In order to enhance my writing I'd like to learn ways to show a story rather than tell it using one character as a living speaker.
One example might be Inglourious Basterds. Lt. Aldo Raine, Brad Pitt's character, portrays both showing and telling: he tells the recruits his way in the war ("'Cause I sure as hell didn' come down from the goddam' Smoky Mount'ns..."), but while he does, there's a distinct scar on his neck, the kind that a failed hanging leaves. There's never a mention of it or the events that lead to the scar anywhere in the movie, yet it tells more about the character and his story.
What are other examples of such storytelling?
Triplets of Belleville is a movie I did analysis on in school. It's a hand-drawn animated film that relies on SFX and visual techniques to convey the story and the characters. I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for in regards to writing but I'd say it's worth a look anyway.
Mad Max: Fury Road for sure. Not much dialogue at all, and as someone who hasn't seen the first three, I didn't have any trouble understanding what was going on once the movie got rolling. Everything about it was just really well done, no one really has to watch the others to get the concept of it.
All the mad max movies really. It's actually kind of frustrating because you can tell a lot of thought is put into the back stories of the supporting characters but we're only given a brief glance into this insane world.
Except maybe Beyond Thunderdome - there's a lot of unnecessary exposition by Tina Turner at the beginning. Some is true for the feral children, althought their mythologizing of their past is at least interesting.
Ugh, yeeaah. Tina Turner has no reason to be in that movie. I keep trying to convince myself that it's a good movie but holding it up to Road Warrior, it just totally falls apart. It has so many awesome concepts and ambitions but is just executed so... weirdly. And not always weird in a good way.
It turns into a Mad Max movie for the last 15 minutes or so after they escape in the train, and there are some things like the idea of MasterBlaster that work really well, but the story is just too stationary for the most part. All the other Mad Max movies always have an incredible narrative drive behind them, either towards something or away from something.
Yeah absolutely. It's the same idea behind horror movies. As soon as they show too much of the monster it becomes much less scary.
Blade Runner, the directors cut version with no narrating. There's very little dialogue in the whole movie. It's a very visual noir film. Also the movie Drive, surprisingly great noir film as well. Not a ton of dialogue. Lots of visual story telling elements.
YES! That's what I meant, no the director's cut. You want to watch the final cut. I have the box set with 5 different versions and get them confused. But the final cut was the most recent, and was cleaned up quite a bit. It looks really good, and doesn't have the narration. The one's with the narration are pretty bad. It's amazing how that can almost totally ruin the movie. But yes, watch the final cut. It's my personal favorite.
The Naked Prey. Probably 8 lines of dialog in the whole thing, and they're all done within the first 5 minutes. Cornell Wilde wrote, directed and starred. It's a true story, based on Colter's Run, which happened in America, not Africa. The best way to enhance your writing is to take your talkiest scene and rewrite it entirely without dialog. You'll find a way. It's a useful exercise.
This is excellent advice - it's the best screenwriting exercise I know of. I'm a film editor. Often we end up doing this in the edit - sometimes because the screenplay ought to have been edited more aggressively, but often because, once you've got the images, you really don't need all those words.
It's astonishing how a snippet of a glance from a good actor can replace paragraphs of dialogue.take you're (sic.) talkiest scene and rewrite it entirely without dialog. You'll find a way. It's a useful exercise.
Apologies for this, kleinbl00. You are quite right that it is intentionally antagonistic.
I was having a horrible day yesterday and I guess I tried to take it out on an internet stranger's typo. It was extremely immature of me, and I've been feeling horrible about it all day.
I hope you can accept this apology.
You're confusing dialogue excess and showing rather than telling. Speechless doesn't mean a good story by itself: it's how the story is told that matters. Judging from the trailer, The Naked Prey is nothing more than a Rightful White Man in the Black Men's Land story.
...I've been optioned twice. I was repped at William Morris. I've judged two different screenwriting contests. I currently have a novel at a boutique agency in New York. I haven't confused shit, my new not-friend, and you're looking at a trailer cut in 1963. I answered your question honestly and with the full weight of my experience. If you want to throw that back in my face, be my guest... but know that it's the last time I'll answer your questions.
No, you have. Perhaps not through your self-reportedly superb knowledge of the subject - which is appeal to authority, I'll let you know - but through misunderstanding of what I was digging into. Though if you were going to rage on if I didn't agree with you somewhere down the road and your ego was hurt either way, you can go fuck yourself.
The argument from authority is logos rhetoric - "trust what I say because I am an expert." The Appeal to Authority fallacy is "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV... and I trust Vicks 44." You can choose not to believe me, but misapplying rhetoric like an angry teenager from /r/atheism undermines your credibility. From your own link: Good luck with your writing.It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts or scientific consensus.
Are you for real? You asked a question. You received an answer. You shat on that answer. THEN When the person you stuck your nose up at showed that they were speaking from serious experience (which anyone who's been on this site for more than a month can attest to), rather than saying "whoa, my bad", you doubled down on your ignorant and childish behaviour. KB doesn't need me to defend them - they're more than capable of twisting the english language into new and interesting ways to chastise - but I think it's important to know that when you speak in this community, people see you and remember your behaviour. I think it's also important to know that shitty behaviour will not just be witnessed here - people will call you out on it, because this is not, in fact, a new Reddit. This is a place where accountability matters.
