GITS Script Reading & Analysis: “Bridesmaids” — Dialogue
We wrap up our week long analysis of the script “Bridesmaids” by considering its use of dialogue. There are the standard set of questions:
* What do you consider to be the most memorable lines, either good or… not so good? Why did they work — or not — for you?
* Any notable callbacks (a line used once, then used again later in a different context)?
* How about set-up & payoffs?
* Any exposition that caught your eye for being handled exceptionally well?
* There’s that old adage in Hollywood: “Show it, don’t say it.” Were there instances in the script where you felt the filmmakers could have done better to visualize what was being said rather than have it communicated via dialogue.
* And as an example of the comedy genre, what were your favorite laugh lines? I mean lines that literally made you laugh out loud.
In one respect, this is the bottom line of a comedy script: Did it make you laugh? In that regard, I found this NYT article to be particularly interesting:
Laughter is regularly promoted as a source of health and well being, but it has been hard to pin down exactly why laughing until it hurts feels so good.
The answer, reports Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford, is not the intellectual pleasure of cerebral humor, but the physical act of laughing. The simple muscular exertions involved in producing the familiar ha, ha, ha, he said, trigger an increase in endorphins, the brain chemicals known for their feel-good effect.
His results build on a long history of scientific attempts to understand a deceptively simple and universal behavior. “Laughter is very weird stuff, actually,” Dr. Dunbar said. “That’s why we got interested in it.” And the findings fit well with a growing sense that laughter contributes to group bonding and may have been important in the evolution of highly social humans.
Laughter as a key part of our evolution as “highly social” beings? I doubt very much Wiig, Mumolo, Apatow, Feig, or any other person involved in the writing and production of Bridesmaids was thinking at all along these lines. But ponder this: The experience of sitting in a dark theater with a bunch of strangers, all of us laughing at what we’re seeing on screen, that is a unique phenomenon. Who knows how that impacts us individually and collectively?
So this final question: Why does Bridesmaids make you laugh?
Armed with all that, I’ll see you in comments to discuss the dialogue in “Bridesmaids”.
For Day 1 of our analysis of “Bridesmaids,” go here.
For Day 2 focusing on structure, go here.
For Day 3 focusing on characters, go here.
For Day 4 focusing on themes, go here.
[Remember next week’s genre is drama. The script: Good Will Hunting.]
NOTE: THIS SERIES AND THE USE OF SCRIPTS IS STRICTLY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES!
UPDATE: In a nifty bit of synchronicity, THR goes public with a clip from Bridesmaids that was cut out of the movie. Extra dialogue to consider!