| |
Screenwriting Subtext
It's What You Leave Out
Look up the word in books about screenwriting.
Subtext is almost always talked about in terms of dialogue.
Want To Write An Outstanding Screenplay?
My professional, in-depth, indvidually-tailored screenplay coverage specializes in helping writers to take their scripts to award-nominated level - in other words the kind of bold, distinctive, and original scripts the industry will not only read but will want to develop. For real expert and practical guidance click here for full details of my Screenplay Coverage.
Unique Screenplay Coverage
Coverage Fees and How To Submit
Screenwriting Subtext is
About Everything In A Screenplay
But dialogue is only a part of the whole story. Screenwriting subtext is about everything in the script.
It's not only the meaning beneath spoken words. There is (or should be) subtext in
THEME
IT'S HERE!
THE AMAZING SCREENWRITING VISUAL GRAMMAR GUIDE
YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO MISS - AND IT'S FREE
SUBSCRIBE TOScreenwriting They Can't Resist
The Newsletter for Screenwriters
Who Seriously Want to Succeed.
And receive
YOUR FREE UNIQUE GUIDE TO
SCREENWRITING
VISUAL GRAMMAR
PLUS!
As well as your free Visual Grammar Guide
I'LL REVEAL THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING
YOUR SCRIPT MUST HAVE
(It's not what you may think!)
Just fill in the form below and click on the subscribe button.
VISUAL GRAMMAR
VISUAL GRAMMAR,
CHARACTER
CHARACTER
STRUCTURE
STRUCTURE
In Screenwriting, Subtext
in its Broadest and Deepest Sense is
The Theme of the Story
Theme is what is behind the story. The subject matter of the story on one level is imagined in abstract terms. It is inferred from the action, but rarely stated in the script.Audiences don't go to see a movie because it's about the triumph of the human spirit, the transitory nature of our lives, the corrupting influence of power, the human need for self-discovery and so on. Such themes should never be spelt out in the script. And that's where the best kind of subtext comes in. To express the story's theme in subtle and powerful ways is the mark of distinctive screenwriting. Subtext resonates beneath the surface.In Brokeback Mountain the scale of the story is epic. In abstract terms, its theme is about self-discovery and how a social value system can crush the human soul. A script's subtext can create finely modulated rhythms across scenes, suggest complex emotions in moments of crisis and conflict, and it can 'articulate' what is mute.
Screenwriting Subtext
What Lies Beneath
It's one of the most crucial elements of screenwriting. Subtext is what connects to the audience at the deepest level. And I believe that the reason for this is to do with what I've come to call the power of 'What Lies Beneath'.I've talked about this already on this site in the three articles on
Screenwriting Character.
The effect on an audience of all that is going on under the surface action is that it gets us intrigued. We have to do some work. We have to enter into an imaginative engagement with the story. It brings us close to the feelings of the characters and into the heart of their journey.
What the writer (and, by extension, director and editor) leaves out, we have to provide. We do this with our imaginations and with our emotions.
It's not just a question of the dialogue - a character saying one thing, meaning another. This can be overdone, by the way and often results in making subtext without the 'sub'. It's not even just about making a character say something but do the opposite.
The most powerful form of screenwriting subtext is where the meaning has to be teased out of the moment, the scene, or the sequence. A single meaning can ripple beneath the surface and be layered across several scenes.
A lot of the time - in really good screenwriting and direction - the audience is only vaguely aware that they're having to do this, if at all.
Like all elements of screenwriting, subtext doesn't operate in isolation to the other aspects of a script.
When Screenwriting Subtext
is Finely Nuanced
It Resonates With Power
Look at the scene in Brokeback Mountain where Heath Ledger's Ennis goes to Jack's old home. The entire scene is an example of subtext being used for every element of the storytelling.
I haven't got a clip of this, but I hope you've got a copy of the movie to study this scene.
The superbly nuanced subtext expresses everything we need to bring our own awareness of what is happening to each agonizingly painful moment.
It demonstrates how attention to subtext in every facet of a screenplay can help the writer to achieve one of the most important aspects of screenwriting - restraint.
There is the bleak setting of the homestead.
There is the parched silence of the interior, as bare as a prison cell. We register the contrast with Jack's colourful, vibrant character.
There is the morose silent figure of Jack's father expressing his contempt for Ennis.
There is the fear of her husband in the mother's eyes that are also speaking of her sorrow and sympathy for Ennis, suggesting that she knows of her son's love for him.
There is Heath Ledger's exquisitely understated grief. In Jack's bedroom, he looks out of the window, and we know that he's wanting to see what the dead lover saw when he was a child living in this room.
There is the discovery of the shirts. There is the paucity of dialogue. Everything is happening, but with what is really happening, nothing is said.
There are so many layers of subtext in this scene that you could spend an age studying them.
As well as what's happening now in the inner lives of th characters, the scene conveys the whole backstory of Jack's character and life before he met Ennis.
Jack, the man who is now dead, lives in this scene as a palpable presence. We see 'Jack' even though he isn't physically there.It summons up images of him that we remember now vividly.
And makes us mourn his loss. This makes the sense of his absence overwhelming. We feel it in Ennis' painfully silent grief, in the mother's stoic sorrow, and in the father's complex expression of disdain and loss.
Everything in this scene is understated. What could have been an exercise in trite sentimentality is profoundly moving.
It's what has been left out of the surface action that we provide. Because the writing, the direction and the acting are making us do so without our being aware of it.
This is screenwriting subtext at its superlative best.
Don't forget to sign up for the Screenwriting They Can't Resist Newsletter and receive your copy of the amazing free Unique Guide to Visual Grammar. Just fill in the form.
I'll be writing more on this site on the different ways that subtext
can function to give depth and intensity to a screenplay.
Go To Screenwriting Visual Grammar
Go To Screenwriting Character
Go To Screenwriting Structure
Returning From Screenwriting Subtext to
Unique Screenwriting Home Page
|
