CHICAGO: If Hepatitis C Were Attacking Your Face Instead of Your Liver You'd Be Doing Something About It

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"Story within a story" seems to describe exactly what I'm talking about. I wish there was a snappier name for it, though.

xpost - I can get you into office buildings.

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:01 (seventeen years ago) link

What is a "mis en scene"?

― n/a (n/a), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Mise en abyme reminds me that I heard 2 guys talking at a coffee shop and one used the term "in medias res" in casual conversation to refer to a friend dropping in on him while he was in the middle of something.

― crunkleJ (crunkleJ), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha ha: Mise en scène (IPA: [miz?s?n]) has been called film criticism's "grand undefined term," but that is not because of a lack of definitions. Rather, it's because the term has so many different meanings that there is little consensus about its definition. (per Wikipedia)

― n/a (n/a), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:04 (seventeen years ago) link

It'll be minutes and minutes of "Uh-huh. [Pause.] I know, I know [Pause.] Did you tell her that? [Pause.] Uh-huh. [Pause.] Uh-huh,"

I used to write playlets like this all the time.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link

somehow, that is hardly surprising

― giboyojimbo (gbx), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link

― giboyojimbo (gbx), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link

He and Chris P. collaborated on them.

― crunkleJ (crunkleJ), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't know what Chris has to do with it, but let's just say I'm a fan of banality and realism in art.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not even a fan of banality in LIFE, and I can experience that FOR FREE. ;)

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:11 (seventeen years ago) link

mise en place

― danno martinez (danno martinez), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Chris gets off on all things others find bland. (He is hot for the guy who represents the PC in the Mac vs. PC commercials.)

― crunkleJ (crunkleJ), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Jenny, I think the chamber movie for you and Jeff (made by some of my poker buddies) is Bug.

― Eazy (Eazy), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah yeah, Laurel, I've heard it all before. Trying to recall how I addressed that in my senior project. Something about the thrill of seeing life's banality replicated artificially. The uncanniness of it. I love good, real dialogue.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:12 (seventeen years ago) link

He prefers cuddling to an orgasm, a kind word to cuddling, and a pleasant Mona Lisa smile from across the room to all of them.

― crunkleJ (crunkleJ), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Chris gets off on all things others find bland.

bland != banal

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost to Eric - While I don't think I'd want to be locked inside the room with those people, I would definitely want to look in the window and watch them.

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

I love good, real dialogue.

But why does dialogue have to be banal to be real?

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:15 (seventeen years ago) link

"so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring" = no thx

― danno martinez (danno martinez), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:17 (seventeen years ago) link

It doesn't. But there's an element of banality in most conversations. Hardly anyone writes dialogue where people go "umm" or repeat themselves or step over each other's words, but this happens all the time, and I get a kick out of seeing it reproduced. Here I guess I'm talking about form rather than content, though.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I love this thread.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't find those 'yeah [pause] yeah' above banal, in part because of the recognizable rhythms (like John just said), and also because the effect, ideally, is like when you overhear something on the El and you have to make sense of it. It's writing that isn't for the benefit of the audience (as far as narrating the story) and ideally has the same what's-going-on-here? pleasure of eavesdropping.

― Eazy (Eazy), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:20 (seventeen years ago) link

This kind of sounds like improv to me.

― danno martinez (danno martinez), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno, are most people not as interested in the aggressively ho-hum as I am? Am I the only one who asks new romantic partners to "tell me a boring story"?
-- Chris Piuma (chri...), February 25th, 2003.

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring

But when real-life banality is applied to art, it automatically becomes more interesting because a) we're not used to seeing banality in art: it becomes the exception rather than the rule, and b) art has the power to make the banal transcendent.

ideally has the same what's-going-on-here? pleasure of eavesdropping.

Bingo. There's an intimate, voyeuristic thrill to it. It feels visceral, somehow.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha.

This thread would be great to have read to you as a bedtime story
-- oops (buttch9...), February 26th, 2003.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oops is OTM.
-- Chris Piuma (chri...), February 27th, 2003.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh, I see you already unearthed the Chris P. contributions to that thread. Nice work.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link

But when you know it's art and artifice and not someone you're eavesdropping on (which I also enjoy, but not for the banality, more because something interesting than whatever I've got going on might happen), doesn't that undermine that voyeuristic thrill?

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Chris may be a deLillo character.

― JordanC (JordanC), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, take this dialogue from the thread above (which I hadn't seen 'til now - fantastic) and add some context and stakes to it (someone's job is on the line, or 'me' slept with boss's wife), and it's great dialogue:

My boss: Did you have a good weekend?
Me: Yes, thanks. You?
My boss: Not bad.
Me: Do anything exciting?
My boss: No.

Me: Oh.

