Lines You'd Like to Add, Delete or Change

[Stewball]

Ever think of an addition or improvement to a show's dialogue? I thought of this example from Leaves of Grass (which is currently in my movie I keep coming back to mental box), so I thought I'd make a thread of it.

This is the dialogue from a scene that bothers me because I think it needs to be finished off.

For context, philosophy prof. Bill is Ed Norton, and Janet the poet is Keri Russell--and what I want to add is because I believe Bill is right. (off the wall thought, if this had been Bill's twin brother Bradley in the scene, it would have been Brad and Janet....but I digress.):

Janet: You still leaving tomorrow.
Bill: I think so.
Janet: I'll miss you.
Bill: And we barely know each other.
Janet: "You have not known what you are. You have slumbered upon yourself all your life. Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time. What you have done returns already in mockeries. The mockeries are not you. Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk."
Bill: Who was that?
Janet: Walt Whitman.
Bill: I don't think I ever imagined hearing him recited to me by a girl gutting a 40 pound catfish.
Janet: That's exactly how he should be recited. He wrote without rhyme or meter. Free verse. Just whatever he felt inside coming out in one intricate rhythm. Pure unashamed passion, without definable restriction.
Bill: I'm sorry, see, I have a few issues with that.
Janet: Why?
Bill: Because some have dared to suggest that even poetry has rules.
Janet: Or you make your own.
Bill Kincaid: Right there, that's the part I never bought into.
Janet: Because?
Bill: If everybody runs around making their own rules, how can you ever find what's true? There's nothing... there's nothing to rely on.
Janet: "One night, I split my cicada skin, devoured your leaves, knowing no poison, no law of nourishment in that larval blindness, a hunger finally true."
Bill: Who's that?
Janet: That's me.

<I would add>

Bill: Wouldn't that and Whitman be more correctly termed, poetic prose?
Janet: No.
Bill: (smiles) Now who's making the rules?

(Inside Phil/Lit joke)

[dunbar]

Interesting thread to kick off.

I enjoyed reading that dialogue, haven't seen the movie (although my interest is piqued) so my thoughts aren't a well measured judgement, but on the face of it I'd have to simply say that in that particular case less is more. The addition doesn't feel warranted.

When I'm kicking around with some more time I'll see if I can dig up some dialogue, because I've definitely done this to films on occasion.

[Stewball]

Interesting thread to kick off.

I enjoyed reading that dialogue, haven't seen the movie (although my interest is piqued) so my thoughts aren't a well measured judgement, but on the face of it I'd have to simply say that in that particular case less is more. The addition doesn't feel warranted.

When I'm kicking around with some more time I'll see if I can dig up some dialogue, because I've definitely done this to films on occasion.

Thanks, and I think most anyone would get a lot out of it. I don't even remember it coming out, in '09. I just saw it recently on Indiplex (THE reason I use Dish Network). And those that agree with her probably wouldn't like my addition, though I think I left it more open ended, sort of.

There's a lot of guff on the IMDb message boards about Norton doing a bad Oklahoma accent. I don't know what they're talking about, and since Tim Blake Nelson, who directed it, stared in it, wrote the thing with Norton in mind and was born and raised in Tulsa, I think they just don't like Norton, which a lot of people don't--though he's very likable in this.

Listen to the music during the credits, particularly the second one, Boys From Oklahoma. Not being a country fan, I'd never heard it.

[Stewball]

I don't think I have enough experience to identify state wise Southern accents but I thought Ed Norton did a very nice Southern boy role (Kentucky, I think) in Primal Fear. As good as Josh Lucas (who is actually a Southener) in Sweet Home Alabama.
(The comparison between Norton & Lucas is only about playing a Southener).

I consider Ed Norton to be one of the greatest actors of our time though he mostly appears in vapid movies and roles which do him very little justice.

I agree. And I think the gist of the objections to his accent in LoG isn't that it wasn't a good southern accent, but that it wasn't a good Oklahoma southern accent. Even if it wasn't, I mean, get another life and pick your nits there.