When I was growing up, we had a big, hardback picture book called The Red Balloon that told the story of the film, illustrated with remarkable stills. The story always broke my heart a little as a kid and, like everyone who's ever been lonely in their life at some time, I could empathise with the boy whose best friend is a balloon. So when the bullies attack the balloon... Anyway, I recently found a copy of the book [only softcover, sadly] and had to buy it. A quick surf of the interweb and I discovered three startling facts: it's 50 years since The Red Balloon was first released. The 34-minute film had no dialogue, only music, sound effects and ambient noise. Most remarkable of all, it won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay that year [beating Ealing comedy classic The Ladykillers, among others].
Who says you need great dialogue to write a great screenplay?
2 comments:
Hell, I can remember seeing that film when I was a kid! I never knew that it won an Oscar....
colin
LOVED this movie as a child. I can remember seeing it on TV in the early '70s. Or maybe we watched it in school...anyway, definitely memorable!
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