Screenplay Subtext

Taken in isolation, NO always means NO. But in a conversation, there is always a surrounding context for the use of the word “No.” In a routine conversation, we extrapolate or infer a ton of non-verbal information and automatically apply it to attempt to determine the “real” meaning.

For example, let’s say I offer you a sandwich. You say “No.” Now, in isolation you’re refusing the offer of a sandwich by saying “No.” However, based on the surrounding circumstances (or possibly body language) I would likely infer certain things – perhaps that you’re not hungry, or you are wanting to be polite because it’s the last sandwich and you know I haven’t eaten in a week, or whatever. All that additional information is processed in connection with the word “No” and we have to call it “subtext” because there’s nothing else to call it. It isn’t on the surface of what is said, but it exists. —Bill WalloScreenplay Subtext (Wallo World)

I’m dusting off a drama survey course I haven’t taught in several years, and thought I’d see what I can find online. I hope that this article, which demonstrates how much effort writers put into creating subtext, will help encourage my students to put the time into developing the ability to recognize subtext without the benefit of music cues and the expressions on actors’ faces.

4 thoughts on “Screenplay Subtext

  1. Thanks for your clarification, Bill.

    In literary criticism, the “context” of a literary work would be things that were going on in the outside world that affect the way we should interpret the story… for instance, if a character in 1939 is wearing a Star of David, that means something that isn’t in the text of the story. Thus, the example of the “no” response being informed by my outside knowledge that isn’t in the text of our conversation would seem to me to be context.

    A good example of subtext, in my opinion, is stage business that Elia Kazan added to Death of a Salesman. He had Willy Loman put his coat on the back of a chair, and had Biff at one point angrily grab the chair, wrinkling the coat. Linda cries out in alarm, pulls the coat away from Biff and starts smoothing it out. This made Biff’s lines into a personal attack on Willy, and Linda’s response a defense of Willy. The physical actions form a subtext that affects the way the audience interprets the lines.

  2. I tend to disagree with the characterization of subtext as the unconscious, at least in the way I was defining the terms – in the “context” of constructing an individual scene.

    When writing a scene, I believe there are three textual components. There’s the text – the actual words. There’s the context – the surrounding scenes. And then there’s the subtext, which isn’t on the page at all, and is thus unspoken but not necessarily “unconscious.”

    When a director, actor, or writer examines a scene, I think they will infer subtext, not “context.” They will have a knowledge of the surrounding story (the contex to know how to interpret the text of a particular scene. That knowledge – especially early in a script – is lacking to the audience (and perhaps the characters) but adds depth and meaning.

    That’s the way I was defining the terms. Just my two cents. :)

  3. Good point, Mike… Wallo even says “based on the surrounding circumstances,” which is the same thing as “context”. I’d probably say that “context” is a detail that we notice fairly easily, though we might not always get its significance right away. “Subtext” is something that we don’t always notice without digging for it, but once we notice it, we don’t have to figure out what it’s for.

  4. Good stuff for a drama as lit course. Re-reading the excerpt, I had to remark that it sounds like Wallo is describing “context” and not “subtext” to me. Subtext is like the unconscious; context is what is implied. Both need to be inferred.

Leave a Reply to Bill Wallo Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *