Haven't seen the show, but . . .

losthighway wrote:Every time someone has made something with elevated, witty repartee type dialogue that's too wordy to be natural it's aged horribly.

One of the first pieces of wisdom that should be imparted to anyone writing a screenplay or teleplay, is that all dialog takes up a lot more space when uttered in the context of a movie or show than it does on the page. Many people have mentioned this. It keeps getting mentioned for a reason. It's why it's easier to pull off certain passages within a book than it would be in dramatic, audio-visual form. I think you can have heady conversations in anything, but it takes skilled actors (and directing) to pull off dialog that's more involved. Like, the monolog by Ingrid Thulin in Winter Light--give that to any old actor and good luck getting comparable results. I feel nervous just thinking about it.

Krev wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:38 pm Succession. The dialogue kills it.

No more shows about rich families, please.

Tree wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2024 8:48 am

Krev wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:38 pm Succession. The dialogue kills it.

No more shows about rich families, please.

THIS. We already get enough from mainstream news and reality TV.

losthighway wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2024 7:11 am

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2024 11:47 pm

Krev wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:38 pm Succession. The dialogue kills it.

History will be with you on this one.

I agree and I actually enjoyed it. Every time someone has made something with elevated, witty repartee type dialogue that's too wordy to be natural it's aged horribly. The 90's are littered with examples: Clerks, Vanilla Sky, Dawson's Creek.

There would be no Succession without Gilmore Girls.

Somehow I enjoyed Succession even when I did not understand what they were talking about. That's like 50-60 percent of the time.

The idea that there is to every distinct language some core property that is conceivable and comprehensible, while also being impossible to convey in a different form, through translation.

I have yet to find an example of some word or expression whose meaning cannot be conveyed to satisfaction in some other language, even if no one-to-one mapping exists. The process isn't that different from explaining the same word within the language itself, using other words. The way meaning emerges in individual languages seems to be more a case of building up semantic networks, wherein things come to make sense in different ways, while still the "sense" being made is more or less the same - there is no new information being revealed.

Where the full meaning of some word or expression appears to be inexhaustible, this could equally hold if you were to try to pin it down exactly in the original language as well. We then cross over into external factors influencing the impression of words, such as emotional connections one may have established through living with this language, cultural aspects intuitive to some but not others - although not only is the contribution of "culture" also often basically explainable through other means, but the significance of a particular "culture" might vary between speakers, even native ones (e.g. some languages are spoken in many different places).

This is at the level of words. I certainly believe languages individually have distinction and "soul" that cannot really be transferred, but this is in their concrete and bodily manifestations. How it sounds and how it feels, the natural rhythms, how speakers react to one another. In non-natives who speak a language well, this proficiency to me shows up as a kind of noticeable comfort, where they have made their body come to rest in this new environment, so that to them it doesn't feel strained or alien. Since this will be due to extensive interaction with others, the elements of that interaction will to some degree make up how they themselves embody this language. This can even have effect on the pitch and volume of voice (for example in one clip I saw of a white Zimbabwean speaking Shona, his voice was markedly lower in pitch than when speaking English).

Writing makes this a bit more complicated of course. Although practically in most cases I treat writing as an analogue for speech (I read with a 'narrator voice'), I'm definitely a proponent of viewing them as distinct forms of communication. Writing is severed from that bodily presence mentioned, which opens other possibilities for it. I don't know at all what the common experience of reading is to someone who's deaf from birth, for instance.

Tree wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2024 8:48 am

Krev wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2024 10:38 pm Succession. The dialogue kills it.

No more shows about rich families, please.

Kendal Roy... Rishi Sunak... You'll never unsee it

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2024 3:49 am The idea that there is to every distinct language some core property that is conceivable and comprehensible, while also being impossible to convey in a different form, through translation.

I have yet to find an example of some word or expression whose meaning cannot be conveyed to satisfaction in some other language, even if no one-to-one mapping exists.

I'm torn on this. It might be that some words leave an emotional or abstract impression that can be logically translated but the tonality is lost. It might also be that when I come to understand words that are not in my first language I find them more mystical and romanticize them whereas words in my primary language don't have the exotic appeal.

I'm thinking both of academic German: leitmotif, gesamtkunstwerk, or differently schadenfreude.

I'm also thinking of the conversational zing of certain Spanish and French expressions: vale, je ne sais quois, guey, Chevalier/Caballero.

I can't tell if where the literal and figurative meanings of these meet are only impressive to me because my mind simply can't take them for granted and experiences them as a native speaker. Like vale, used for 'okay', feels a little more like 'right on' but carries literal connection to bill/receipt, or coupon, some kind of financial form. So it takes on some sense of 'deal' or 'sold!' but not literally.

Or je ne sais quois, which is literally unimpressive. English feels incapable of taking 'I don't know what' and elevating it to speak to 'an ineffable quality'. The closest we get is "It just has that thing". Again is the latter less beautiful to me because it's less exotic to me, or is the French actually charged with something proprietary?

Last, Chevalier/Caballero are so much more romantic to me than 'gentlemen' because you have the root horse/horseman in plain sight. We don't go around calling people knights, we allude to it with 'sir' but zero antiquated animal transport systems alluded to, so again, English loses that contest again in my eyes.

Sportsball

kokorodoko wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2024 3:49 am The idea that there is to every distinct language some core property that is conceivable and comprehensible, while also being impossible to convey in a different form, through translation.

Our Yugo curse words/phrases is a best example for that.

https://translate.google.com/?sl=hr&tl= ... =translate

Makes no fucking sense in English.