Mumbling actors is a pet peeve of mine. It might be more realistic than stage-play style oratory of decades ago, but at least then you knew what the hell was going on. Nothing worse than repeated rewinds to make out a garbled statement.
mrgrahammarklee
3 years ago
Dreadful film. Cliched characters and dialogue and a preposterous plot which made no sense whatsoever.
Like the reviewer I couldn’t make out what the actors were saying half the time but it was all so daft I didn’t care one way or another.
Mystification itself has mass market appeal. Most consumers of spectacle aren’t in the market for truth, goodness, beauty, but sensation, thrills, and escape.
Tamara Perez
3 years ago
Even with subtitles I wouldn’t have understood it. I had to read the Wikipedia plot summary afterwards and I still didn’t understand it. Tedious battle scene at the end where I didn’t know who was who and cared less. There’s a big deal with the red tag on the rucksack which, it seems, was important in the opera business at the beginning which felt as though it had happened aeons before,
Laughed out at your description of Branagh on the catamaran. Enjoyed being physically in the cinema, so there was that.
Stay out of the theatre. Think of others than yourself.
Eugene Norman
3 years ago
I have Subtitles on all the time on Netflix. I have no hearing issues according to any tests but can’t hear all the mumbling. And Nolan in particular mixes the music too high and the vocal too low.
A Spetzari
3 years ago
Interesting article thanks.
I guess this is partly a result of more developed plots and characters having been pushed into series (or seasons), leaving cinema the place for more grand, sweeping dramatic visuals with less depth.
I really liked Memento and his Batman films (Batmen?), as well as The Prestige. But didn’t really get all the fuss about Inception. Much like you describe Tenet, it was all beautiful and epic, but with not that much sense in the dialogue or plot. Maybe I’m too thick, but just didn’t really get what I was supposed to “get” and why that made it so clever as everyone said.
Ok so a dream within a dream…and….?
Sandy Markwick
3 years ago
Totally agree. I feel the same about Charlie Kaufman. The high concepts of eg Synedoche are fun to play with but IMO would benefit from being distilled down into a simpler and more comprehensible story.
nick harman
3 years ago
I wonder sometimes if the inaudible dialogue of modern films is down to the director simply being lazy about microphones. Doesn’t want them on the actors, doesn;t want booms in shot. So just carries on with a basic setup
Inaudible dialogue – very perplexing given digital media is supposed to be superior to the olde analogue – so it’s a very pertinent question as to why this is often such a problem with modern films.
Ray Warren
3 years ago
Took my mind off Covid for a couple of hours and gave us something else to talk about. It wasn’t a great film but good to get back to cinema. The cinema experience is better than staying home.
to tra tra – we get it. thanks, now please leave us alone. paranoia is best enjoyed in privacy.
Roland Ayers
3 years ago
I like slow-moving films with barely any action or plot. And no soundtrack. Favourite director – Michael Haneke, favourite film – Treeless Mountain (director So Yong Kim) If you want an antidote to over-complicated action films, if you want to be profoundly moved by the resilience of children in the face the cruelty of a grown-up world – watch it.
Peter Whitehead
3 years ago
I watched it yesterday and didn’t understand any of it especially, as other commentators say, dialogue is inaudible. Why do they think dialogue needs loud music/noises to underscore it?! I frequently looked at my watch to see when it might end …..please make it stop! I vaguely understood Inception!
Dan Poynton
3 years ago
A man after my own heart. I thought I was the only one who never got it with movie plots, and I’m always surrounded by people like your wife. Apart from being delightfully written, this article has given me great spiritual relief.
medwayview
3 years ago
Christopher Nolan is on record, multiple times, saying that he deliberately makes his dialogue hard to hear. Something to do with making us “lean in” and really work at the task of being an audience. The same could be said of his “plots” which are better described as puzzles.
Still, there’s no denying his box-office success, so he clearly has legions of fans. I like to picture them as the sort of people who can’t wait to tell you they belong to MENSA. The bore you move away from at the bar.
cromreturns
3 years ago
Very irresponsible of you to go to a theatre. Shame on you.
Tra Tra – when do you think it will be safe to go back to the theatre?
Charles Rense
3 years ago
His films are puzzleboxes that I have enjoyed for over twenty years. I don’t expect to understand them in an efficient single viewing, I expect to watch them multiple times to get them. Thats part of the appeal for me.
David Yeetmore
3 years ago
If you find it too difficult to understand complex plots, or you are too lazy to, why do you go to see a Nolan movie about time travel? Almost everyone I know that saw this movie understood it and found it amazing. It seems people like you should just stick to more simple movies…
Bob Bobson
3 years ago
I admit the dialogue is hard to hear. However, I have to take exception to the criticism of the plot for one reason – Nolan likes to put the viewer in the same situation as the protagonist (best example, Memento). What better way to do this with a time travel film about going backwards and forwards over the same timeline, than to make a film that must be seen twice! I have only seen it once so far, but I am already planning my second viewing to watch certain scenes armed with prior knowledge. Is it not obvious that this is what Nolan intended?
