Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay on why rhetorical questions make for such memorable movie quotes.
What makes a line in a movie memorable? Is it its context, its cadence, or its rhythm? Is a movie quote’s memorability more a consequence of how an actor delivers the line? Or how the screenwriter assembles the words on the page?
There is no sure-fire rhetorical recipe that can guarantee the stickiness of a line of film dialogue.
But among the persistent trends, this much is true: rhetorical questions populate famous movie quotes with notable frequency. From Travis Bickle’s confrontational “are you talking to me?” in Taxi Driver to Dirty Harry‘s inquiry into whether or not a certain hapless punk feels lucky or not, such lines have a tendency to pop off the screen and weasel their way into the cultural consciousness.
The video essay below, on memorable movie quotes, offers an enticing crash course on the different varieties of rhetorical questions, from self-directed anthypophora to the rebuking candor of epiplexis. In the end, the proposed theory is clear. By virtue of their inherently involving drama and magnetic inquisitive pull, rhetorical questions pack a decidedly cinematic punch.
Watch “What Makes a Movie Line Memorable?”:
Who made this?
This video essay on why rhetorical questions make for such iconic movie quotes comes courtesy of the fine folks at Little White Lies, a film-obsessed magazine based in the United Kingdom. Luís Azevedo directed this video, which was written and narrated by Mark Forsyth and produced by Adam Woodward. You can follow Little White Lies on Twitter here. And you can check out their official website here. You can subscribe to their YouTube account here.
More videos like this
- For another taste of what Little White Lies has to offer, here’s an essay that eulogizes the cinematic power of the phone booth.
- For another look at Azevedo’s work with Little White Lies, here’s a video essay on the movie title design and opening title sequences of Pablo Ferro.
- Here is a look at what makes a great movie studio logo.
- And here’s why the Academy Awards‘ bias against horror should scare us.
- Finally: here is Little White Lies‘ look at how Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar uses sound design to construct vibrant, tactile worlds.
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