![]() ![]() ![]() This line expresses a playful frustration that it wasn’t un til recently that Molly read The Crucible. But Sorkin and the script let us in on “the joke.” If the moment stopped here, most of us would miss this “inside joke” - the insight of a reference she is making. He says that no one cares about h er good name. In Molly’s G ame, Molly tells her lawye r Charlie that she won’t give up the dirt she has on several powerful people because she wants to preserve the reputation of her name. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use them ? Hmm? Well, maybe we can. Inside jokes have subtle and clever subtext. It has to connect with the overwhelming majority of the audience. ![]() A joke, subtext or meaning that functions as the point of the scene shouldn’t resonate only for you, your friends, or a few obsessive Tarkovsky junkies. If you write a 2-page scene in your sci-fi spec in which not much happens, but it’s a brilliant meta moment that functions as an homage to one of Tarkovsky’s unheralded masterpieces, then no. This principle applies to other aspects of storytelling. With the caveat that they have watched the movie up to th at point. This means that the subtext of a line of dialogue - insult or compliment - has to be understood by the general audience or average moviegoer. Yet, I state in my book : there are no inside jokes in screenwriting. My lifelong friend Jon and I can tease each other simply by saying the other’ s name in our ‘r ecognizable-only-to- the-other -impression’ of our mutual junior high drunken art teacher. An inside joke is understood only by people with s pecial knowledge of a topic the humor and comprehension of the intent are exclusive a small group of people. In some ways, these moments are so fun, insightful and often mean because they function like inside jokes. Your shared history allows the other person to immediately understand the subtext. And the beauty is that regardless of the subtlety or obscurity of the joke or insult, it lands effortlessly. Another way, to think about it is who can you insult the best? Family and friends. Ponder the moments in your life when spoken words were most biting in that they were extremely funny, snarky or mean. Here are some strategies on how to create dialogue with the most surprising subtext: You want to avoid being “on the nose” which means dialogue where the text and subtext are the same. A udiences enjoy the “ puzzle ” of deciphering the text. For instance, think of “I love you” as expressed in Casablanca – “ Here’s looking at you, Kid ,” and “ We’ll always have Paris” or The Apartment – “Shut up and deal”.ĭialogue without subtext is boring. However, diametrical opposition isn’t necessary. When “eff you” means “I love you” is a textbook opposite, too. ![]() I’m just telling you what the character said. Perfect subtext might even make us marvel at, “How did that mean th aa at ?”Ī crass example of what might be theoretically perfect subtext - a line that simultaneously means its exact opposite - is from Man Trouble when the Jack Nicholson character says, “I like to look at women as a whole.” Remember, we’re adults. There is a reversal in the gap between text and subtext, between the spoken words and their actual meaning. In my book the Craft of S cene Writing, I define subtext as a surprise of sorts. ![]()
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