The Alarming Decline Of Expressive Language, In Life and On Film

A month ago I attended a Parents’ Day conference at one of our kids’ private high schools. A history teacher set to retire after 45 years of service was musing on reading the old student literary journals from the forties and fifties. Asked whether by comparison he noticed an erosion in writing skills in the history papers he grades today, he answered “Yes”- vehemently and without hesitation- while also mentioning a decline in expressive language skills in the classroom.

There seems little doubt that even as today’s high school and college students are pushed harder in a highly competitive academic environment, they cannot write an essay or use descriptive language nearly as fluently as their parents and grandparents could.

I suppose we shouldn’t be that surprised. We live in an instant messaging world, where we’re encouraged to use as few words and symbols possible to get our basic message across. Hence, it’s “CUL8R”. At the same time, we’re so overloaded with various "pop-up images" everywhere we go that inevitably our concentration and sequential reasoning are affected.

Some of us old-timers may still find time to read and write descriptively, but are our kids following suit? I think not, or certainly, not enough.

Of course, our popular entertainment reflects this same phenomenon, movies included. As some of you know, I watch a succession of very different films all the time, but two I just screened back to back seem particularly relevant to this topic.

The first feature was Marcel Carne’s Le Jour Se Leve from 1939, new to DVD via Janus’s nifty “Essential Art House” series, the second a contemporary indie romance, Medicine For Melancholy (2008), which The Times’s  A.O. Scott called “an exciting debut” for director Barry Jenkins.

A tragic tale of a young working class couple and the sordid character that comes back to haunt them, “Jour” remains poetry that touches all the senses - one of the seminal  pre-war French pictures. I readily admit it’s a bit unfair to compare it to the humble Medicine, which, with apologies to Mr. Scott, is about as exciting as an enema. But I do it to make a point.

What struck me in the two films was the use of language, or lack thereof. The dialogue in “Jour” positively sings, even with its uneducated protagonists, while the couple in Medicine seem to speak very little, and when they do, they have very little interesting to say. Not the ideal ingredients for a memorable film, right?

In general, big budget offerings from mainstream Hollywood are even more script-challenged than their humble indie counterparts.

Yesterday, I walked in on our youngest boy watching Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday (1999).  As I listened to Al reciting his hackneyed lines, I detected a certain absence, a deadness behind his pupils. Because - I surmise - Pacino, the old pro, has done some very good scripts over his forty years in the business. This however is not one of them, and he knows it.

And though my son’s attention is momentarily diverted- the movie is easy for a fifteen year old kid to watch- what is he actually getting out of it? His eyes look dull too, as if he knows that he’s not watching something that will stay with him as our best movies do. It’s just slick filler to help pass a lazy day.

This leads me to believe, perhaps naively, that “bigger, faster, louder” won’t cut it for very long. The century-old history of this medium reveals that most truly enduring films are not only cast and shot effectively, but are also cleverly constructed and written.

One of the principal reasons I love to promote older classic films is that they remind us just how entertaining and rewarding really smart scripts with snappy dialogue can be. In the back of my mind burns the hope that somehow, the thoughtful public will crave this sort of quality again. At the very least, they should know where to go looking for it.

By the way, these films don’t all fall into the category of starchy historical dramas, or those more lofty literary adaptations. We’re talking crime stories, comedies, and romances here!

Here are just a few of my favorite vintage titles featuring solid gold scripts that exploit our language in magical ways to achieve their desired effect:

The Informer (1935)- During the Sinn Fein rebellion of 1922, hard-luck Dubliner and IRA reject Gypo Nolan (Victor McLaglen) gets into hot water when he informs on his best friend Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford), a fugitive from the British "Black and Tans" who winds up with a bullet in his head. Gypo had sought the 20-pound bounty so he could embark on a better life with his prostitute girlfriend, but the rebels aren't about to let him walk away clean. This blistering adaptation of Liam O'Flaherty's novel by John Ford features a searing turn by McLaglen, who plays the barrel-chested Irish boozer and Troubles-era traitor with gut-wrenching pathos, especially when he delivers his last line. A labor of love for Ford, outfitted with Joseph August's atmospheric evocation of foggy Dublin and a superb score by Oscar winner Max Steiner, "Informer" is the kind of full-blooded political drama we rarely get to enjoy today. And McLaglen's turn as the desperate, deeply remorseful brute makes the tragic story of betrayal and redemption even more worthy of struggle. (Writer: Dudley Nichols, who won an Oscar.)

