Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Is English different now than it was 60 yrs ago?

roachboy · 09-06-2009, 06:03 AM

what frensnelly & daniel said.

i'd add first that it's not easy to write dialogue that doesn't sound written. try it.
i wonder the role played by documentary and then by improvised films like cassavetes' in changing the conventions of representing spoken english...you'd be surprised at the impact of documentary. in nouvelle vague films, the improvised documentaries that jean rouch made were a huge influence even though they weren't screened that often. this had alot to do with the way cinema culture (i suppose) operated in france, the role of cinema clubs and occaisonal screenings played...they worked like a kind of informal underground. something parallel happened in the late 50s with french novels as well, stuff like zazie dans le metro, which was written in a kind of transcribed spoken/street french. i mention the last bit because there's a class dimension to the representation of spoken language. film is a written form, so assumes a particular type of relation to writing, to "legit" culture and so forth. working-class folk had a different relation to writtencult, in in which facility in a written world often functioned as an exclusion mechanism. so moving from one space to another is an interesting shift. not as obvious as you'd think.

cassavetes stuff is parallel. the situations would be outlined, but the actors would improvise their way from point a to b to c. so the dialogue is quite different than you'd find in an entirely scripted film. i can't say much about the influence these films had though. like with documentary in the parisian scene of the late 50s, it's a matter of networks and not necessarily of commerical success.

that's put the shift into the 60s really. but this potted summary has to do with film conventions more than the nature of english.

btw...i dont think method acting has much to do with this, btw: that's more an approach to character, so a way of working with what's written. it's not a way of thinking about writing itself, or about questions about the conventions that shape representation in general.

09-06-2009, 06:03 AM	#4 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	what frensnelly & daniel said. i'd add first that it's not easy to write dialogue that doesn't sound written. try it. i wonder the role played by documentary and then by improvised films like cassavetes' in changing the conventions of representing spoken english...you'd be surprised at the impact of documentary. in nouvelle vague films, the improvised documentaries that jean rouch made were a huge influence even though they weren't screened that often. this had alot to do with the way cinema culture (i suppose) operated in france, the role of cinema clubs and occaisonal screenings played...they worked like a kind of informal underground. something parallel happened in the late 50s with french novels as well, stuff like zazie dans le metro, which was written in a kind of transcribed spoken/street french. i mention the last bit because there's a class dimension to the representation of spoken language. film is a written form, so assumes a particular type of relation to writing, to "legit" culture and so forth. working-class folk had a different relation to writtencult, in in which facility in a written world often functioned as an exclusion mechanism. so moving from one space to another is an interesting shift. not as obvious as you'd think. cassavetes stuff is parallel. the situations would be outlined, but the actors would improvise their way from point a to b to c. so the dialogue is quite different than you'd find in an entirely scripted film. i can't say much about the influence these films had though. like with documentary in the parisian scene of the late 50s, it's a matter of networks and not necessarily of commerical success. that's put the shift into the 60s really. but this potted summary has to do with film conventions more than the nature of english. btw...i dont think method acting has much to do with this, btw: that's more an approach to character, so a way of working with what's written. it's not a way of thinking about writing itself, or about questions about the conventions that shape representation in general. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite