by Jim Mercurio
• Envelopes handed to other people—especially in movies—often have money in them.
• Pimps think of prostitutes as objects they own, and it appears that Clarence intends to “buy her out of her contract.”
This might be enough for the audience to enjoy and process the surprise immediately. However, Tarantino does a lot more work to set up expectations that simultaneously allow Clarence to dig at Drexl and manage our expectations.
To create the maximum impact for the characters and the audience, it’s not enough just to reveal the idea of NO MONEY. The move toward the opposite played out in the several hints that I made into bold text set up the idea of YES MONEY and accentuate the twist to the eventual surprise of NO MONEY.
Near the end of Casino Royale, Vesper (Eva Green), James Bond’s lover, is lying on the ground unconscious after being underwater, so Bond (Daniel Craig) performs CPR. Audiences have seen dozens of scenes like this and know we are expecting and hoping she coughs up water to show that she is breathing. As a writer, you might rely on the audience’s expectations from every single CPR scene in which the person lives as sort of an implicit foil or contrast to this moment. However, the storytellers use craft to elevate the emotion and clarify the moment.
They are in Venice, Italy, next to a dilapidated building at water level on the Grand Canal. The camera pulls back to reveal a foreground where intermittent gushes of water spurt out from the roof of the collapsing structure in the same direction, and at an angle we would expect Vesper to cough up water. The visual contrast allows the viewer to perceive more clearly the absence of Vesper spitting up water and breathing.
Sometimes you have to find clever ways to layer in setups that hint at the expectation even when there seems to be no opportunity. This is part of your job as a storyteller.
It Was There All Along
If “all surprise comes from setup” sounds like a stuffy and restrictive rule, then here is a surprise: it’s just the opposite of stuffy and restrictive. It empowers you to achieve the most powerful reversals by undertaking the proper work to orchestrate the dance between expectation and frustration.
Sometimes a deeper understanding of a character is necessary for the strongest reversal. Perhaps the twist is there and it needs to be accentuated with craft by finessing the execution or timing of the biggest zig that bolsters the final zag.
Consider the surprise ending of The Sixth Sense that made us go “whoa!” There is a montage at the end that shows you all of the setups from earlier in the film that created the plausibility, or even the inevitability, of the surprise. Many of the clues were not overtly obvious to the audience on the first viewing, but it shows you how far you can take an audience with the right attention to detail. It’s up to you to find your own level of subtlety.
The homework that will help you absorb this skill is to rewatch some of your favorite movies several times and pay close attention to the twists and, more importantly, to their setups. It may take three, four, or five viewings before your omniscient point of view allows you to see the seams in what, for first-time viewers, should be the craft of seamless setups.
For every surprise, our goal should be inspired by the classic film The Wizard of Oz. We want to make sure that when we look back at our story and its scenes that the necessary setups for the surprises “were there all along.”
3
DIALOGUE: THE BEATS OF A MISSING HORSE
If a character’s spoken words do not have a clear relationship to the story and the story of the scene, then they are not really dialogue at all. Dialogue is not mere conversation. It is a compressed version of what we hear in our everyday lives. It’s like a highlight reel of how we talk. It’s succinct, to the point. The words are less important than the beats they represent.
Maybe you have become a figurative bartender who is forced to listen to someone wallow in their sorrow:
BAR PATRON
I have this feeling that if I were a bit more focused or lucky or, well, I don’t know, maybe if he would have supported me more, I might have a better job and stuck to my diet.
See how these words compare to the dialogue in the classic scene from On the Waterfront in which Terry (Marlon Brando) calls Charley (Rod Steiger) on his betrayal.
TERRY
You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it. It was you, Charley.
Whereas in the first bit, the repetition feels unfocused and redundant, in the second, it escalates by “painting a picture” of the stakes of what Terry lost and has become. The Bar Patron whines pointlessly about various vague and nebulous “issues.” Terry laments a particular horrible time of his life and holds his brother accountable for his actions.
I hope you see the craft that elevates dialogue above everyday speech. When screenwriters make the mistake of thinking of dialogue as merely words, they begin to unconsciously aim for the wrong criteria: eloquence, dialect, evoking the idiosyncrasies of a character’s world, or having their characters tell hilarious stories and go on intrinsically interesting diatribes.
Great dialogue exists when the words conform to the scene’s core structure and deliver the subtext, which is the true meaning buried beneath the surface of the words.
Dialogue functions as a window into the underlying subtextual battle between warring perspectives—usually embodied by two or more characters.
Dialogue serves as the escalating beats—the back-and-forth swings, misses, parries, and counterattacks—that culminate in a reversal inherent to the situation.
Finally, dialogue must be, in and of itself, surprising.
Subtext is what creates the surprise. Theoretically, the most surprising line would be one with the widest gap between the expectation and surprise—a line whose subtext seems antithetical to its text. It’s a surprise when “screw you” or “I can’t stand you” turns out to mean “I love you.”
In other words, don’t have your characters mean (subtext) what they say (text).
Whether they know it or not, audiences enjoy the subconscious, organic process of decoding and uncovering the actual intent of a line. It keeps them engaged. This is why dialogue must never be “on the nose.” On the nose is a pejorative term for dialogue that states exactly what the character feels or thinks.
Be wary of your characters saying, “I love you” when they mean it and nothing else. On-the-nose dialogue is didactic, lifeless, and boring. Casablanca was able to express the subtext of “I love you” in its own unique ways: “Here’s looking at you, Kid” and “We’ll always have Paris.”
What allows us to effortlessly understand the subtext of dialogue with a drastically surprising contrast in meaning from the text is a scene’s underlying beat structure. Our understanding of the battle over which characters spar limits the possible meaning for each line.
In the final scene of The Apartment, Bud (Jack Lemmon) and Fran (Shirley MacLaine) plan to spend their New Year’s Eve together playing cards. Bud gets the straight line:
BUD
I love you, Miss Kubelik… Did you hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.
His dialogue creates playful conflict and sets up the more surprising response from Fran, which might even serve as a lesson about the importance of actions over words:
FRAN
(smiling)
Shut up and deal!
The context of the scene allows us to effortlessly understand the subtext as “I love you, too,” which escalates the story of the scene.
Now let’s look at subtext in action.
Scene Analysis:
Once Upon a Time in the West
Many of the beats in this scene from the opening sequence of Once Upon a Time in the West rely merely on looks, nods, head tilts, eyes, and body movement. The choice to examine a scene with only a few lines of dialogue allows us to hyperfocus on a process to extract, find, or create great dialogue beat by beat.
Harmonica’s (Charles Bronson) ultimate goal is to have a showdown with the antagonist Frank (Henry Fonda), so he needs to find him. Frank sends three henchmen, including Stony (Woody Strode) and Snaky (the blind-in-one-eye Jack Elam), to meet Harmonica at the train station. Harmonica will discover that these men want to kill him, so his new goal to survive translates into his need to kill them first.
Before Harmonica arrives, there is a wordless sequence in which a few gestures from Snaky cause the three men to spread themselves out in a strategically advantageous position. We don’t need any explanation about their skills or history of working together. The visuals make it clear.
The train approaches, and suspense builds. The three men are so on edge that when the train door opens, they flinch. But it’s a false alarm. When the train starts to leave the station, Snaky assumes his prey is not there, so he gestures to his henchmen, who come toward him, thereby foregoing their strategic position. In unison, they turn away. This creates a nice opportunity for a crisp and visual reversal in the scene. At the moment when they are least engaged, they hear Harmonica’s offscreen harmonica, which causes them to stop in their tracks.
And then, in a perfectly orchestrated moment, like a curtain opening, the train exits the frame and Snaky turns for the reveal: Harmonica is playing his namesake instrument on the other side of the tracks. His exit from the opposite side of the train provided him with a tactical advantage—the three gunmen have dropped their guard.
Harmonica surveys the situation and then moves on to the least intense beat of “digging for information.” He simply asks for Frank, and Snaky responds:
HARMONICA
Frank?
SNAKY
Frank sent us.
The beauty of the line is that the dismissive curtness itself is part of the action. Snaky shuts him down. Do you see how this line is better than “Well, he was busy so we are here instead”? Even if delivered with menace by a great actor, this hypothetical long-winded line feels too much like flat information as opposed to an action.
Harmonica was expecting Frank, and now there is a new situation and an important question for Harmonica. He needs to discern if these men are friends or enemies and whether or not his life is in danger. What can he say that will achieve this goal? We can immediately rule out atrocious, on-the-nose lines such as these:
Are you friends or enemies?
I need to find out if you are going to kill me.
Are you going to shoot me?
Should I be worried?
Let’s consider other lines that might capture Harmonica’s intention of sizing up the situation as subtext. He has spent some time surveying the scene, so let’s use that somehow. Could he look at Stony and say this line?
Hey, why are you so nervous?
Challenging and playing on characters’ nerves is essential to the subtext in this scene and in most classic shoot-outs. However, this is a western, not a Woody Allen comedy. In westerns, men are stoic. They don’t share their emotions, so the voice and appropriateness of the line for the genre are all wrong.
But we are moving in the right direction. We are starting to see the situation from Harmonica’s eyes, and now we need to choose a challenge that fits the character and genre. So what about this?
It took three of you to run his errand?
Pointing out that there are three of them is a nice discovery. But the line still doesn’t quite work. “Errand” doesn’t feel right for this world. How about one of these lines?
It took three of you to pick me up?
Three of you came to pick me up?
This shows that Harmonica’s paying attention to the environment, and posing it as a question allows him to challenge Snaky. Not bad. So if we were to stick with this line of thought, let’s make it less on the nose and more specific, in terms of their world:
Three of you? Didn’t want to draw straws?
Quite a welcoming party. Did y’all draw the short straw?
