Daily Dialogue — August 10, 2011
Thompson: Ah, come in, Miss Maceach — I ‘m Inspector Thom —
Constance: This is all too tiresome and absurd. He’s making the most dreadful fuss.
Thompson: If you don’t mind, I would like to ask the young lady some questions.
Constance: Well, I’m not leaving, if that’s what you think.
Thompson: Well, does it bother you if Lady Trentham stays?
Mary: Why should it?
Dexter: Sir, someone’s traipsed a load of mud in down here.
Thompson: Not now, Dexter, please. I understood there was some… difficulty between the late Sir William McCordle and your employer.
Constances: This is too vulgar to be believed.
Mary: I wasn’t aware of that, sir. They got on well as far as I could see.
Thompson: You were not conscious —
Dexter: Inspector, there’s a broken coffee cup down here.
Thompson: Dexter, they have people to clear these things up. You get on with your own job. So you were not aware of any trouble…over the matter of an allowance? An allowance, I might add, that Sir William’s death has now made secure.
Mary: What sort of an allowance would that be, sir?
— Thompson (Stephen Fry), Constance (Maggie Smith), Mary (Kelly Macdonald), Dexter (Ron Webster), Gosford Park (2001), screenplay by Julian Fellowes, based on an idea by Robert Altman and Bob Balaban
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is interrogation, suggested by Teddy Pasternak. Gosford Park suggested by Saint716.
Trivia: Director Robert Altman states he included the F-word several times on purpose to get an R-rating because he didn’t want kids to see the film — he thought kids wouldn’t like the film so he wanted to keep them out (especially 14-year-old boys).
Dialogue On Dialogue: This is a great example of dialogue as ‘cross current.’ You have Thompson, whose goal is to interrogate Mary. Meanwhile you have one cross current of Thompson with her own agenda and Dexter diligently working his own agenda. It makes for more conflict and a more interesting scene.