Comment by keiferski
2 years ago
Part of this, I think, is also the shift to dialogue-based scripts. It reminds me of this excellent Every Frame a Painting video that compares Kurosawa’s effective use of movement with the barely-moving, dialogue-driven Avengers films. A huge percentage of films/shows today are what Hitchcock called, “photographs of people talking” and aren’t actually cinematic. If they were more cinematic, hearing every line of dialogue wouldn’t be as important to understanding the story.
Start at about 4:25:
I think that's part of it, but I also think acting styles have changed a lot over the years. In the really old days, actors came from stage acting, where they were taught to speak loudly and enunciate better so people could hear and understand. But these days, mumbling seems to be in vogue.
For everyone complaining that they can't hear dialog in streaming shows, try watching some old movie or TV show from the 1960s (or even 70s or 80s) on the same setup: you'll probably have no trouble understanding the actors. It's just like music: young people keep saying we're just getting old, but it isn't true: things have really changed in the industries.
It's not that mumbling is in vogue, it's that TV really has become far more naturalistic. We expect people to be seemingly acting like actual people.
When you throw in overly enunciated dialog, the kind you had in 1970's TV and 1990's sitcoms, it's jarring and bizarre. You're like, why is that cop talking like they're in a bad comedy TV show, instead of just being a regular cop? It's seriously terrible.
You still get a milder version of over-enunciation in network comedies today. But it just doesn't fit in dramas that depend on the characters seeming like real people. It's not mumbling and it's not lazy actors, it's a very conscious choice to not distract the audience.
Actors and directors have changed.
Here's another piece from 2021 that gets regularly reposted, because nothing has changed since then.
https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-ha...
Mumbling is one thing, but most dialogue in a major production (+1-10,000,000$ ?) will be re recorded, at least partially, after the film is made in a process described as ADR.
It’s the audio mixing that’s changed into a faux “naturalism”. Just as you mentioned, 1940s and 1950s had audio mixes with strong dialogue separation. 1970s we’re different with the Easy Rider mentality and slam bam technique of filmmaking (fast and loose and cheap). 1980s and 1990s you return to your he studio system and clarity. Now we have a strange combo - the studio system has returned through the streamers yet the audio is mixed as if it was a small time indie production that can’t afford ADR (no Netflix production will have issues budgeting ADR however).
It’s an audio mixing choice. It will go away.
Audio mixes have also changed. A false idea of “ naturalism” persists. If you listen to an audio mix to - film from the 1940s, 1950s and 1980s the dialogue is crystal clear above the rest of the mix. Now there’s a tendency to mix it all together which I find makes it harder to hear lines clearly.
That's a good point too. The extreme example of this is how Fellini recorded audio separately in the studio, not while filming.
All major Italian films of the period did so. It was a combination of being able to film faster and the multilingual nature of the actors involved (American, Italian, German and Spanish actors often in the same scene) meant some voices were kept and others were replaced. Essentially the Italian dubbing industry was so developed it was easier faster and cheaper to not record sound. It also allowed more freedom with the camera setups and motion (no shadows of boom mics or the need to coordinate both picture and sound as the camera sweeps through).