The viewer has the pleasure of figuring out the subtext. “Drawing straws,” with its association with hay, cows, and ranches, represents the world of the Old West. These lines are good, but not great. Still too wordy for this laconic loner. They are not in his voice. “Welcoming party” is an ironic touch, and if we can work the word “draw” in there organically, it works as a subtle foreshadowing of what’s to come.
Let’s see what happens if we cut the first sentences and just use one of these lines:
Didn’t want to draw straws?
Did y’all draw the short straw?
I like the brevity of these two lines. They satisfy some criteria such as being in his voice, incorporating the setting, and not being on the nose. But they don’t effortlessly suggest Harmonica’s intent. The line might clearly suggest that he is surprised that more than one person is there, but it doesn’t go all the way to the beat of “finding out if these people are enemies.”
With the visual set up that the men brought only three horses, here is a great line, the actual line:
HARMONICA
You bring a horse for me?
This clearly captures the subtext: “You weren’t planning on me leaving here, were you?” It incorporates the iconography of westerns and integrates the setting via horses. It is based on Harmonica’s sharp observation and his ability to read the situation while keeping his options open, but without the neurotic attention to the men’s emotions (“You nervous?”). This is the beauty of subtext. The audience understands “Are you here to kill me?” without those actual words.
The situation changes pretty drastically. Frank’s men know for sure that Harmonica understands what’s going on. The element of surprise is gone, and now the bad guys are left only with their three-to-one advantage. Snaky laughs with a combination of nervousness, bravado, and malicious glee before he delivers his next line.
SNAKY
Looks like… looks like we’re shy one horse.
On one level, the line might seem like a confession of their intention or “sharing of information.” However, Snaky’s unwavering confidence suggests a more intense, surprising, and specific goal of trying to rattle Harmonica and gain a further edge. It is possible that this beat wouldn’t be instantly understood by the audience, but within seconds, the resulting reaction and follow-up line will help to retroactively clarify it.
Harmonica just shakes his head, which is awesome for a few reasons. First, it’s a visual response that doesn’t rely on dialogue. Second, it’s true to his character as a laconic man of few words. Finally, from a craft standpoint, it creates suspense.
If this beat is clearly “to dismiss” or “to scoff at,” that means he took Snaky’s line as an attack of some sort. But even if the audience doesn’t understand the additional subtext of, “No, you didn’t rattle me and I am not the one who is going to end up dead,” they certainly will when Harmonica delivers his follow-up:
HARMONICA
You brought two too many.
This is the sort of line we should all aspire to write. On a superficial level, it’s cool and clever, but there’s something important going on underneath. Often writers will emulate the cleverness in a line without integrating the underlying importance that makes it work on a dramatic level. Here, the stakes are Harmonica’s life, so he needs to rattle them to get any edge he can.
Harmonica’s line, “You brought two too many” perfectly captures the beat’s subtext. It’s strong. It’s surprising. And it plays off the horse reference, all without saying, “No, you three are going to die.” In the film, there is an immediate cut to Stony, where we see an expression that might be described as one of the following lines of action description:
The smile fades from his face.
His lips drop to a neutral expression.
As a director or screenwriter, if you have a line or action whose subtext might not immediately be clear to the audience, a reaction from a character who “gets it” can clarify its meaning. Here, Stony’s reaction
of fear simultaneously and retroactively demonstrates the original line’s deep-seated importance and success at shaking these guys to their core.
Look at the strong, clear, and important intention in each beat and how the literal meaning of the dialogue doesn’t seem to align with it at all. Yet in the context of the scene, the lines clearly express the subtext.
• Harmonica digs for information. (“Frank?”)
• Snaky shuts him down. (“Frank sent us.”)
• Harmonica calls them on it: tests, confirms, prods. (“You bring a horse for me?”)
• Snaky intimidates and tries to crush him emotionally. (“Looks like… looks like we’re shy one horse.”)
• Harmonica deflects/ignores/confuses or scoffs at. (Shakes his head.)
• Harmonica surprises them by striking back and scares the crap out of them with his unique death threat. (“You brought two too many.”)
• Stony is rattled. (Reaction shot/facial expression)
• Harmonica capitalizes: kills them. (The shootout)
In the breakout box, we explore subtext further. The zigzag we discussed in the previous chapter that covers the abrupt shift from expectation to surprise, with dialogue, is measured in the discrepancy between the text and the subtext.
Subtext as Surprise
Subtext is another example of surprise emanating from expectation and setup. The text of the line is the expectation, and the subtext is the surprise. Unlike a story twist in a scene that veers sharply from left to right in an about-face, the expectation and surprise in a line of dialogue happens in parallel—almost simultaneously.
Theoretically, the words in a great line of dialogue should instantaneously capture their own opposite. A line from Man Trouble demonstrates this duality with a homonym. In the film, Harry Bliss (Jack Nicholson) says to Joan (Ellen Barkin): “I like to look at women as a whole.” “Whole” immediately evokes “hole,” and the audience grasps the dual, polar opposite meaning and subtext as crass, sexist innuendo.
Sometimes the work necessary to clarify the subtext of a line is not in the line itself but in its surroundings and context.