Mumbling actors is a pet peeve of mine. It might be more realistic than stage-play style oratory of decades ago, but at least then you knew what the hell was going on. Nothing worse than repeated rewinds to make out a garbled statement.
Dreadful film. Cliched characters and dialogue and a preposterous plot which made no sense whatsoever.
Like the reviewer I couldn’t make out what the actors were saying half the time but it was all so daft I didn’t care one way or another.
You could say the same of more or less anything that comes out of Hollywood.
You should not be going to theatres. Shame on you.
Cliched characters and dialogue, sure. But just because you couldn’t make sense of the movie, doesn’t mean the plot made no sense.
It’s a question innit. All these mysteries and thrillers have way over-complicated plots yet we still go to see them.
I watched Nolan’s Inception and wondered how it could be such a hit when the plot was so complicated that I just gave up on it.
More research is needed.
I loved inception. It is my favourite movie. Not for everyone though.
Mystification itself has mass market appeal. Most consumers of spectacle aren’t in the market for truth, goodness, beauty, but sensation, thrills, and escape.
Even with subtitles I wouldn’t have understood it. I had to read the Wikipedia plot summary afterwards and I still didn’t understand it. Tedious battle scene at the end where I didn’t know who was who and cared less. There’s a big deal with the red tag on the rucksack which, it seems, was important in the opera business at the beginning which felt as though it had happened aeons before,
Laughed out at your description of Branagh on the catamaran. Enjoyed being physically in the cinema, so there was that.
Stay out of the theatre. Think of others than yourself.
I have Subtitles on all the time on Netflix. I have no hearing issues according to any tests but can’t hear all the mumbling. And Nolan in particular mixes the music too high and the vocal too low.
Interesting article thanks.
I guess this is partly a result of more developed plots and characters having been pushed into series (or seasons), leaving cinema the place for more grand, sweeping dramatic visuals with less depth.
I really liked Memento and his Batman films (Batmen?), as well as The Prestige. But didn’t really get all the fuss about Inception. Much like you describe Tenet, it was all beautiful and epic, but with not that much sense in the dialogue or plot. Maybe I’m too thick, but just didn’t really get what I was supposed to “get” and why that made it so clever as everyone said.
Ok so a dream within a dream…and….?
Totally agree. I feel the same about Charlie Kaufman. The high concepts of eg Synedoche are fun to play with but IMO would benefit from being distilled down into a simpler and more comprehensible story.
I wonder sometimes if the inaudible dialogue of modern films is down to the director simply being lazy about microphones. Doesn’t want them on the actors, doesn;t want booms in shot. So just carries on with a basic setup
Inaudible dialogue – very perplexing given digital media is supposed to be superior to the olde analogue – so it’s a very pertinent question as to why this is often such a problem with modern films.
Took my mind off Covid for a couple of hours and gave us something else to talk about. It wasn’t a great film but good to get back to cinema. The cinema experience is better than staying home.
Stay home and stop spreading COVID. Think of others.
to tra tra – we get it. thanks, now please leave us alone. paranoia is best enjoyed in privacy.
I like slow-moving films with barely any action or plot. And no soundtrack. Favourite director – Michael Haneke, favourite film – Treeless Mountain (director So Yong Kim) If you want an antidote to over-complicated action films, if you want to be profoundly moved by the resilience of children in the face the cruelty of a grown-up world – watch it.
I watched it yesterday and didn’t understand any of it especially, as other commentators say, dialogue is inaudible. Why do they think dialogue needs loud music/noises to underscore it?!
I frequently looked at my watch to see when it might end …..please make it stop!
I vaguely understood Inception!
A man after my own heart. I thought I was the only one who never got it with movie plots, and I’m always surrounded by people like your wife. Apart from being delightfully written, this article has given me great spiritual relief.
Christopher Nolan is on record, multiple times, saying that he deliberately makes his dialogue hard to hear. Something to do with making us “lean in” and really work at the task of being an audience. The same could be said of his “plots” which are better described as puzzles.
Still, there’s no denying his box-office success, so he clearly has legions of fans. I like to picture them as the sort of people who can’t wait to tell you they belong to MENSA. The bore you move away from at the bar.
Very irresponsible of you to go to a theatre. Shame on you.
Tra Tra – when do you think it will be safe to go back to the theatre?
His films are puzzleboxes that I have enjoyed for over twenty years. I don’t expect to understand them in an efficient single viewing, I expect to watch them multiple times to get them. Thats part of the appeal for me.
If you find it too difficult to understand complex plots, or you are too lazy to, why do you go to see a Nolan movie about time travel? Almost everyone I know that saw this movie understood it and found it amazing. It seems people like you should just stick to more simple movies…
I admit the dialogue is hard to hear. However, I have to take exception to the criticism of the plot for one reason – Nolan likes to put the viewer in the same situation as the protagonist (best example, Memento). What better way to do this with a time travel film about going backwards and forwards over the same timeline, than to make a film that must be seen twice! I have only seen it once so far, but I am already planning my second viewing to watch certain scenes armed with prior knowledge. Is it not obvious that this is what Nolan intended?