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)- John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is a successful director of Hollywood fluff who decides he wants to make a serious picture about "real world" suffering. Disguising himself as a tramp, the earnest but naive Sullivan hits the road with a ridiculous entourage provided by his cynical studio bosses. Eventually, he meets a down-on-her-luck actress (Veronica Lake) and learns the hard way how poverty dampens, but doesn't extinguish, the human spirit. Widely considered the greatest of writer/director Preston Sturges's classic 1940s films, "Travels" is a stunning hybrid, blending giddy slapstick and razor-sharp humor with grim, unblinking social realism. McCrea and Lake make a fun pair, comically and romantically, while Robert Greig is a hoot as Sullivan's droll butler. It's hard to imagine anyone but Sturges concocting this incisively scripted, beautifully directed Hollywood satire, which ultimately has a lot to say about the restorative power of laughter.

Double Indemnity (1944)- Gorgeous schemer Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) enlists a besotted insurance salesman, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), to draw up a life-insurance policy on her husband without his knowledge - and then kill him. The murder goes as planned, but the two lovers lose faith in each other's motives when they face suspicious claims investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), whose queries trigger a fatal game of cat and mouse. One of the quintessential noir films, Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" is a masterpiece of stark atmosphere and carefully stylized suspense. The talented Stanwyck, a familiar face in the 1940s noir universe, assumes her role with feline deviousness, while MacMurray - narrating the film via flashback - brilliantly plays against type. Raymond Chandler's screenplay sizzles with hard-boiled repartee and the great Edward G. Robinson is aces as always as the dogged investigator hot on the lovers' trail. Sinister, tense, and cynical, Wilder's "Indemnity" is riveting film suspense.

The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)- Fred Dobbs, Bob Curtin and an old-timer named Howard, three motley down-and-outers in Mexico (Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and Walter Huston, respectively), pool their meager resources and set off to search for gold. When they find some, they must decide how best to protect it-from thieves and each other- and thus the seeds of distrust and madness are sown. This potent feature helmed by the gifted John Huston delivers savage human drama in a thinking man’s adventure film. Containing suspense, action and humor (thanks to Walter Huston’s salty old coot) ultimately "Treasure" delivers a striking meditation on the destructive nature of greed. Widely considered one of Bogie’s best films, director Huston walked away with Oscars for direction and screenplay, while dad Walter also won a statuette for his indelible, career-capping performance as the cackling Howard. One of the all-time greats.

All About Eve (1950)- Joseph L. Mankiewicz's peak as writer/director concerns aging stage actress Margo Channing (Bette Davis), wise in the ways of fame and the theatre, who's nevertheless blindsided by an adoring fan named Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Eve enters Margo's orbit as awed acolyte, then slowly usurps everything Margo has in one subtle, masterful act of manipulation. Don’t miss this sharp, caustic take on the theatre world, and the wide assortment of parasites, barracudas, and hangers-on that populate it. Eve is the wolf in sheep's clothing, a comer with just enough talent and cunning to penetrate Margo's inner circle and catch her when she's vulnerable and feeling her age. Davis gives the best performance of her long career, and young Baxter is outstanding. Oscar winning George Sanders also impresses mightily as jaded critic Addison De Witt, the only soul wise enough to see what Eve is up to. On his arm in one key scene is Marilyn Monroe, in a minor bit as a vacuous but decorative chorus girl. Mankiewicz took home directing and screenwriting Oscars that year, and “Eve” also won Best Picture. What a show!

Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)- Desperate to promote one of his clients, slimy press flack Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) turns to the most powerful man he knows: acid-tongued gossip columnist JJ Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), who can make or break anyone in New York. Falco gets what he needs from Hunsecker, but then is maneuvered to help ruin a mild-mannered jazz trumpeter (Martin Milner) with eyes for the poison-pen scribe's younger sister (Susan Harrison).Turning from his comedic work at Britain's Ealing Studios to direct this noirish, all-American masterpiece about greed, ambition, and the perversity of power, Alexander Mackendrick relied on estimable playwright Clifford Odets and writer Ernest Lehman for their scripting talent. What resulted was one of the most cynical, caustic films ever made about the sleazy underbelly of Manhattan show business, featuring blistering performances from Lancaster and a young Curtis in his prime. "I love this dirty town," proclaims the Walter Winchell-esque Hunsecker, and you never once doubt him. Sinister, tawdry, and burnished with a tone-perfect jazz score by Elmer Bernstein, "Success" was never this twisted.

Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (1963)-In this satirical doomsday thriller, a U.S. bomber piloted by Major Kong (Slim Pickens) receives a signal to release its nuclear payload on Russia. When the unfortunate Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers) seeks out Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) to learn why he ordered the drop, and why he's placed his Air Force base on lockdown, it's quickly evident the general has lost his marbles. Meanwhile, President Muffley (Sellers again) meets with senior advisers, including a hawkish general (George C. Scott) and the oddly sinister nuclear scientist Dr. Strangelove (Sellers), to review their limited options to save the planet. The most inspired piece of Cold War satire ever and one of the screen's supreme black comedies, Stanley Kubrick's 1964 "Strangelove" confronted jittery audiences in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and not long after the advent of the H bomb. With Kubrick's twisted genius as director and screenwriter in full bloom, and peerless performances by Peter Sellers (in three roles), Scott, and the unhinged Hayden, the film is unbearably funny and extremely disturbing all at once. (Kubrick and co-writers Peter George and Terry Southern were Oscar-nominated, but lost to that year’s “Becket”, in retrospect a bad call.)

Network (1976)- Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) is a type A network television executive who rides the wave of an unfolding ratings sensation broadcasting deranged televangelist Howard Beale (Peter Finch, in his final performance). Beale hits a chord with disillusioned Americans, urging them to chant his mantra: "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." But the Beale phenomenon may not last, as Howard's ever more bizarre rantings signal an emotional breakdown in the making. Sidney Lumet's devastating, disturbing satire of the modern broadcast age (written by Paddy Chayefsky) still has a lot to say thirty years after release. Beyond portraying a business that bypasses quality in single-minded pursuit of the dollar, television serves as metaphor for a society mired in sensationalism and greed. Dunaway is commanding in a caffeinated performance as ruthless Diana, Holden unusually affecting as a washed-up veteran of TV's glory days, and Finch a revelation as the unbalanced Beale, winning a posthumous Oscar for his work. (Incidentally, Faye won too.)

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Comments

[GoingApricot]

The thing about "Network" isn't that there aren't a lot of writers like Paddy Chayefsky anymore.

There aren't a lot of directors like Sidney Lumet anymore.

"Network" is a talkity-talk-talk behemoth of a script with 800 SAT words like "jeremiad." Even the actors had trouble with its style of language, so in every scene, Lumet and the actors improvised­/translate­d the meaning of the scene to understand how to deliver it. That's called "collaborating with actors" and "making the script work."

One of my favorite scenes is Ned Beatty's rant in the conference room, framed in perspective by the green bankers lights. That's called "making a film interesting visually."

Which is to say, Sidney Lumet's direction is invisible in the movie.

Few directors today would stand for that.

Few directors would let the writing and acting take center stage.

What an idea for a blog: "What if other directors directed "Network"?"

Hmm...

doitinpriv­ate.blogsp­ot.com

[JDM73]

Speaking of Raymond Chandler, it wouldn't hurt kids (or adults, for that matter) to read a couple of his books. They're beautifully written and immediately engaging. Perhaps we should retire dusty old "Silas Marner" and add "Farewell, My Lovely" to the advanced placement English curriculum.

[ignrnthllblly]

I'd like to nominate "The Front Page"--the 1931 version by Lewis Milestone starring Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou. The dialogue delivered set-up and punchline like a boxer's combination while making some very astute social commentary. I realize that Howard Hawks' version "His Gal Friday" is generally considered the better adaptation because of the use of overlapping dialogue and the public's fascination with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, but the 1931 version, which tends to get overlooked because of the soundtrack quality, strikes a balance between comedy and commentary that gets a little lopsided in every other remake.

[juancp82]

I'd add the top three Tennessee Williams film adaptations too

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Street Car Named Desire
The Night of the Iguana

Powerful, powerful language.

[Steamboater]

Why there's a failure of students to write and write well is also due to the impression that college is a place to learn how to make a career for yourself and make money, lots of it. It's been going on a long time. When I went to college you couldn't graduate unless you took a composition test and passed it and almost 68% of the senior class failed.

[rzan1]

College should not be a job training institution but a place of learning and becoming a well-rounded human being. Lately, I've talked to college graduates who can barely put together a sentence.

[Steamboater]

I''ll probably be thrown out of the every Gay bar in town because of this. "All About Eve" is masterful with terrific performances all around but I'm not sure about how masterfully written a lot of it was. The psycho babble tends to bore at times and I'm always aware that a writer was work. That shouldn't happen.

[SILVANUS]

Getting thrown out of a WeHo bar would be a compliment to any self-respecting gay-bi-exp­erimenting­-metrosexu­al.

[SILVANUS]

As John knows, development in Hellwood is now run by focus groups and marketing shills who spend as much time thinking about the short sale at Segal as they do searching for literate properties. Even those with the mind - and power enough to trust and act on their own minds and taste - want to keep their posts and the grosses coming.

