The trailer for the new Jason Bourne film progresses much as you might expect. There is running over roofs. There is jumping through windows. There are tense stares in secret government bunkers.

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And there is gruff, urgent dialogue: Matt Damon says things like: “This is Jason Bourne”, and “I know who I am”, and “I remember everything”. In the trailer, he delivers eight economical lines – which, it has emerged, is about a third of his total in the entire film.

In an interview the film’s director, Paul Greengrass, explained that such reticence makes sense. First, the character has officially retired from spying and turned instead to bare-knuckle boxing – not the chattiest activity. Plus, it was central to the premise: “I think what makes a Bourne movie is the violence and the set pieces. But there’s a tremendous amount of emotionality in the character.”

A sound and elegant defence. Yet gagging your leading man is also increasingly expedient. Cinema uses speech less and less. Superman says 43 lines in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In Mad Max: Fury Road, Tom Hardy grunts out 52. That’s three times what Ryan Gosling manages in Only God Forgives. The reasons are obvious. Later this year, China will overtake America as the biggest box office territory in the world. The tickets may be cheaper, but many more millions of people in that country are forking out for them. If you’re in Hollywood, the western world is no longer enough. In order for movies to turn a profit, not only do they need to conquer east Asia, but South America and all of Europe too.

Fill films with dialogue, and they risk getting lost in translation. That’s why universal visuals – aliens, explosions, snug-fitting swimwear – are prioritised over complicated banter. It’s also why potentially contentious moments are not spelt out, the better to muffle in dub should such a fudge be required. Star Trek Beyond and Independence Day: Resurgence, for instance, both feature same-sex relationships – but not quite consummated, not instantly recognisable as such if you were squinting. Translate coyly, and you could pass them off as bonds of family or friendship, not romance. That’s helpful in China, where any representation of homosexuality on screen is forbidden (likewise a depiction of the supernatural, which has pretty much kiboshed Ghostbusters’ chances).

The last thing any Hollywood producer wants is for their film to get banned because a character says something dodgy

It’s also why characters in mainstream movies now simply say less. The last thing any nervous producer wants is for their blockbuster to get banned because it brings up something dodgy. Better to spray a field full of pesticides than sow it with words that could sprout into hot potatoes.

But these films also need to appeal to a generation for whom actual chat makes up a diminishing proportion of their communication. Each new app encourages us to whittle. Emojis and Instagram promote pure imagery. And people like pictures in part because this is an international language. Everybody understands what a little picture of putting on nail polish means. Why explain further? Nuance only contracts the scope of the conversation.

Yet it’s not just the quantity of our speech that’s being diced and sliced; it’s the quality too. Few mainstream movies made today contain any memorable dialogue. A recent poll of the most iconic film lines in history put only one (“To infinity and beyond!” - Toy Story) from the past 25 years in the top 10, and only two from this century in the top 50.

Think of recent credible hits – The Revenant, Boyhood, Gravity, Star Wars: The Force Awakens – and one struggles to recall an actual exchange from any of them. They are image portmanteaus, set-piece heavy, showcases for close-ups. You could argue that this is an admirable return to cinema’s roots. But see a silent film today and it does seem to lack a certain something – it will have intertitles too. Shutting up the talkies feels like an intractably retrograde step.

This is perhaps one reason movies are losing relevance in the wider conversation. It’s harder to discuss a picture book than a novel. People still chew over TV because it can’t rely so much on splash and effects. There, the words still matter. They do the heavy lifting in terms of prompting people to watch the next episode.

But in fact, the biggest threat on the horizon comes not from the small screen but real life. The most recent lines to catch the public’s imagination come not from the committee rooms of Hollywood hacks, slaving away to craft a catchphrase, but from hastily scripted addresses and damning asides. “But I have children”, “For heaven’s sake man, go”, “You ain’t no Muslim, bruv”. These are killer lines: instantly memorable, forever to be associated with their speaker.

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We may roll our eyes at Boris Johnson’s “rich thesaurus”, but it is surely better to own one than need to Google what it means. Better to have words of your own than be so stumped you must cut and paste from someone else’s speech. Melania Trump’s homage to Michelle Obama showed just how fast our dialogue is being degraded.

“I need to talk,” says Bourne in the trailer, using up 1/25th of his allowance. I hear ya. We all do.