Quite a while back I wrote a post about subtext. I want to revisit the subject today and look at the script from Far From Heaven. Hopefully we can exorcise your expositional demons, Good Reader. While voice is critical, no less important is subtext. The goal is to not spell everything out. Say it without saying it.
The fuck does that mean? Think about railroad tracks. Look at the first rail as the spoken, the dialogue, what’s said in any scene. Now imagine the second rail. That’s the unsaid, the intention, what the actors are playing. The beauty of film is the edited image of the actor can tell us so much without dialogue. The quote: “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille” is famous because of the power of the CU. So much emotion can be conveyed in little or no dialogue.
10-5-2-0. If you have 10 lines, try to say what you must in five. If you have five, try to say it in two. If you have two lines, try to do it without dialogue. Develop a cut instinct.
Let’s check out Far From Heaven….a brief plot description from IMDB: “Cathy is the perfect 50s housewife, living the perfect 50s life: healthy kids, successful husband, social prominence. Then one night she surprises her husband Frank kissing another man, and her tidy world starts spinning out of control. In her confusion and grief, she finds consolation in the friendship of their African-American gardener, Raymond – a socially taboo relationship that leads to the further disintegration of life as she knew it. Despite Cathy and Frank’s struggle to keep their marriage afloat, the reality of his homosexuality and her feelings for Raymond open a painful, if more honest, chapter in their lives.”
Who has the information here? The audience gets the news first about Frank not exactly be the typical 50’s suburban Westchester husband:
INT. MOVIE THEATER – LATER
ONSCREEN: We are in the middle of THREE FACES OF EVE. Raymond
Burr is questioning one of Joanne Woodward’s more timid
personalities.
Frank is walking in from the rear of the theater. He stops
along the back wall and stands watching, muted in shadow like
Edward Hopper’s usherette.
ONSCREEN: Joanne Woodward is becoming agitated. She starts
switching into another personality.
A dark-haired man is getting up from his seat and walking in
the direction of the Gentleman’s Lounge. Frank notices him
pausing a moment at the foot of the small, carpeted stairway
just as a second man approaches. The dark-haired man spots
the second one and proceeds briskly down the stairs. The
second man follows, looking around nervously as he goes.
Frank stares darkly down the empty corridor.
We never actually see what goes on with the two men and neither does Frank, but hey, we’ve got a pretty good idea. This is the 50’s and repression is ripe. He follows them out of the theater and into a bar. Notice how everything is done with conspiratorial silence, very little actually being said, but a hellava lot going on without words….
The plucked and coiffed patrons, seated mostly alone, glance
back with the same stiff, self-consciousness. The men from
the theater sit in some corner rapt in conversation.
Frank’s drink is set on the bar and he takes a fast, deep
sip, shiny with perspiration.
Frank puts down a bill and takes a long, relaxing drag off
his cigarette.
VOICE
One more of the same.
Frank looks over and sees a clean-cut BLOND MAN (early 30’s)
at the bar. He exhales.
The blond man glances over and smiles cautiously. Frank
smiles cautiously back.
BARTENDER
There you are, sir.
The blond man remains looking at Frank a moment before
picking up his drink and starting back to his table.
Frank watches him go.
The Julianne Moore character has the two-car garage, the perfect hedgerows, the American Dream house, kids, and husband…least she thinks she does until they are torn from her in this killer scene…again, less is more, only a couple lines of dialogue needed here…
INT. 12TH FLOOR – NIGHT
The elevator doors open. Cathy steps out onto the darkened
floor and starts down the central corridor toward the
executive suite.
As she approaches the outer office she realizes there is no
one else in sight, no lights, no sign of work.
CATHY
(to herself, perplexed)
Frank?
She glances around as she continues, doubtfully, in the
direction of his office. Then she notices
A soft strip of light coming from beneath his office door.
CATHY
(shaking her head)
Oh, Frank…
In a rush of wifely sympathy she walks up to the door and
politely opens it.
CATHY
Frank – ?
INT. FRANK’S OFFICE – NIGHT
Instantly she sees it: a shirtless blond man with loosened
pants locked in a writhing kiss with another man in
shirtsleeves, who appears to be fondling him. Immediately
they turn and jolt apart. It takes her a moment to register
that the man in shirtsleeves is Frank.
All at once Cathy gasps, pulling back and turning, dropping
her Tupperware. She shuts her eyes and struggles for breath.
Inside we can hear the men scrambling to dress, knocking
something over in the process.
Suddenly Cathy turns facing the door, reeling, horrified.
Music burns with the weight of realization as she starts backstepping slowly, staring out in confusion and disbelief.
She glimpses something through the crack of the door and
stops.
Frank catches sight of her from inside.
Cathy stares.
He looks down. Suddenly the blond man slips out past him,
darting briskly down the hall. He disappears down the
stairwell where we can hear his echoey steps slowly fading
away.
All at once Cathy turns and runs, music returning with
thunder and storm.
FRANK
Cathy!
She runs down the hall to the elevator, bangs on the button
until it opens and throws herself inside.
INT. ELEVATOR – LATER
Cathy gasps for air inside the dim, mirror-lined elevator,
trying to pull her hair over her eyes and shut out the world
forever.
Forever is right. No going back from seeing that. The tidy Westport/Dick Van Dyke Show world that she knew is over. There are some great subtext scenes that follow, including this one where she’s ripped apart wondering about how the “treatments” for his homosexuality are going while he doesn’t want to talk to about it–because the treatments aren’t working at all. So this is talking when the words themselves are inadequate:
INT. WHITAKER BEDROOM – LATER
Frank watches TV from bed. Cathy sits at her vanity doing a
hundred strokes, looking over at him while brushing.
CATHY
Frank?
FRANK
Hmm.
CATHY
Did you see him?
FRANK
Yea.
CATHY
When?
FRANK
Yesterday.
CATHY
You didn’t say a word.
He continues staring at the TV.
CATHY
So how was it? With Bowman? Did you feel –
FRANK
It’s fine.
CATHY
(putting down the brush, coaxing)
And there’s nothing more you care
to share with your very own adoring wife?
FRANK
Cathleen, what I discuss with this
doctor. It’s private. That’s – part
of it. Alright? I’m sorry.
CATHY
I understand, dear. I do.
Cathy looks at him a moment before lifting up the brush and
turning back to the mirror.
CATHY
Oh and Frank, wait’ll you see the
hors d’oeuvres! The caterers are
doing such a marvelous job. I think
you’re going to be very pleased
this year, darling. I really do.
That is subtext. Look at the physicality with her brushing her hair, looking into her own tortured reflection but smiling, smiling, always put up the good front, always the faithful wife…when she realizes she can’t get anything out of him it’s on to talk of hors d’eurvres. A scene of total desperation, yet look at the dialogue and you’d never know.
Dialogue as railroad tracks. Rail 1= what is said. Rail 2= what is meant, what is behind, above, and over the entire scene. The meaning, the intention, the point.
The subtext.