Cinematic extinction.

[rzan1]

This is somewhat off topic, but I've seen several American history documentaries on PBS in which personal correspondence from the time is read to shed a light on the feelings and thoughts of the characters. No one writes like that any longer, it seems. Even those who were not particularly well educated expressed themselves so beautifully, with such depth of feeling. Correspondence is also a lost art.

[Steamboater]

It has a lot do with fewer and fewer people not writing in script any more too. They print letters now, and years ago there were no computers, no TVs and if you go farther back, no radios so letterwriting was wonderful way to communicate with others. TV especially beame a distraction.

[3fingerbrown]

I guess "Casablanca" didn't make the list because John honored its director Michael Curtiz here just a couple of weeks ago. But I can't think of another film script that's more widely quoted: "Play it again, Sam" (yeah, I know, he didn't really say it that way), "I'm shocked, shocked ...," "Round up the usual suspects," "This might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship," "Of all the gin joints in all the world ...," "We'll always have Paris." Among scripts, perhaps only "Hamlet" has contributed more familiar expressions to the language.

I like the inclusion of "Sierra Madre" because it proves that a script needn't be about literate, witty people in order to be literate and witty. The Coens, in their best work, get this.

Honorable mentions: My Man Godfrey, The Shop Around the Corner, Tootsie, Quiz Show, Topsy-Turvy, and Glengarry Glen Ross, the best stage-to-screen transfer of Mamet's peculiar and potent way with words.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

these are all worthy suggestions- thanks!

[BlackJAC]

Every era's complained about the decline of expressive language, so unless you want to establish an English equivalent of the Académie Française to hinder the language's self-evolution...

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

how much worse can it get?
and what are the ramifications?

[Steamboater]

We don't need an academy; we need to get kids to read again, instead of playing war games on their computers or hanging around the malls etc. Mostly though, parents have to give a sh*t take charge of their kids education in the home.

[NYUKULELE]

The answer to the question of why there is a paucity of good scripts should be fairly obvious. Directors and stars so denigrated the importance of the writer, to enhance their own stature, that good writing is dying in this country. Even producers on Broadway would rather deal with revivals or musicals based on movies. It's pathetic. I doubt that most audiences today could enjoy a movie like "The Man Who Cam To Dinner". Your ear and your mind must be trained to appreciate great, witty dialogue. The absence of this from our culture will lead, inevitably, to atrophy and disappearance of the ability to appreciate good dialogue -- just like our tails atrophied and fell off when we stopped swinging from trees. Then again, a few more special effects and maybe we'll redevelop those tails.

[BlackJAC]

More like the command decisions on what gets greenlit are made by business school grads who greenlight whatever Marketing's focus groups like...and these are LA focus groups, which means you're getting failed/wannabe writers and directors looking to either score a job or punish the industry as well as the usual pack of unemployed yahoos looking to break up the monotony of daytime TV and playing the lottery.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

sad but too often true.

[3fingerbrown]

"Even producers on Broadway would rather deal with revivals or musicals based on movies."

The best Broadway musicals have always been based on source materials. Going as far back in history as you care to, I can name 10 great musicals based on another source for every one great musical based on a completely original idea. Same can be said for opera. Why is basing a musical on a movie —as opposed to a novel, short story, straight play, biography—some kind of cultural crime? I hear this all the time, and I just don't get it.

And why not revivals? Every generation should have the opportunity to see a Broadway-caliber production of the great shows of the past. Right now on B'way are top-notch productions of "South Pacific" and "West Side Story," and audiences are thrilled to see these gems in the settings they deserve. Again, I just don't get what the problem is.

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

the issue is balance.
too few original ideas get to see the light of day in this environment.

[LMPE]

"Dr. Strangelove" came out in 1964. There's a scene where Pickens's character mentions Vegas, but you can see that his lips don't match the line. He originally said Dallas, but Kennedy got assassinated while they were editing the movie, so they changed it.

PS: "Any Given Sunday" co-starred Charlton Heston. The interesting thing was not just that Heston was the political opposite of director Oliver Stone. Both men had caught some flack earlier that year in the wake of the Columbine shootings: Heston for hosting an NRA rally, Stone for the violence in "Natural Born Killers".

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

great trivia- thanks!

[tlcarpenter]

Why is it just "incidental" that Dunaway won the Oscar for Network. It's one of the most worthy wins in that category.....EVER!

[John Farr - Huffpost Blogger]

poor choice of adverb- sorry!