I was expressing an opinion, hoping for a reply that will clear the situation regardless of whether the person I was expressing it towards - after they came to answer a question that I asked - agrees or disagrees. Clearly, something went wrong between us - I assume it's the assertive nature of my first reply. Yet then, the what is supposed to be authority on the matter get angry at a newbie whom they've never met - after one supposedly wicked reply? Misunderstanding is fine, it happens to the best of us from time to time, but arrogance due to authority coupled with lack of either theory behind the answer or explanation why I may have been wrong or misunderstanding in the first place (which may have been the case, for I'm not perfect but not omniscient either) I will not tolerate, no matter whom it's coming from. How difficult it might be to answer my ignorance with "Well, no, you are confusing things, because" and state reasons for this? If that's all it takes to piss off the person I'm talking to, I don't want to be talking to them. EDIT: Don't listen to me. I'm not happy with how my life goes, and this makes me far more aggressive and selfish than I'd like to be. This argument isn't helping the situation but buries it deeper. Clearly, I've made a few mistakes here and there, and it would take some time for me to figure them out.
I know that feel, and I've been there more than once. I think the takeaway here is - Watch how you say things. Written text has advantages, but it's also dangerous in that tone is almost nonexistant. Things said in jest, or in a more neutral tone when said in real life can take a significantly more sinister turn in text, especially when you are an unknown to the reader. I mean, take a look at my post. I'm generally an unknown to you, and I'm swooping in to reinforce someone else's criticism - I'm sure my post came off more aggressive than it was written. The thing I wanted to impress upon you the most is the thing that probably got buried the fastest: Hubski's like a small town. Have you ever lived in a small town? If you have you know that people remember what you do, good and bad, and good will only goes so far to redeem perceived bad behaviour (that's just the way humans perceive). As a result, it's useful to handle people you don't know... not necessarily with kid gloves, but with a baseline level of respect.Don't listen to me. I'm not happy with how my life goes, and this makes me far more aggressive and selfish than I'd like to be. This argument isn't helping the situation but buries it deeper. Clearly, I've made a few mistakes here and there, and it would take some time for me to figure them out.
I also found this trailer offputting, tbh. I'd never come across the film, and I googled Roger Ebert's review of it, and am still none the wiser! What is it that you recommend about this film, kleinbl00?
I'd agree, and add pretty much every Pixar film to the list. The Montage sequence at the beginning of Up is often quoted as a perfect example of concise visual storytelling.
Under the Skin comes immediately to mind. No background, no context, no explaining, no moralizing, just a stream of consciousness series of events that unfold gradually and by the time it's finished has painted a stunning cinematic portrait that, in my case, still haunts the fevered parts of my brain.
How can you do this in a book? I've been trying to think of examples and the best I can come up with are books that are told from the perspective and the style of the protagonist. A recent example is The slow regard of silent things. Rather than trying to explain what's going on in Auri's head -which is probably impossible- it is written like Auri would write it, using the words Auri would use, and not bothering with explanations for the names or the logic behind her worries or decisions. All the while maintaining a traditional third person narrator.
"Revanche," an Austrian film, does this very well and It's one of my favorites. It feels like what it's showing is actually happening and you take the role as a passiveobserver, not someone having a story told to. I don't want to give too much away, but the whole story is an internal struggle within the main character. It's shown only through the characters actions, and his facial expressions and body language. I know it's on the Criterion collection, but I don't where else you could find it.
I would argue that Inglourious is one of the worst stories I've ever watched. Tarantino has a great eye for beautiful shots and a keen sense of dialog, but his story telling ability borders on non-existent. Ingluorious was the pinnacle of this underachievement in his career until Django came out. Part of me likes both movies for what they offer, but what they offer is not a coherent script.
I'd say "The Rover". It is a more recent entry into this realm of story telling but watching the movie it definitely tells the story through showing and not telling. A major plot line is based around the question of "Why is this man so intent on getting his vehicle back". In it they show the lengths that he goes to and the movie does a good job at illustrating the fact that something, maybe his humanity, is lost. All though in the end you can see that he does demonstrate a connection to that humanity in the relationship he builds with Pattinson's character. The movie is a fairly atmospheric drama.
I liked Big Fish. In the movie and the book (and all of Wallace's books) he relies on the tropes of southern culture to help build a vivid world.
Inglorious Basterds is an interesting one actually. To be honest though, Tarantino probably benefitted from the WWII setting, as everyone's familiar with Nazi's and Hitler, so he didn't need to tell the story so much.
Guardians of the Galaxy You are ever introduced to/explained the technology, nova corps, the collector. So much of the movie is just up to you. I mean there are little bits of explanation, but it really is a great example of "science fantasy." It just shows you that the MCU travels as far away as you can imagine and then well beyond. The idea is that there is a rich, full universe all the way in between. Right now we are getting to imagine everything that is in between.
I've seen it and has been left unimpressed by its ability to show a story. True, they don't tell it, but I never felt like I was interested in it to begin with. Yeah, they're there, and yeah, they fight each other from time to time - and... that's it. Comic book movies - much like mainstream comic books - are a very simple, unintellectual kind of entertainment. I'm fascinated by the concepts each of those introduce, being both a comic book (as a format) fan and a Marvel fan, but they aren't much in terms of stories. The only real strive towards the unknown in the MCU have been hints of Wakanda in... Iron Man 2? - and even those are going to get revealed in the Black Panther movie.