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The F*Bomb

I usually search through older posts, and there was one in particular that i noticed. It talked about how many of the movies today over used swear words. I agree with this somewhat. Poke said that we all swear in our everyday lives (i know i do) so whats the big deal. Do the people that get annoyed by this get annoyed when their best friends swear constantly.(im just curious, and i dont want anyone to take any offense to this) So i was wondering. To avoid overusing the swears would it be better to just use the swear words to intensify emotion. Because A LOT of people say fuck when they are really pissed off. :lol:
 
Use it in the right places and it can help a lot, use it all the time and the guy has a potty mouth. Use it ever as a woman saying it, and she'll be a slut unless its in the right place, Use it in real life with a woman with class and you won't be getting any ;)
 
I agree with Wide. I watch some movies like Cabin Fever (which I liked) but found some of the foul language was overused because it didn't fit with the characters, whereas in movies like Pulp Fiction you don't notice the language almost because you expect those characters to speak that way.

I find that a lot of movies that use excessive expletives do so for lack of something better. Even looking at my work, there are a couple places where I wished I hadn't elected to have a character say the F word.
 
Language is a powerful tool and a curse word can be great ways to add impact, but today they are being overused. I hate it, and not because I'm bothered by cursing. At times I can curse with the best of them. I hate it because it is stealing the power of those words. A well placed curse can get people's attention, but if it is used constantly, then it has no power, no meaning.

I was working on a movie and we had a young production assistant who was telling a short story about something that happened to him. It was about a 30 seconds and in that time he used the F-word or variations 18 times. It was getting to the point that I thought it should be every other word. (Example, "F***, this guy drove his F***ing car over my F***ing foot and I went "F***, man.") Later on the shoot, I began making up non-sensical fake curse words to combat this.

Scott
 
Tarantino

Tarantino has his own unique style with swearing, i mean the opening scene of pulp fiction must use f**k after every word, but then there are also more creative ways of swearing.
As long as they don't flood the dialogue and actually slow it down rather than give it more meaning or decent pace then it doesn't really matter that much.
For one thing, if someone is going to be chased around by the undead it's quite likely they're going to be a little stressed to say the least :)
 
I've come across this problems few times as a writer and I think there are a number of different issues with foul language.

The first is that although like a lot of people I have no hang ups about swearing and, in fact, swear quite a lot. However, there are lots and lots of people who are really bothered by it. As I'm not writing for myself, but an audience, I have to take into consideration that a lot of swearing is going to define my target market. Not always a bad thing, but it may also restrict the international markets I can sell into and as an independent film maker I have to be aware of different cultural issues around swearing.

More interesting for me around this issue, is the fact that dialogue with lots of swearing is often written to make the piece seem more realistic, more how "real" people talk and the truth of the matter is that it often doesn't achieve that effect, because it doesn't tell us anything new about the character or move the story on.

When it does work, is when you have a character who hasn't sworn throughout the piece, but is driven to it by one defining moment.

The truth is that dialogue isn't about mimicing real life, otherwise we wouldn't go to the cinema, we'd just hang out in cafes listening to other peoples' conversations.
 
Cursing is a part of our society. Not necessarily a good thing but it is.
In making "Redemption" it became a question of is this true to the character. Many of the characters never uttered anything that resembled a curse word while others would be considered complete potty mouths. I personally rarely curse and when I do people know that I am upset. In the end I believe that it comes down to personal taste, and I believe that people who don't approve of cursing still can relate to a film even if it does have cursing if they feel it is authentic. We all know people who do curse.
In "Redemption" there is one character that says the things that I think many of us have thought before but would never say, very similar to Bernie Mac. I believe he adds balance to piece; there can be no light without darkness, no good without evil, Ying and Yang. The balance of the universe must be maintained.

SAR

www.redemptionmovie.com

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000E2R6J/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_1/103-5736487-8928636
 
Every character, like every person, has a personal atmosphere, and dialog does more to describe the character than it does to tell the story. The story happens through these characters: their choices, their actions, their motion through the film. I think profanity can be an effective tool for defining a personal atmosphere and, as mentioned above, for creating balance and differentiation between the characters. How and when a person swears helps to set/express that person's tone.

The danger is when we as writers turn into little "f**kbirds" and we can't get our own minds out of the toilet. But this isn't limited to profanity. It's easy to fall into the trap of making all our characters sound like us in a multitude of ways.
 
More interesting for me around this issue, is the fact that dialogue with lots of swearing is often written to make the piece seem more realistic, more how "real" people talk and the truth of the matter is that it often doesn't achieve that effect, because it doesn't tell us anything new about the character or move the story on.

I couldn't agree more with this statement.

Personally, I really dislike the use of swear words as used today. Once or twice in a movie is fine - any more though and it just distracts me.

I find that there are more creative ways to deal with characters that are angry/upset/etc. A good screenplay and knowledgable editing can reproduce the emotional effects of cursing without actually inserting any. This is what I personally attempt when I work.

I suppose I just don't see the need to add cursing to create a sense of reality. I personally avoid people who curse a lot and the same goes for the movies I watch. I just don't enjoy the company.
 
i skimmed through the posts because im lazy, but if you keep it in character it should be good, i say the F word a crapload each day..prolly more than i should, but i guess people have come to expect it from me adn accept it...so if people expect him to say it then it wont be like "Man why is he using the F word there? tahts stupid"

just like fearmaker said with Pulp Fiction, and its the same in sopranos, you expect tony soprano to cuss alot...so...well ive made my point im rambling now
 
Dave Barry said it best about getting letters about the language in his debut novel, BIG TROUBLE;

"Characters like these just don't say: 'I am going to blow your goshdarned head off, you rascal!'"


Chad
 
I think in screenplays, as in life, cuss words in the wrong hands (or mouths) are just excuses for a lazy or uncreative writer. However, in the right hands, they can be powerful, creative and even funny.

The same goes with violence, screaming, sex and other "loud" devices that are guaranteed to get an audience's attention. There's nothing wrong with loud devices of course, but as someone mentioned, if cussing is used too much and too poorly, it kind of deadens the effect.

If you ask me, I have *no idea* why I find Tarantino's cussing and violence more artful than your average porno. But I bet if we really picked at his screenplay's fine details, we could shed some light on the issue.
 
you know, it's all context.

really crappy movies just have swears needlessly thrown in everywhere. realistically, the use of swearing should signify some sort of emotional high point. or, there's that scene in the Boondock Saints where the italian guy walks into the room where 9 guys had just been killed, and lets loose with a spree of

"How the fuck did you... what the fuck... fucking, fucking how... fuck, FUCK!!!"

He's so panicked it's all he can say. It really works, and it's happened in real life.

My brother wrote an entire english paper on the use of vulgarity in Pulp Fiction. Each character actually has a very distinct style of slang which characterizes them. The paper went on to say how this indicated whether they were in the anal or genital psychological stages... some freudian shit which I really didn't care for. It was a fun read though!
 
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