Daily Dialogue — August 29, 2012

Gil: Gil Pender.

Ernest Hemingway: Hemingway.

Gil: Hemingway?

Ernest Hemingway: You liked my book?

Gil: Liked? I loved all of your work.

Ernest Hemingway: Yes. It was a good book because it was an honest book, and that’s what war does to men. And there’s nothing fine and noble about dying in the mud unless you die gracefully. And then it’s not only noble but brave.

— Gil (Owen Wilson), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Midnight in Paris (2011), written by Woody Allen

http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=a6WV

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is Woody Allen, suggested Sean Harris. Today’s suggestion by Teddy Pasternak.

Trivia: Woody Allen won a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award for this film. The Oscar was Allen’s fourth and the first he had won since Hannah and Her Sisters twenty-five years earlier. Allen received two Oscar nominations for this movie, the other being for Best Director, they being his 22nd and 23rd nominations.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary from Teddy:

Takeaway: Allen had to introduce all these historical figures in a quick and efficient manner, sometimes reducing them to mere caricatures. Example:

Man Ray: A man in love with a woman from a different era. I see a photograph!

Luis Buñuel: I see a film!

Gil: I see insurmountable problems!

Salvador Dalí: I see rhinoceros!

Sometimes caricatures can work.