If you were to take away the dialogues from your favorite movie, a silent film, would that movie still be your favorite? Would the story be sold? Would it still agitate the same emotions? Would it be... complete?
If genres were freestyle, my favorite genre would easily be "Edgar Wright-styled storytelling". The man is both ahead of his time and still a classic. He is, by far, the only director that encompasses the entirety of filmmaking when making a movie, every single time. Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Hot Fuzz, The World's End. His unparalleled efficient use of picture and sound to deliver the story is just...unparalleled.
It is interesting that he specializes in comedy, well action-comedy, thriller-comedy, horror-comedy and that sorts. And no one does it better. Let's be honest; modern comedy has lost it, COMPLETELY. A shallow, predictable story, boring acting, and even worse delivery of jokes - but most importantly, all the deliveries rely on dialogue.
What Wright has done is remove the need for dialogue to push a story. Instead, he relies on the scene and how it can be interacted with to shape the story. For example, I clearly remember the Hot Fuzz scene where the protagonists attend a road accident. Wright decides to use quick cuts with a mix of pans, zooms and precisely places audio notes to change the pace of the scene without a single dialogue. Within 5 seconds, you are now in an intense crime scene.
Another scene that stands out for me that solidified my love for Wright was the simple starting scene of Baby Driver. Baby goes to grab coffee. That is the scene. No action, no dialogues. But the scene cements a lot about Baby's character. It will take you a few rewatches to realize the tiny details that help achieve the understanding of the character.
Baby walks down a busy street, orders 4 coffees with "Baby" written on the cups. He walks back. However, the biggest differences can be noticed when he receives the coffee and starts walking back. The music becomes upbeat, the colors and brightened, and subtle changes can be seen. For example, there are more heart and love-shaped illustrations in the street, there are fewer people, and so on. In just one scene without any dialogue or prime interaction, we learn about Baby's love for music, coffee, and maybe even his primal needs.
My all-time favorite is The World's End. A very mundane story of friend group that relive the protagonist's golden days by doing a beer run through a street of bars. An absolutely boring story. How do you make it exciting? Of course, gamify it. Each bar becomes like a harder level in a game. Each bar has a new challenge. Each bar develops the characters. And so on. Want more? Insert aliens and horror to the story.
In that very movie, he shows off some of his incredibly flexible creativity. Action scenes beg film lovers to wonder how he got a full-contact action move and still manages to break the victim in half and so on. He shows off his incredible talent of using music to set the stage. Time and time again you see him using music and incorporating actions to match the beat and even set the mood.
Edgar doesn't shy away from typical comedic monologues, either. Scott Pilgrim has some of the most iconic monologues. For instance, Chris Evans, who plays one of the Exes, has an incredible punchline. In the guitar war scene, or the scene where Scott jumps out of the window. But with every monologue, Edgar still insists to add his magical touch. Like the window monologue has a zoom, pan, awkward silence and surprisingly stupid action which makes it so funny.
For all that he does and for all the recognition his directing style is getting, Edgar is still very unrecognized. His work has always been highly appreciated by the masses, but the awards aren't coming through. The winds have changed a little, I wonder how well he would do in a drama movie.
