Fw: [Richard III Society Forum] Re: Richard in Fiction?

Hilary wrote:

"Writing historical fiction dialogue is difficult. Do you go for the semi-archaic, like Penman and grate? Do you go modern like PG and grate? Or do you go poetic like Jarman, and verge on the nineteenth century novel so that people call you outdated?"


The most important thing is consistency of style. There was a very disappointing serial about Elizabeth I on BBC1 a few years ago staring Anne-Marie Duff. That failed, for me, because the writer (forget who, but it was someone highly regarded like Heidi Thomas) never found a convincing idiom for her characters and mixed modern and faux-period dialogue, suggesting that she lacked confidence in what she was doing. Compare that with something like 'Lion in Winter', which is highly stylised and packed with deliberate anachronism, but so perfectly realised that you surrender to it. Or the Charles Wood/Tony Richardson 'Charge of the Light Brigade', which, accurate or not, adopted a circumlocutionary approach that melded ornate formal dialogue and slang in a way that felt both unique on screen and perfect for the mid-Victorian period.

Someone who handles this kind of thing well is Howard Brenton. In '55 Days' he succeeded in taking recorded speeches of Charles I and Cromwell and making them fit in a play that sounded absolutely modern yet kept the rhythm and muscularity of 17th Century English.

Jonathan

I don't dispute this. For some reason, fitting dialogue into a play or film seems easier, don't ask me why. I loved the 'Lion in Winter' and Robert Bolt seemed to be another one who could achieve some sort of credibility.  H



________________________________
From: Jonathan Evans <jmcevans98@...>
To: Richard III Society Forum <>
Sent: Sunday, 3 March 2013, 11:54
Subject: Fw: Re: Richard in Fiction?

 

Hilary wrote:

"Writing historical fiction dialogue is difficult. Do you go for the semi-archaic, like Penman and grate? Do you go modern like PG and grate? Or do you go poetic like Jarman, and verge on the nineteenth century novel so that people call you outdated?"

The most important thing is consistency of style. There was a very disappointing serial about Elizabeth I on BBC1 a few years ago staring Anne-Marie Duff. That failed, for me, because the writer (forget who, but it was someone highly regarded like Heidi Thomas) never found a convincing idiom for her characters and mixed modern and faux-period dialogue, suggesting that she lacked confidence in what she was doing. Compare that with something like 'Lion in Winter', which is highly stylised and packed with deliberate anachronism, but so perfectly realised that you surrender to it. Or the Charles Wood/Tony Richardson 'Charge of the Light Brigade', which, accurate or not, adopted a circumlocutionary approach that melded ornate formal dialogue and slang in a way that felt both unique on screen and perfect for the mid-Victorian period.

Someone who handles this kind of thing well is Howard Brenton. In '55 Days' he succeeded in taking recorded speeches of Charles I and Cromwell and making them fit in a play that sounded absolutely modern yet kept the rhythm and muscularity of 17th Century English.

Jonathan