― Eazy (Eazy), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:25 (seventeen years ago) link

There's some term I learned in a poetry workshop about the mistake some writers make of writing something that is an example of what they meant to write ABOUT--like writing something boring when writing the dialogue of a boring person, or sounding stupid when writing about a stupid character.

Writing about something banal in a non-banal way would be interesting I guess. But I don't hold out much hope for the outcome.

― crunkleJ (crunkleJ), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Hardly unearthed. That was the third or fourth post!

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Has anyone seen Dead & Breakfast? It's a zombie movie (w/Jeremy Sisto!) but it has the best modern use of the Greek chorus that I've seen (i.e. a dude singing funny country songs about the action who eventually gets turned into a zombie and continues singing between scenes until he gets killed by a chainsaw).

― JordanC (JordanC), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:27 (seventeen years ago) link

The way Mamet puts it is that people don't say what they want, they say what will get them what they want. As long as the actors know what is at stake for their character, and what they are trying to get from the other person, 'banal' dialogue can be suspenseful and compelling, beyond the ordinary rhythms of daily life.

Using that poetry analogy, I think what we're talking about is more of finding the profound in daily life than in being deliberately boring - it's more like Vermeer and Rembrandt painting daily life in Holland (ho hum) instead of the great moments in religious history.

― Eazy (Eazy), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:28 (seventeen years ago) link

This is a very good question, and the best answer that I can give is that I experience both at the same time, or go back and forth: the pleasure is both in the visceral voyeuristic thrill and the rational appreciation for the uncanniness of the vérité style. (I'm serious, I have like a whole chapter in my senior project about this where I talk about Raymond Carver and Mike Leigh.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:30 (seventeen years ago) link

If dialog contains the "ums" and cadences of every day speech but is rendered suspenseful and compelling beyond the ordinary rhythms of daily life, it's no longer banal, is it?

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, finding something profound (ie, non-banal) in something banal is interesting. But simply reproducing banality, not.

xpost--this is a corollary to what Jenny just said.

― crunkleJ (crunkleJ), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:32 (seventeen years ago) link

I grok the concept and I can think of examples of most of those variations, but I cannot abide movies that follow that model. Or books, for that matter. XXXXP

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Mamet is interesting. He writes "realistic" dialogue that nonetheless frequently sounds mannered. There's something incredibly compelling about it.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:32 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, it sounds like what John is talking about is a movie of a guy talking on a cell phone about the same crap we all talk about on our cell phones, not a guy having a conversation that is banal on the surface but is designed to support and develop some great conflict.

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Amen, sister act. Amen.

― crunkleJ (crunkleJ), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Also, it's only the gigantically obvious self-consciousness that makes HH movies attractive to me, probably...? Because, tho I haven't seen any lately, I recollect that he does extremely stylized banality quite a lot, too, but it's SO ENORMOUSLY DEADPAN that you're waiting for the ball to drop ALL THE TIME.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Jenny and Jesse may be right about this. It's probably why I never wrote a successful play that put my predilections for banality into practice. When I took a playwriting course in college, I was miserable, because I felt like the professor (Von Washington, what up) cared WAY too much about plot and conflict, and I was like "b-b-b-but Robert Altman, Mike Leigh, etc." (Dan's comment about improv probably OTM here) -- and in the end, I wrote a perfectly well-made dramatic play that I have no affection for whatsoever.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:37 (seventeen years ago) link

The tension itself just becomes hilarious after about 20 minutes. XP to me.

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Mamet's incredibly mannered. He uses rhythms and grammar that come from the Chicago dialect, but he does it so specifically that it can be distracting (especially when he directs his own work).

I just saw this movie version of his play Edmond on New Years Eve, with WH Macy and Julia Stiles and others, and since someone else directed it the dialogue is less distracting than usually and it's easier to get caught up in the characters instead of thinking about the author. (It's really much better than I'd expected - and a few of the scenes are absolutely perfect as individual scenes.)

xpost- One dramamtic trick, though, Jenny, is to hide the drama in a banal situation. Like - the guy on the cell phone could be talking to the surgeon who is operating on his daughter in an hour - that's dramatic. Or he could be talking with the guy fixing the stucco on his house, and somehow from that "ordinary" conversation, something profound about the guy's life happens. If he doesn't change by the end, that's bad drama - but sometimes our lives change dramatically from a moment that seemed boring.

― Eazy (Eazy), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Said playwriting prof: http://www.wmich.edu/theater/faculty/images/faculty_14.jpg

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I hear you Eric. xp

― Handgun O. Mendocino (pullapartgirl), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I wrote a short play a few years ago about a late-night college-radio DJ, and the whole point of it is that she's trying to cover up her emotions in order to do her job. And so she's trying to be banal (unemotional), and it doesn't work out. But by the end, when she reads the weather or says 'um', those should be the most compelling parts - not when she speaks all poetically, which is just her trying and failing to do her job.

― Eazy (Eazy), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, I love that play.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 22:43 (seventeen years ago) link

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