Words in Action

by Paolo Braga

  JOSH

  Mary, I apologize.

  MARY MARSH

  Good then. Let’s deal.

  It’s like a slap in the face. The woman makes it very clear she knows her opponent’s ulterior motive and states that she has one too. She’s not here to accept apologies, she’s here to gain favors.

  ← 118 | 119 → The presidential staff members are caught off-guard.

  TOBY

  I’m sorry?

  MARY

  What do we get?

  TOBY

  For what?

  MARY

  Insulting millions of Americans.

  TOBY

  Well, like Josh said – –

  MARY MARSH

  I heard what Josh said, Toby, what

  do we get?

  TOBY

  An apology.

  Mary Marsh wants more than that. She wants to dictate the points of the President’s upcoming Sunday speech. She wants him to talk about public morality, prayers in school or pornography. Toby, the first to warn Josh to be on his best behavior during the meeting, becomes irritated.

  As conflict increases and the exchange of words becomes quick and bitter, the scene becomes comical:

  TOBY

  School prayer or pornography?

  JOHN VAN DYKE

  It’s on every street corner.

  TOBY

  I’ve seen it Mary – –

  ← 119 | 120 → MARY MARSH

  Condoms in the schools.

  TOBY

  What?

  MARY

  Condoms in the schools.

  To make sure the President does not have to make a speech about condoms, Toby quotes pro-condom statistics from the Home Office. Van Dyke answers that those numbers are caused by the stupidity and depravation of modern adolescents (“Show the average American teenage male a condom and his mind will turn to thoughts of lust”). Toby follows suit (“Show the average American teenage male a lug wrench and his mind’ll turn…”). The conflict has gotten way out of hand.

  Toby tries in vain to regain control of the situation (“We’re not prepared to make any sort of a deal right now.”). Josh decides that his colleagues will forgive him if he joins in on the fight (“Sure we are!”). Mary, however, has had enough. This is the perfect moment to attack Josh directly and reveal that she knows his ulterior motive:

  MARY

  My read of the landscape is that

  you’re cleaning out your desk

  before the end of business today,

  so I’d just as soon negotiate with

  Toby if it’s all the same to you.

  Now the conflict has exploded. Mary has touched a sore spot. A less skilled screenwriter would make this the scenes’ climax. The viewer senses that the tension created by ulterior motives has exploded. There seems to be no more dramatic potential to use, and yet Sorkin begins using Mary’s fury to make her ulterior motive known as well.

  The reverend tries in vain to stop her. Mary is furious:

  CALDWELL

  Mary – –

  ← 120 | 121 → MARY

  Please allow me to work. It was

  only a matter of time with you,

  Josh. That New York sense of humor

  was just – –

  CALDWELL

  Mary, there’s no need – –

  MARY

  Reverend, please… They think

  they’re so much smarter. They think

  it’s smart talk. But nobody else

  does.

  “They”. Josh takes Mary’s words literally. He even takes her “New York sense of humor” remark too lightly, but Toby is immediately alarmed by her hostile subtext.

  JOSH

  I’m actually from Connecticut, but

  that’s neither here nor there. The…

  the point is, Mary, I – –

  TOBY

  She meant Jewish.

  Immediate silence.

  TOBY

  When she said “New York sense of

  humor”, she was talking about you

  and me.

  Mary Marsh was not just caught up in her desire to obtain as much as possible for her political group, she had a silent, personal goal of humiliating two members of the Jewish elite.

  ← 121 | 122 → Tension reigns. While Toby and Mary stare fixedly at one another, the danger of having stepped so far over the line is so strong that even Josh “the belligerent” tries to ameliorate the situation (“You know what, Toby, let’s not even go there…”). The reverend does the same (“There’s been an apology, let’s move on”). Even Van Dyke steps up, trying to change the subject:

  JOHN VAN DYKE

  I’d like to discuss why we hear so

  much talk about the First Amendment

  coming out of this building, but

  no talk at all about the First

  Commandment.

  But the war is on and there is no turning back (Mary: “I don’t like what I’ve just been accused of.” Toby: “I’m afraid that’s just tough, Mrs. Marsh”. Toby is talking about her racist remark). Van Dyke tries to go on:

  JOHN VAN DYKE

  The First Commandment says “Honor

  thy Father.”

  That is not the first commandment. Van Dyke is mistaken and Toby cannot stand it anymore. He bursts out and the conflict finally explodes.

  TOBY

  It doesn’t.

