A practical manual of screen playwriting : for theater and television films (1952)

WRITING THE SCREEN PLAY 21$ to represent the character's thoughts, and can be used by him as an incentive, or a deterrent, either to do or not to do what he is about to do. Monologue Another device that should be discarded by pictures is the exterior monologue. When the character is alone, the monologue is, at best, an anachronism that should have gone out with high-button shoes. It stops action, it is unrealistic, it offers gratuitously information that could just as well have been presented pictorially and, therefore, more effectively. The monologue may have some legitimacy when used as a long speech in reply to another character's cue line, and when that character is still on scene. In Brief Encounter, the unfaithful wife's verbal maunderings somehow retain reality, because they are supposed to show that she is trying to imagine how she is going to tell her husband the story of her brief encounter with love. But this is a device that can be used only rarely. Motivate monologue. If you must use a monologue, be sure that it is well motivated. The monologue can gain credence from the fact that it is being spoken as a fervent prayer, for example. A number of other similar situations present themselves: a child can give a monologue to her doll; a grandmother to her sleeping grandchild; a man to his dog; a girl to her image in the mirror. But whatever the situation, it must be one that enhances the monologue with at least an aura of credibility and audience acceptance. Unmotivated monologues are entirely unrealistic, and since realism is one of the prime requisites of motion-picture dialogue, unmotivated monologues deserve to be allowed to rest in peace, together with many other outmoded theatrical trappings of the past. Dialogue realism What is realistic dialogue? Obviously it should consist of words used by real people, reacting to real situations, in a manner that creates