Films with a beautiful, literate script

[WICKES]

Can anyone recommend a film with a beautiful script?

There is a British film (sadly little known outiside the British Isles) called Withnail and I, which has such amazing, poetic language. For those who haven't seen it, it is a tragic comedy about two drunken, out of work actors living in a filthy apartment in London at the end of the 1960s. One is an eccentric, upper class alcoholic, the other is an angst-ridden, lower middle class friend desperate to escape their life. There must be some fans of that film on here.

Lawrence of Arabia (script by Robert Bolt) and A Clockwork Orange (which bravely retains Burgess' extraordinary language) also deserve a mention.

[cafolini]

Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief. Federico Fellini's Amarcord, and The Clowns.

[Desolation]

True Grit (the new one) has some of the most beautiful language in the dialogue that I've ever heard.

Just about any of Woody Allen's movies would be pretty high up there too.

[Emil Miller]

Citizen Kane scripted by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles.
Here's just a sample of one of the greatest screenplay's ever written.
Strictly for grown ups and literate youngsters.

http://youtu.be/16WC_Dyo6Fo

[Charles Darnay]

Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen)

Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)

Life is Beautiful (Benigni)

Or anything written by Giuseppe Tornatore.

[Climacus]

Lawrence of Arabia (script by Robert Bolt) . . .

Bolt's A Man for All Seasons is top-notch. The script of the original play is a little better (it's more involved too, with a subplot omitted in the film). But the film-script is good too.

[LitNetIsGreat]

The opening of Manhattan is brilliant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyaj2P-dSi8

...as is the rest of the film.

[Lokasenna]

True Grit (the new one) has some of the most beautiful language in the dialogue that I've ever heard.

Just about any of Woody Allen's movies would be pretty high up there too.

I think a lot of the Coen Brother's films qualify, and I'd agree with Woody Allen.

If Life is Beautiful can be up there, then another foreign marvel is The Lives of Others - a German friend of mine said it was beautifully written.

[Paulclem]

Under Milk Wood with Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and Elizabeth Burton is brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fvcW5VJOAI

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'll put in another vote for almost anything the Coens have done, and same goes with Tarantino, as long as you realize what he's trying to do with film. Some other movies that popped in my head were The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club, and the films of Christopher Nolan.

[mortalterror]

The film which is most like Withnail and I is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. When I think of a literate script I mostly think of the dialogue, the best examples of which are usually screen adaptations of plays such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Julius Caesar, or Glengarry Glen Ross. There are a lot of great literary adaptations of novels like The Godfather and Gone With the Wind. There are also many visually beautiful films, or just good films, which I see most people here suggesting. If you want a more specific type of film your criteria will have to be more specific, otherwise you are just going to get a list of people's favorite art films.

[Gregory Samsa]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a great movie.

[PeterL]

The script of Lolita that Nabokov wrote was pretty darned beautiful. Alas, it has never been made into a mvie.

[JuniperWoolf]

Anything by Aronofsky, especially The Fountain or Pi.

[Patrick_Bateman]

Can anyone recommend a film with a beautiful script?

There is a British film (sadly little known outiside the British Isles) called Withnail and I, which has such amazing, poetic language. For those who haven't seen it, it is a tragic comedy about two drunken, out of work actors living in a filthy apartment in London at the end of the 1960s. One is an eccentric, upper class alcoholic, the other is an angst-ridden, lower middle class friend desperate to escape their life. There must be some fans of that film on here.

Lawrence of Arabia (script by Robert Bolt) and A Clockwork Orange (which bravely retains Burgess' extraordinary language) also deserve a mention.

Withnail and I is the finest film known to Man
Hilarious and some fantastic quotes.