[Note: I feel there should already be a term for this and pre-existing writing on this spectrum. But I can't find it, so I am inventing the concepts straight from the dome. If you can point me towards where this is already talked about, I'd appreciate that.]
Reading a review of Amazon's "Outer Range" I was struck by this quote: https://twiststreet.tumblr.com/post/683478412345720832
I think the thing I like about this Outer Range show is how much you can tell the writers come from writing plays. All the dialogue– you can just hear it in the dialogue, that there are playwrights in the mix on the show. It’s the kind of thing you don’t even have to be told– it would not be a hard guess. I feel like that’s the appeal of the show for me more than the more grab-y outlandish fantasy elements that probably got the show sold: I just want to hear Will Patton talk about his love of hentai, or for James Brolin to explain the origin of the universe in 30 seconds, or whatever else. Show’s got a voice going…
Emphasis mine. Sadly I can't find the aforementioned speech of Wayne Patton describing the naked ladies he puts on his walls, but it's in Episode 2 and pretty great.
And that made me thinking about difficulty I have been having watching anime lately.
Anime obviously has dialogue. But very frequently the dialogue is a minimalist point, used to serve contrast to the visuals. We may get a shout of reaction, or one word said over a landscape of quiet melancholy, or one sinister statement emphasizing the pure evil of the villain. Very often we get a "jumps onto the scene" line showing just how badass or determined a character is. An absurdly high percentage of anime dialogue is someone calling out another character's name, and nothing else, and how much of anime (and Hideo Kojima) "interrobang echolalia" - repeating back the last two words of what someone said but with an exclamation and confusion?
Much less often do we get beautifully written monologues or flowing dialogues of a writer showing off both their erudition and the ability of the actor to express these words. If there is a heartfelt monologue in a show like this, it's a voiceover as we watch scenes of others play out visually.
This isn't a matter of translation, since 1. not all anime is like this, 2. fluent speakers would be quick to point out the difference, and 3. American comics are like this too. Some comics have epic monologues of course, but the page design for them is always a little bit awkward... a close in of their face as half the page is filled up with text. No, for comics we much prefer rather than Ozymandias's long monologues, just his moment of saying "I did it 35 minutes ago" as he poses like a ruler over a throne room. It's pointed.
I'm not even talking about all anime, or anime adjacent products, or animated series. Arcane and Avatar the Last Airbender love showing off lengthy dialogue and the performance of the character delivering it. Think of Jinx's tea party or Zuko imitating Iroh.
It's just there is a set of visual media that is not "writerly" when it comes to dialogue. It uses minimalism, repetition, and contrast to create a "mood" for the visuals which are the real emphasis of the work. This includes most anime, many action movies, and a whole lot of avant-garde European cinema. One would even say mega-artist David Lynch falls into this brand. This takes skill and craftstmanship to do well, and many people really like it.
Look at any youtube video of "top 20 best anime scenes" and tell me what they have in common.
On the other end, you have actors who wish they were in a Shakespeare play and writers who wish they were Shakespeare, giving you scenes that are shared as paragraph long quotes or three minute youtube videos. Babylon 5, Outer Range, the OA, Deep Space Nine, and dear god Fargo or anything made by the Coen brothers.
Someone said to call this end "writerly", but there isn't a good definition of that (other than "like a writer") and I am calling as much attention to the delivery by the actor as to the actual text.
It's impossible to say either of these is "better" than the other, since there's a very wide range of quality within each. Spirited Away (anime) is hella better than Season 4 BSG (stageplay), while Knives Out (stageplay) blows out of the water something like Rise of Skywalker (anime.) There's no reason to even advocate a "happy middle" between the ends, since their audiences specifically love the style that show is best representing and want more of it.
It is possible to say what our preference is, and a large part of my recent journey has been realizing how much I prefer the stageplay end of the spectrum.