  JOSH

  Toby…

  TOBY

  No, it doesn’t.

  JOSH

  Listen – –

  ← 122 | 123 → TOBY

  No, if I’m gonna make you sit

  through this preposterous exercise,

  we’re gonna get the names of the

  damn commandments right.

  MARY

  Okay, here we go.

  TOBY

  “Honor thy Father” is the Third

  Commandment.

  Even Toby is mistaken (it is the Fourth Commandment). His thoughts are confused by his fury.

  JOHN VAN DYKE

  Then what’s the First Commandment?

  Right now, during the second and real climax of the scene, when conflict has reached an all time high, the answer comes unexpectedly from amused voice of the man at the door of the room.

  BARTLET

  “I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt

  worship no other God before me.”

  Boy, those were the days, huh?

  This is a masterful entrance. After thirty minutes on prime time, the audience finally gets to meet the President, and he makes a triumphal appearance indeed. Just when so many sparks start to fly, when the audience has almost forgotten all about him, here he comes to save the day. This is a surprise effect, both planned and employed to perfection. Everyone stands at attention. Bartlet’s line is quite the understatement for a man standing there dressed like a country bumpkin, his leg in a cast, mocking the symbolic value the American people give to the role of President. The line, however, also implies that his authority will resolve the dispute. At the end of the day, it is the President who decides ← 123 | 124 → if and whom he fires. And nobody tells the President what to say in his speeches.

  The conflict ends with the President scolding Mary Marsh (his grand-daughter has received death threats by extremists in her faction) and, after a short verbal exchange with the three conservative representatives, having them ushered out of the White House.

  At the end of this scene, however, the audience’s eyes are focused on the President’s triumphal entrance and their ears on the words: “I am the Lord your God…” This is the line that ever so artistically solves the pilot episode at the climax. These same words would not have been so effective if conflict had not reached the highest possible climax – a fast-paced crescendo of intense, delayed conflict that reaches a sensational peak. The audience was pulled deeper and deeper into the scene, with one charismatic line after another, to then be surprised by an external
factor that resolves everything. Sorkin achieved this by revealing the different subtexts of two different ulterior motives.

  Furthermore, it is important to emphasize how Van Dyke and Toby’s mistakes set up Bartlet’s line. The ball is “set high in the air” for Bartlet to “spike”. Sorkin plays on the ostentation of a conservative Christian and an educated Jew who can’t seem to get the order of the ten commandments right, which might seem improbable, especially to an American audience.

  To make this scene run smoothly, it was practically set up from the beginning of the episode. The whole pilot is in fact filled with comedy sketches in which staff members, despite their marked intelligence and unusually high level of competence, make fools of themselves (from the President who hurts himself by running his bike into a tree to the staff member who finds out the girl he slept with is a prostitute and then finds himself clutching at straws to explain the architectural beauties of the White House – a subject he knows nothing about – to a class of elementary school students).

  ← 124 | 125 →

  Non-shared subtext

  In the full sense of the word, subtext that is both well-written well-acted is shared by two speakers. Each speaker knows: “I know, that you know, that I know.” This chapter is based on this sort of “telepathic” exchange, or sharing, between the scene’s protagonist and antagonist, who both read beyond each other’s words. This is the most conflicting form of subtext because it entails the struggle between two unspoken thoughts.

  But in some cases the unspoken thought is clear to only one of the speakers. Thus two other forms of subtext are possible.

  Non-shared subtext is no less intense or engaging52.

  Manipulation

  It is easy to recognize non-shared strategic subtext. A character has an ulterior motive that is unknown to the others and can thus be “manipulated”. The term manipulation is not at all derogatory in this context. “White lies” do indeed exist and are told for a good reason and with a clear conscience.

  ← 125 | 126 → In an example from Scent of a Woman (directed by Martin Brest, written by Bo Goldman, USA 1992), Colonel Frank Slade (Al Pacino) is a blind man who is pulled over by the cops while recklessly driving a Ferrari down the streets of New York. Charlie (Chris O’Donnell), a sensitive student, is in the passenger seat next to him. Slade works his way out of trouble by deceiving the policeman. He pretends he can see, says he is Charlie’s father and employs psychological tactics (Slade wins the policeman over with the paternalistic ways of an old colonel whose teasing of a young soldier, albeit now a policeman, is permissible). It is obvious Slade’s first motive is to talk his way out of a ticket, yet he must also hide the fact he is blind. This second motive, what the agent doesn’t know, is what Slade, Charlie, and the audience focus the most on. This is the manipulating subtext.

