Film Courage: What is subtext?
Judith Weston, Coach, Teacher and Author: The subtext is the thing that is not being said.
If I say “I’m very happy to meet you,” what am I not saying? The thing I'm not saying is “I’ve
been waiting for this appointment for six months and I can't understand why it took so long,”
and then “I’m very happy to meet you” or is it something else it's the thing that's not being
said and so that can come in a lot of forms. It can be the history. I again somebody asked How
are you? And I say I'm fine. And I don't give you my whole medical history right.
It's a long one and so I don't give that to you but that's always behind every time I say I'm
fine, I'm a little bit grateful that I'm still alive right. That's the subtext for me every time
I say I'm fine but if you say oh here's a great way to explain subtext, let's say that you have
renovated your house, renovated your living room and put a lot of time and energy and money into it
and then a friend comes to the door for the first time and they come in and they say
oh you changed everything around
right what's the subtext right it's like they don't like it that's the subtext right and but if
they come in and they say you changed everything around then that they did like it so that's we
subtext happens in our daily lives all the time it affects the way that the line comes out it's
the emotional Sanford Meisner used to talk about there's no the emotions of the scene or a river
the words are boats that float on that river so the subtext is the emotional river of the scene
or the of the character and so and so sometimes it's a line reading those are two different line
readings for two different subtexts having to do with this one topic it can be different a
different history it can be a different verb that's what I did with the verbs with don't lie
to me could I read a few couple a few lines these are mine that I came up with oh great okay and
and so maybe you can critique me on my delivery of them and also the subtext okay so the first one is
I love that dress on you Judith did Paul tell you he did tell you right that we used to date
here's another one dad knows he wants the money put back in his account immediately
okay last one
your check is waiting for you in payroll security
will walk you down and you have five minutes to clean out your desk
that was awesome you're hired okay great I'm gonna cast you you're fantastic okay thanks
but so different different meanings for each one so maybe we could start with I love that
dress on you by the way did Paul tell you meaning it's someone trying to sort of undercut someone
compliment I don't know that that's how I read into it sure sure yeah I think well I think you
absolutely got the idea of subtext the I love that dress on you that is not to be taken literally
sure and it has a reason behind it that's not the literal meaning of the words it's
yeah so subtext means that the things people say they're not there's something else behind
it there's you could call it an agenda or there's there's something else now in that
case in the case of the first one the that person has is conscious of her agenda I would
say that that and her intention I would say is to undermine the person she's talking to
sure with the information that did I used to date Paul that that you're that you want to undermine
the person you're talking to and by beginning with the compliment on the dress it's a way to make the
knife in the back even even sharper by by it's and it's an opposite okay throws the person off
their game a little bit Yeah so you're saying I love that dress but the with the attention to
undermine right it's yeah ugly lovely what about the other did you want to talk more
about the other two okay so dad knows he wants the money put back in his account immediately
so sibling to sibling something's happened it involves money yeah yeah well
I guess what what did you feel your intention was I guess you're right when I when I look at
it there's there's less subtext it seems like it's pretty obvious but it's not obvious at all oh no
you could do it you could I could do it completely opposite okay yeah I'll just try it sure sure
dad knows when he wants the money put back in the account right away that's that's true that's
a softer that's actually more caressing maybe I may depends on the history between these two
maybe this person has been having a rough time maybe the person that your character is talking
to has been having a rough time and and or maybe they both colluded on this rearranging of funds
and and maybe it's I'm the one that has to put the money back I think the way you wrote
it exactly doesn't make it doesn't make it have to be the person you're talking to so dad knows
and he wants the money put back maybe it's like very practical my dad knows he wants the money
put back immediately cover blown right that's true it could be played different ways so the
questions you have or if you're looking at those lines on a page are what is the history did the
two of these these two siblings did they collude on these on whatever happened to these funds
or is it the fault of that one or even just the fault of this one so that's where those are the
kind of questions that I always start out with with lines like that are on a page I ask what
what's the history of this caper whatever was done with the money right yeah I like that and then
lastly was just and maybe more self-explanatory just your check is waiting for you in payroll
Security will walk you down after you've cleaned out your desk and you have five minutes
yeah well that's a that's an example of something that could be thought of as exposition
but the way that you you read you gave it an intention to punish right which is very
reasonable that that this is the person who's up to here with with that with that person
who's being relieved of their duties and and the subtext that I heard when you read that was that
this person is off my back out of my this person it's this nightmare is is gone but
again if you saw it on the page there's other possibilities that it could be it could be
that this that the person speaking fought to keep this fought to keep this this person at their job
and and is they could even be crying or they were the reason the person's fired so yeah there could
be different it could be yeah yeah I thought your choices were just marvelous but that's very
helpful example about if we saw it each of those lines on a page we could really ask all these
questions to get at what what their subtext is and would it depend on the tone in which
they're said well tone is another word for verb I think like a teasing tone is the verb to tease
so yeah tone is another way of talking about it great I like the verbs because they're so
because they're so muscular if a scene does not have subtext what can a director do to add it in
you have to believe that it does have subtext and look for it
that's I just feel that so strongly that there's no sometimes when I was teaching workshops on
with actors and directors working together and bringing in scenes that they'd worked on and
sometimes people will say well this is a very straightforward scene I would just say I want
you to take that out of your vocabulary this is a straightforward scene there's no such thing and if
it really is then probably should be rewritten so that there's something extra in it so that
there's some twist something that that lets us into the personalities and predicaments of these
of these characters and or foreshadows something in this story that yeah a straightforward scene
probably doesn't belong in the movie so and sometimes they need to be rewritten
but sometimes the filmmaker hasn't looked hard enough for something else that could be there
that's what I think so with straightforward almost code for there's no life to it that's it's too
dry well it's code for exposition oh okay or a connector scene this is a connector scene this
yeah right okay so when you talked about Neo in the one scene [The Matrix] in your book
you said it was sort of a connector scene but it seemed like that wasn't that straightforward
I mean there was he's having a memory of a restaurant I believe oh yeah it's partly how
great the writing is but because so much is evoked and such there's so much imagery in it
so much imagery the image of the of the noodle place of the yeah the image of the noodle place
it it's so important it gives us so because we see very little of Neo when he's Thomas Anderson
at the beginning of the of the movie and and this gives us a whole picture
of Thomas Anderson sitting alone in the noodle place on his lunch hour or with somebody and
it evokes it takes us somewhere I mean he goes somewhere we go with him.