Daily Dialogue — September 11, 2012

BERNSTEIN talking softly from a relatively private phone in the newsroom. The voice of the lawyer is also whispered and scared to death.

LAWYER’S VOICE (O.S.): (barely audible) …You shouldn’t ever call me like this, Carl…

BERNSTEIN: Will you confirm that Haldeman was mentioned by Sloan to the Grand Jury?

LAWYER’S VOICE (O.S.): …I won’t say anything about Haldeman… not ever…

BERNSTEIN: (desperate) All right–listen–it’s against the law if you talk about the Grand Jury, right? But you don’t have to say a thing–I’ll count to ten–if the story’s wrong, hang up before I get there–if it’s OK stay on the line till after, got it?

LAWYER (O.S.): Hang up, right?

BERNSTEIN: Right, right–OK, counting: one, two– (he inhales deeply) –three, four, five, six– (now he’s starting to get excited) –seven, eight– (inhales deeply) –nine, ten, thank you.

LAWYER (O.S.): You’ve got it straight now? Everything OK?

BERNSTEIN: (on a note of triumph) Yeah!

And on that shout

CUT TO:

A HEADLINE IN THE POST–A PHOTO VISIBLE OF HALDEMAN:

“TESTIMONY TIES TOP NIXON AIDE TO SECRET FUND”

— Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), Lawyer (James Karen), All the President’s Men (1976), screenplay by William Goldman, based on a book by Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward

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

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is phone call revelations, suggested by Debbie Moon. Today’s suggestion by Teddy Pasternak.

Trivia: Screenwriter William Goldman was called to an impromptu meeting with Redford (the film’s producer) along with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. At that time, Goldman’s draft of the screenplay had been accepted and they were waiting on hearing from Woodward and Bernstein. At the meeting, they presented Goldman with a new screenplay — written by Bernstein, and then girlfriend Nora Ephron. Goldman refused to read the screenplay (for legal reasons) and walked out of the meeting. Only one scene from that screenplay ends up in the final version of the film: a scene where Bernstein outsmarts a secretary to get in to see someone. This scene was pure fiction — it did not happen in real life. (Woodward was allegedly unhappy with Bernstein’s script as well, because it depicted Woodward as a naive novice reporter and worshipper of Bernstein’s superior talent. Woodward later called Goldman to apologize for the incident, telling him, “I don’t know what the six worst things I’ve ever done in my life are, but letting that happen, letting them write that, is one of them.”)

Dialogue On Dialogue: This is a great cinematic moment and an example about how no dialogue sometimes can trump dialogue, the lawyer’s silence speaking louder than words.

Comment Archive