Re:‘Show, Don’t Tell’ Almost Ruined Me as a Writer
by the_af on Wednesday October 09, 2019 @01:46PM
(#21205764)
> That was a stunt, to remind us of the old, bad movies that used to do that.
Not bad, simply low-brow, which is not the same.
And what about Memento? It simply doesn't work without dialogue, and it's a wonderful movie.
The viewer could figure out backstory with a few well-placed references in dialog, or from clues as the story advances. In fact, Star Wars gave us those clues anyway, so the title scrolling into the distance wasn't even useful that way.
When a director uses bad movie tropes for their own sake, that's one thing. But using them instead of directing a good narrative, that's lazy and a squandered opportunity to show us a better movie.
And yes, the radio show example is good. They needed to do lots of dialog, because that was the medium; they had one hand (both hands?) tied behind their back.
But in a movie, shutting down the visuals for a static backstory dialog is almost always a mistake. Because you can be doing so much more than that!