Daily Dialogue — August 23, 2012

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don’t know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.

— Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), Marty DeBergi (Rob Reiner), This is Spinal Tap (1984), written by Christopher Guest & Michael McKean & Harry Shearer & Rob Reiner

http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=Vbk28

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is comic set piece, suggested by Shaula Evans.

Trivia: Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean were given $10,000 to write a script, and made a 20-minute version of the film with the money to better demonstrate the improvisation they had in mind. Several scenes from this demo are in the final movie.

Dialogue On Dialogue: We normally think of comic set pieces as these big slapstick, destruction of property an defiance of authority scenes, but they can be anything. Touring Nigel’s music room is worth nearly 3 minutes of screen time and just flat-out works with some absolutely brilliant dialogue. 


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