Stephen Follows asks the question: “Has the way movies use dialogue changed?”

The answer is simply, “Yes.”

In fact, according to his research, it is constantly changing. Using the subtitles from over 60,000 movies, his analysis allows these conclusions:

• Comedies contain more dialogue than Horror flicks (duh)
• Films from the Forties had more spoken words than those from the Seventies (and Oughts as well)
• The current share of runtime by dialogue is now 50%, a level not seen since the Fifties.

My take: this is fascinating research and well worth the read. It calls into question the long-standing entreaty to “show, don’t tell.”