movies with little dialogue

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vinyle richie

I found out why I like the movie Drive so much. Aside from the acting skills of Ryan Gosling (who I like more and more), his character and the movie had very minimal dialogue. I've come to appreciative movies lately that make you sit back and exam characters just like if you were watching someone in real life, without the soliloquy or "this is what I'm about to do now" moments. Show us don't tell us.

The Coen bros do this extremely well, especially in No Country for Old Men. There Will Be Blood has some very good scenes with no dialogue (eventhough I didn't care for the movie as a whole).

So guys, what are your favorite movies or characters that have very little dialogue, or even favorite scenes for that matter (like the hotel scenes in No Country, which I find myself always watching when it's on tv)? Can anyone name an Oscar nominated movie with less than a couple hundred spoken words, not counting the Artist?
 
Obviously I have a bias but I believe that one of the best methods of character development is to experience the character's reality from the character's POV rather than just being told about it through the dialogue and this is an area where sound design can be a most powerful tool. The trend in big budget film has been for high edit densities and wall to wall dialogue to keep the pace up and maintain interest, as the opposite can be such a killer. Just half a second too long on a few too many edits with not quite enough happening and boredom sets in (for me anyway). It's takes a lot of skill to hit the right balance.

As you decrease the dialogue, a proportional increase in skill is required in other areas such as editing and/or acting but most particularly from the sound design (including the music). One of the best examples of this, though snubbed by the Academy at the time, is "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". Often minimal dialogue but clever editing and use of perspective and sublime sound design and music. There are so many great films which use this sound design (and/or music) instead of dialogue trick for many of their most powerful scenes, I couldn't possibly list them all but "Psycho", "Apocalypse Now", "2001", "Fantasia", "Silence of the Lambs", "Chariots of Fire", "The Shining", "Blade Runner", "Lawrence of Arabia", "Jaws" and "The Godfather". In fact, there are very, very few of the modern "great films" which don't make particularly good use this film making tool.

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