Boebert@MIT-Multics.ARPA (06/09/87)
There exists an interesting counterexample to the notion that written communication is a subset, approximation, or description of oral expression. The counterexample (this may be too strong a term) is the dialog written by the celebrated "hard-boiled" author James. M. Cain. When scanned by eye on the page it fairly crackles with tension; when read aloud it is flat as a pancake. This phenomenon was first noted by Raymond Chandler (no mean writer of dialog himself) in his comments on the difficulty of converting _Double Indemnity_ into a screenplay. I noted a similar thing when I attended the opera that was made from _The Postman Always Rings Twice_. You can experience the same phenomenon from the other direction if you sit down and read the screenplay from some movie that you thought had terrific dialog (in my case, _The Hustler_); it seems totally banal on the page. The very notion of rhythm, as well as the emotional nuance conveyed by that rhythm, seem to be different for for eye and ear.