GITS Script Reading & Analysis: “Good Will Hunting” — Dialogue
We wrap up our week long analysis of the script Good Will Hunting 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 drama genre, what lines did you find especially moving and particularly dramatic?
For Day 1 of our analysis of Good Will Hunting, go here.
For Day 2 of our analysis, focusing on structure, go here.
For Day 3 of our analysis, focusing on characters, go here.
For Day 4 of our analysis, focusing on theme, go here.
[Remember next week (9/26–9/30), we will be reading The Silence of the Lambs. You may access the 1/15/1990 draft here.]
NOTE: THIS SERIES AND THE USE OF SCRIPTS IS STRICTLY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES!
UPDATE: One last quote from that Tom Shone-Matt Damon interview, this about when Damon and Affleck met with writer-director Terrence Malick:
“We just asked if we could have a meeting with him. We went to Boston to see him. And we had it in the script that my character and Minnie’s left together at the end of the movie. Terry didn’t read the script but we explained the whole story to him, and in the middle of the dinner, he said, ‘I think it would be better if she left and he went after her.’ And Ben and I looked at each other. It was one of those things where you go: of course that ‘s better. He said it and he probably doesn’t even remmber that he said it. He started talking about Antonioni. ‘In Italian movies a guy just leaves town at the end and that enough.’ And we said of course that’s enough. That’s where we come from. If you just leave that’s a big enough deal. It doesn’t have to build up to anything more.”
Talk about a small world: Malick happens to be best friends with Affleck’s godfather. For more of the interview, go here.
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