Narrative technique · used in 7 films
Building scenes out of questions and answers, where 1 character tests and picks apart what another believes. The argument itself drives the drama.
Examples
Sidney Lumet · 1957
Juror 8 (Fonda) never claims to know what happened. He asks questions (about the knife, the witness's testimony, the timeline) and lets the answers show how weak the case is. All the drama comes from claims being tested. That is, you watch an argument turn into a moral awakening.
Where to see it: The knife demonstration. Fonda produces a knife similar to the supposed murder weapon.
Richard Linklater · 1995
Jesse and Céline do more than talk. They argue, give ground and push back. They fall in love as intellectual equals, and the film never lets either one be simply right.
Where to see it: The conversation about past lives. The topic starts as a game and ends up showing how emotionally exposed they both are.
Robert Zemeckis · 1997
Ellie's arguments with others about faith and proof are scenes of questions and answers. Characters test each other's beliefs. The film itself ends with a hearing that doubts her story.
Where to see it: The final hearing: Ellie tells the committee she cannot prove her journey, since her recorder captured only about 18 hours of static, and asks them to take it on faith.
Bennett Miller · 2011
Almost all of the film's drama is talk. Beane and Brand argue about statistics, Beane and the scouts argue about how to judge players and Beane and Art Howe argue about who plays where. The dialogue scenes are the film's action sequences. In each conversation, the 2 sides are fighting over whose way of knowing things counts.
Where to see it: Beane and Brand's first long meeting. The 2 men build their approach by arguing and testing each position against the other. The sabermetric revolution, the move to judging baseball by statistics, plays out as a back-and-forth of questions and answers in a budget office.
Richard Linklater · 2013
Scenes are built from questions that test what each person believes. Over dinner and on the walk to the hotel, the couple argues about how men and women see love differently. They ask whether they could stay together for more than 70 years, the way Jesse's grandparents did.
Where to see it: The walk to the hotel: Jesse and Céline wonder whether they would have become a couple if they met as the people they are now.
Fernando Meirelles · 2019
Most of the film is two men asking each other hard questions about faith, the Church and their own pasts. One tests the other's beliefs, and the argument is the drama. You learn who they are by what they push back on.
Where to see it: The Sistine Chapel talk. In the Room of Tears, Benedict tells Bergoglio he plans to resign, and Bergoglio objects.
Sarah Polley · 2022
Polley builds the film as a real debate. Each woman's position is tested by the others, and arguments that seemed settled are reopened. The conversation is all the dramatic action the film has.
Where to see it: The 3-option vote: Do Nothing, Stay and Fight, Leave. The vote splits and an argument follows. The film refuses to give you a single correct answer.
Questions