Whazzat yuh say?

Rating: 5/10 (29 March 2008)

Apologies if someone else has commented on this aspect of the film, but I don't feel like parsing through 42 pages of commentary. Two things come to mind. First, I had always naively thought that the purpose of dialogue in a film, with the exception of Robert Altman's work, was to keep the viewer abreast of what has happened, what is happening and what might happen. Not in TGS. OK, I can deal with the garbled dialogue of Wilson's son and his lover--it's a spy tape. But the film is maddening in that 60% of the CRITICAL dialogue is whispered through clenched teeth, and the other 40% occurs while Whiffenpoofs are singing or a band is playing--you get the idea. I've sat through this film twice now, once on rented DVD, once broadcast by a movie channel, and thus could kick up the volume in a desperate attempt to figure out what's being said, not being a lipreader myself. But DeNiro's incessant use of background noise only makes the raised volume more of a problem. Yes, yes, I know that in real life, humans talk over all kinds of noise, but LIVE DISCUSSION IS NOT A SOUND TRACK. A sound track is there to further plot or character development. Secondly, if you doubt that privileged Ivy League fellows really don't cavort in mud while being peed on, or dress up like women, or presume to know how to run the country better than the rest of us peons, I got a bridge I wanna sell you.