Text, Context and Subtext

How to craft a story within a medium of inferences.

One of the most unusual and interesting aspects of screenwriting is the dynamic between text and subtext. Like film, screenwriting is a medium of inferences — the humanity of your story is expressed entirely through subtext.

Text

Literally, the words on the page of the script. Essentially, this means “action” and dialog. “Action” is the prose that describes what is seen and heard. This is crucial. The word “love” should never appear in your action because it isn’t a visible or audible action. For that matter, the wind never blows and it is never hot or cold out. Leaves may rustle or a character may sweat, but things that cannot be directly observed should not be stated in your screenplay.

Context

Take this classic experiment in montage theory: juxtapose a neutral face with an unrelated image to infer different emotional life from the character. In the initial experiment, it was observed that when a shot of a crying baby was cut to the expressionless face of a woman, the audience inferred that the mother was ignoring the child. This leap is indicative our of natural inclination to perceive cause and effect. Even though the two shots are entirely separate, the audience presumes that the woman is reacting to the baby (or specifically not, in this case).

When we see the neutral face of the woman, we view her through the context of the crying baby — which, absent being shown otherwise, we presume are occupying the same space and time. The text of the shot is simply the expressionless woman, but the subtext is that she is ignoring the baby. In other writing formats, one might simply write “the mother ignores the cries of her child.” In a screenplay, we would only write exactly what appears on screen:

A baby cries. A woman stares, expressionless.

What this means is that the screenwriter is writing words that are disconnected from the meaning that she is trying to tell. She must portray the detachment of her character through the action and imagery of the text — just as it will be achieved in the final film.

All internal, emotional life must be conveyed through subtext that is derived from context.

“Se7en” is a perfect example of this style of emotional context. Morgan Freeman’s character, Detective Somerset, rarely shows any sort of facial emotion. Scene after scene, his internal life is depicted merely by the context of the scene when we are shown neutral shots of his face. And it is shown with certainty — he is undeniably frustrated, disappointed, pleased, angry, etc., etc. I love to watch that film and imagine David Fincher’s direction: “Okay, Morgan, just look over here. Perfect!”

Subtext

Human emotion is the heart of story, so it is extremely tempting to simply state it in your screenplay. But, the text of the screenplay never reaches the audience, so if you write “Bob has fallen in love”, it won’t come across on screen. This is where the screenwriter’s creativity comes in. What can we have happen in the story to demonstrate that Bob is in love? Does he wake up early to watch the sunrise? Does he skip his weekly poker game with the boys to go on a walk with his new love interest? There are a thousand different ways to show this, but none of them include a single word about Bob’s state of mind.

Filtering a character’s state of mind from your script is relatively easy, but there are more subtle forms of subtext that unconsciously slip their way into the text of a screenplay, the biggest of which is intentionality. Take the following example:

Jeremiah checks his phone to see if Jennifer called him.

By writing the character’s intention “to see if Jennifer called him” we are writing something that cannot be visually expressed. Instead, we want the audience to infer that the character hopes to find a message from Jennifer — the subtext of our scene. To achieve this, the audience must understand Jeremiah’s expectations before he checks his phone — at which point the context is clear and all that needs to be written is “Jeremiah checks his phone.”

Again, the screenwriter is writing words that skirt the story she is trying to tell. The “story” — if you will — is Jeremiah’s anticipation and subsequent disappointment, yet the screenplay might simply state “Jeremiah checks his phone. He frowns.” The heart of the story exists between the lines. A successful screenwriter, then, is able to craft the subtext of the story through her extensive understanding of how the audience will interpret the text of the story through the context.

In this example, we could have Jeremiah call and leave Jennifer a voicemail — perhaps even two — asking her to call him. Then, his excessive checking of his phone shows his desperation to hear from her. Depending on the context of each phone check, this could easily be portrayed in a humorous or a dramatic light. When he checks (or doesn’t check) can also be quite revealing — a neat way to represent what other events capture or fail to capture his attention. In fact, this whole thing is an excellent premise for a conventional romantic comedy, where Jeremiah eventually falls for his companion throughout the film, rather than the girl he had been waiting to call him. It could also work as a sort of “Waiting for Godot” story.