

And in some they don’t even change the actors. Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum, Bourne Again?

James Bond = J.B. = Jason Bourne. So Part Twos and Threes are often just remakes.

I’m not saying Matt Damon’s trilogy is unexciting or even uninventive, each part has incremental innovations, but some movie episodes are like a bunch of clips salvaged from the cutting room floor.
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Monologists

There is narrative too. When dialogue becomes monologue.

Ah, monologists. They can be great storytellers. Or they can be conversation killers.

I know what you mean. We all know people like that. A good conversation is not just cut and thrust, weave and duck, then run away.

True. At some point talk between people must be punctuated, pithily, with a spiffy story.

Just so. And that means taking the floor, picking up the ball and running with it for a bit.

But again, telling a story, telling it well, is an art. Those who drone on holding the fort, taking the high ground, defending their position, digging their trenches...

Some rather combative terms coming up here. You think that monologists see conversation as an arena to be defended, ramparts that have to be reinforced, castles that have to be built, wagons that have to be circled?

All that defensive conversational territory grabbing, it stifles dialogue.

It may not be conscious with some people. Some are not good at speaking spontaneously, not nimble in their thinking, so they protect themselves with a long rehearsed story.

Exactly, So to keep the ball rolling you have to fight your way in, storm their walls. Maybe even launch a big story of your own.

The Sun Tzu approach to conversation? Dialogue as war?
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