Juan Carlos Carrillo

A cinematographic Babel: variations of language in a same screenplay

Universidad Panamericana, Mexico

In a global world, both the stories told and the audiences are increasingly international and interlingual. Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une chute, Justine Triet & Arthur Harari [writers] 2023) takes place in English and French, since the protagonist is German living in France; the characters in Past Lives (Celine Song 2023) speak in Korean and English, since its characters are South Korean immigrants in NYC; Decision to Leave (Heojil kyolshim, Park Chan-wook & Chung Seo-kyung [writers] 2022) is in Korean and Chinese, as the Korean protagonist falls in love with a Chinese woman “who does not master the language”.

These decisions are crucial to the story and the writing of the screenplay. Paradigmatically of this, Guillermo Arriaga’s script for the film Babel (Guillermo Arriaga [wr.], Alejandro G. Iñárritu [dir.], 2006) tells a story that takes place in four different spoken languages—English, Spanish, Moroccan, Japanese—plus deaf-mute sign language. The writer himself does not know all of these languages, but his film is precisely intended to be a manifesto about the problems of lack of communication derived from different human languages.

On the other hand, the use of different varieties of the same language is decisive when writing dialogues. Whether they are the differences by social class of the characters—as in Amores Perros (Guillermo Arriaga [wr.], Alejandro G. Iñárritu [dir.], 2000)—, differences due to their region—as in Welcome to the Sticks (Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis, Dany Boon, Franck Magnier & Alexandre Charlot [writers], 2008)—or by the register used in one situation or another—as in My Fair Lady (Alan Jay Lerner [wr.], George Cukor [dir.], 1964). Even entire films revolve around linguistic structure and traits like Arrival (Eric Heisserer & Ted Chiang [wr.], Denis Villeneuve [dr.], 2016).

This presentation seeks to share the centrality of verbal language inserted within cinematographic language in its various forms, and to the deduce the power of enriching the story that it implies, as well as some challenges and possibilities for screenwriters in this kind of stories.

Born in Mexico City in 1988. PhD in Communication by the Universidad de los Andes (Chile) with a thesis on violence in contemporary Mexican cinema. Studied an undergraduate degree in Hispanic Philology and one in Audiovisual Communication, both at the University of Navarra (Spain).

Academic interested in aspects related to screenwriting, narrative and poetics in audiovisual fiction. He is a member of the Screenwriting Research Network and of the Red Iberoamericana de Investigación en Narrativas Audiovisuales. He has been a jury member at several international film festivals.

Full-time researcher at Universidad Panamericana (Mexico City), where he also teaches classes in History of Cinema, Audiovisual Narratives and Written Communication. Script analyst and film critic in the web www.palomitascaramelizadas.com (in Spanish).