Am I literally the only person

[very_improbable]

who thinks that Peter Morgan is not actually a good screenwriter? I can't fault him on matters of structure, but I don't think he, you know, writes good lines. When he has to convey a piece of exposition or a character's opinion on something (which accounts for most of The Queen) he loses whatever sense of character voice he had and everybody sounds like a newspaper editorial, and most of the time when he goes for a moment of emotional truth it's on the clunky side.

I mean, I saw Frost/Nixon tonight and I thought the film was extremely well-done and gripping, and the dialogue that was identical to or closely modeled on the historical record was dramatically compelling, and it basically did not have good dialogue other than that. But, like Nixon, I appear to have an opinion that is shared by no one.

Comments

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

I suppose the point that I would make is that structure really isn't easy, that a screenwriter who can put together a really, really solid structure but can't write clever lines is actually better than one who you can quote. I mean, Frost/Nixon actually gave away the climactic moment of the film in the trailer and still made it mean something, really mean something when it came to seeing it in the movie. That really impressed me.