YOUR INTERPRETATION OF SUBTEXT
You might feel butterflies but don’t know why you’re nervous in a particular situation, or around a particular person. You might feel distrust. Sometimes we’re told “everything is fine,” but our gut tells us it isn’t. And we often don’t know whether to believe our gut or not.
We might feel this twinge in the presence of something really rotten, perhaps even some kind of evil, even though the person we meet seems perfectly fine. But something alerts us. Usually we simply feel that something is wrong.
In The Fugitive (1993), when Sam Gerard leaves the apartment of the One-Armed Man, he turns to his deputy and says, “This guy’s dirty.” Nothing was said in the text indicating that assessment, but Gerard senses that the guy isn’t straight – and he is right.
I’ve experienced this feeling twice. I’m usually not a good judge of people because I figure everyone is “really nice” and “just fine.” I have been wrong a number of times. But twice I met a person who made me feel there was something really wrong even though I could find no evidence for my feelings. In both cases, I had a brief interaction with the person and was more of an observer than a participant in the encounter. The first case was a very quick introduction to someone my colleague was talking to, someone whom she obviously had known for some time. I didn’t understand why I had this feeling, or how I could get this feeling from a simple introduction. I watched the person conversing with my colleague and everything looked just fine. Later, I was told the person was very untrustworthy and manipulative – even described as a “bad person.” I don’t think my colleague knew it at the time, but discovered soon after. But I felt it and, trusting my feelings and instincts, sensed the truth behind the person’s mask.
Another time I met a minister and had the same feeling, which again made little sense to me. I did notice that he didn’t make eye contact and seemed distracted, but he was organizing an event, so I figured that was the reason. I still couldn’t understand why I had this strange and uneasy feeling. Later, I learned he was having an affair with someone in his congregation and he was fired soon after that.
We have probably all had these intuitions about people and situations – times we have felt uneasy or have picked up on something subtle. We may have had a thought flit through our head, or a flash of insight, or a subtle feeling that alerted us.
Some people experience this sensation as a warning. Or, hey, this person seems to want something from you, but he’s not saying it. Or, this person seems too attentive. It could come from an emotion, such as fear or discomfort, or from an intuition you don’t understand. You might wonder why you had that thought, or shrug it off, but something is probably going on that is not being clearly seen or understood. Just as you can learn to trust your intuition in real life, you can learn to trust your interpretation of a character’s behavior in film.
LOOK TO THE PAUSES FOR SUBTEXT
Sometimes subtext is communicated in the pauses. We have probably all had the experience of asking for directions. I’ve always figured that the longer the pause before you get an answer, the farther you will end up from where you want to go. “Do you know where St. James Plaza is?” Count: one, two, three seconds as you wait, and you know you’re really far, or the person giving directions isn’t sure. Well, that’s the way it works in dialogue. You ask someone something – “Are you angry at your mother?” and if the pause is a long one, that’s subtextually telling you something wrong here. Finally the answer comes, “Oh no, not in the least bit.” But the pause told it all.
NOTICE THE SWERVES IN CONVERSATION
You can express subtext through swerves in the conversation. It may be that a character asks a direct question but does not get a direct answer. If we ask someone, “Why are you late?” and the person replies, “Have you any idea how hard it’s raining out there?” we might notice the question was not answered.
If someone changes the conversation topic, we might figure there’s subtext somewhere. Maybe someone unexpectedly enters the room and the two people talking suddenly start talking about something else. Sometimes characters speak at cross-purposes. In Ordinary People (1980, by Alvin Sargent from the novel by Judith Guest), the conversation between Beth and Conrad shows how very disconnected they are. Conrad unwittingly surprises Beth, who is sitting in Buck’s bedroom.
BETH
I didn’t think you were here.
CONRAD
… I just got in. I didn’t know you were here.
BETH
I didn’t play golf, today. It was cold.
CONRAD
How’s your golf game?
BETH
I didn’t play.
CONRAD
Oh… It did get colder today.
BETH
No, I mean… for the year it got colder.
CONRAD
Yeah.
WRITING THE SUBTEXT
Given all the possible interpretations, we might think the writer lets the audience figure out the subtext. But the point is not to confuse or merely to suggest, but rather to direct the audience to the interpretation that eventually leads to a fairly clear understanding of what’s going on. The pieces may not all form the interpretation immediately. It might take the entire film, helped by the actor, director, and everyone else in the production before all the pieces fit together to form a cohesive, unified film. This work takes a careful selection of words, scenes, and characters. The writer must try to avoid detours and misinterpretations that result in arbitrary scenes and dialogue.
Many writers write the text in the first draft and then start shading in the subtext in future drafts. They keep moving away from on-the-nose dialogue to layer the script.
Perhaps you start working on a scene by thinking about what you want to get across. Maybe the man has to communicate he’s attracted to the woman. In the first draft, he might say, “I’m attracted to you,” or “You interest me!” But as you continue to work with the scene (remembering it might take five or ten or more rewrites), you might put the text on one side of the page and the subtext on the other side of the page. Or, you might write the subtext underneath or above the lines, as I’ve done with the scenes above.
You might brainstorm what subtext you want to get across. Is the man desperate, and looking for a girlfriend or wife. Is he looking everyone over? Is he totally smitten, but realizes he’s not good enough for her, perhaps because of his class, or financial situation, or race? Or maybe it’s a woman attracted to a woman or a man attracted to a man, who has to find out, through subtext, innuendo, and suggestion, whether the other person is gay or not. Whatever technique is used by the writer, the job includes shading in subtext. Drama and life are more than just good text.
WHERE ELSE DO WE FIND SUBTEXT?
Although it is usually thought of as beneath the words, subtext can be expressed in other ways. In film especially, subtext can become clear to the audience through words, gestures, attitudes, actions, and reactions. The writer creates the gestures, actions, and emotions of the character, which get further expressed by the director and actor. The writer creates images that will
