We are not supposed to like monologues. At least not in motion pictures. Film is a visual medium above all else. Quintessential films, if not necessarily the best of films, are driven by the propulsive force of moving images alone, sans dialogue, sans soundtrack, sans all audio cues. You can mute Kurosawa’s “[wikipop]Seven Samurai[/wikipop]” and not diminish any of its visceral impact. Monologues work contrary to the spirit of motion pictures. The camera is held close and stationary on a single subject, a talking head. There is no action. There is no dynamic of space and time and movement nor the magical intersection of all three which makes movies so captivating. Fundamentally, monologues would appear to bog a film down, grind a narrative to a halt, take a tangent off the plot and steer an otherwise captive audience into confusion, annoyance, or worse, boredom.
And yet monologues are some of the most beloved moments in film. They resonate with us emotionally. Certain phrases and lines stick with us as if they were our own thoughts. Often times, in the very best of monologues, the entire speech is etched in our memory. They cannot be thrown away or dismissed.
So why monologues? Why does a man or woman talking on and on without interruption and often times with cryptic or obscure references, and in ways that defy normal everyday speaking, have the capacity to be the best part of a film? To start, tension is the sacred, if not secret, ingredient of all great films. Good films have conflict. Our hero is out to save the girl but there is an assortment of villains determined to stop him. Great films have ironic tension. Our hero is out to save the girl but there is an assortment of allies doomed to betray him. And here is why the best of monologues are almost always the best moments in the best of films: they hum with the highest degree of tension. But it is not the kind of tension that exists between characters. Nor is it the kind of tension between what has happened, what might happen and what’s going to happen next. Rather, it is a much deeper and richer kind of tension, one that buzzes tautly between the audience and the character.
When a character speaks at length, as in a monologue, to expose something of himself, to reveal something of his motives, to offer some glimpse into his soul, there is an inevitable gap between what he is saying and what the listener is hearing. Therein lays the tension. The gap is inevitable because there is always dissonance between what we say and what we mean or want to mean. Even when we are trying to be as honest as humanly possible, our own personal fears, biases and beliefs fracture our words and skew our intentions. And even if we pull off the small but no less heroic miracle of meaning exactly what we say when we say it and in how we say it, we still have our listener to contend with, who brings his or her own personal fears, biases and beliefs into that gap.
But the tension does not stop there. Deeper still resonates another kind of tension. As described by the literary critic Robert Langbaum as it relates to Romantic poetry, it is just as easily applied to film: when a character is delivering a dramatic monologue, the audience experiences a tension within itself between sympathy and judgment. That is to say, I feel you but I fear you. I hear you but I hate you. I love you but I gotta laugh at you. I buy you but I don’t believe you. I get what you’re saying, but you have no idea what you’re talking about do you? It is this dramatic friction between sympathy and judgment which begs our resolve through our own imaginations and implications. Hence we become active participants in the creative process. As with all art, there is no right or wrong way to look at anything. And as with all monologues, there is no right or wrong way to say anything. Or hear it. Monologues touch each of us in different ways.
Monologues are a fluid collaboration between character and audience. We all love to be a part of something, especially something fun and great, like movies, and monologues give us the opportunity to be not just passive viewers but active participants, creative co-conspirators. Even more, the best monologues do not speak to us, they speak for us. We want to have a voice. We want to be heard. We want to speak clearly and at length, without interruption, and have people listen, notice, appreciate, understand. We hear a great monologue and we say, that is what I mean, this is how I feel.
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Written by Rick TranRick Tran is a freelance writer and full time movie enthusiast. Rick is an author of film screenplays and custom monologues for aspiring actors and actresses and enjoys sharing his thoughts on all things monologues. Be sure to follow Rick's musings by subscribing to soliloblog below. A writer's best friend is a reader! |
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