  Another example from Schindler’s List is when Schindler wants Goeth to stop sniping and killing innocent Jewish prisoners without reason. To achieve his goal, he convinces Goeth that mercy is the only real sign of greatness. In this case, the subtext is the fact that Schindler does not care at all about Goeth’s personhood. He just wants to put the man’s disturbed ego to good use. Schindler’s real goal and his negative opinion of Goeth are both hidden from the essence of the confrontation. Once again, the audience is engaged by the subtext, by what is not said.

  In some cases, subtext that is manipulative is a direct, positive, and hurtful expression of the main character’s need. When this happens, the difference between deep subtext and strategic subtext tends to fade – strategic subtext becomes deep subtext.

  This takes place where deception is used for a good cause and the character’s ulterior motive is to keep the other speaker from finding out how much it costs him to pursue the cause. This type of subtext is heart rending. What goes unspoken is the silent sacrifice with which the character fulfills his life purpose.

  Life is Beautiful demonstrates one of the clearest examples of this type of subtext (directed by Roberto Benigni, and written by Benigni and Vincenzo Cerami, Italy 1997). Guido (Benigni) “manipulates” his son to make him believe their imprisonment in the concentration camp is a game. Guido keeps the pain of the situation to himself, sparing the ← 126 | 127 → innocence of his child. Behind the contagious cheerfulness of Guido’s words lies a remarkable ulterior motive hidden in the subtext.

  In Kramer vs. Kramer (written and directed by Robert Benton, USA 1979) we find this same kind of heart rending subtext. At the end of the divorce trial, Ted (Dustin Hoffman) tells his child that the judge has given custody of the boy to his mother. He says it as if it were a beautiful thing, hiding the pain he really feels over their separation. Ted has finally evolved into an unselfish father and, in return, his son now respects his father’s role in his life. Even as Ted conceals this pain from his son, the audience feels his suffering and is just as hurt.

  The same thing happens on ER (TV series created by Michael Chricton and John Wells, USA 1994-2009) when the main character Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards), afflicted with cancer, quits his job at the ER he has led for eight years. The audience knows he has decided to leave, the other characters, instead, don’t. Thus, Dr. Carter (Noah Wyle) does not realize that Greene is saying much more than goodbye. He is passing on the baton (“You set the tone, Carter. Work on your jump-shot,” Carter does not understand the true meaning of this). Even here, the unspoken (Greene’s effort to contain his emotions, to not upset the others, to keep setting an example until the very end) intensifies his hidden sacrifice.

  The irony of fate

  If the function of strategic, non-shared subtext is manipulation, then the function of deep subtext known only by one character is dramatic irony. In other words, the irony of fate53.

  ← 127 | 128 → This is the case when a character unintentionally refers to something that relates to the main character’s need. Just when the main character is having a hard time with a particular problem, someone mentions it, emphasizes its presence, its significance and possible solutions.

  In this case, subtext is shared between the protagonist and fate, or rather, the circumstances that have brought on such a random and special confrontation. The audience knows what is going on and is capable of understanding the psychological implications of the spoken lines on the character (lines that weren’t meant to have any implications). What’s more, within this act of fate, the audience senses the hand of the screenwriter and his ability to create an allusive exchange that has been made to seem mere coincidence.

  In ER “farewell” episode, Dr. Green finds he can no longer fight his or his patient’s cancer. In both cases, the chemotherapy is no longer effective. He has decided to quit his job. At the end of his last shift, Dr. Greene must remove a splinter from a little girl’s finger. She is his last patient. While he carries out this simple task, causing the girl no pain, the girl tells him how she got the splinter during her school play: The Legend of Orion. The legend tells of how Orion fought a scorpion to the death, and even though he wasn’t able to defeat it, Artemis came and saved him. Green comments: “I did not know that,” but the subtext is: “This is my story.” At the hospital, Greene has been fighting his own “scorpion” to the death – an enemy no man can defeat. Like Orion, Greene deserves honor. The girl’s story allows Greene to see that everything is all right, that he has done everything possible and has fulfilled his life.

  In A Few Good Men, the main character Kaffee sits alone in a bar. He is torn with an interior struggle. He doesn’t know whether to choose a plea bargain for his clients or to defy Jessep in trial, risking a court martial. A local customer chats inside the bar. He too is a lawyer and is bragging to a colleague about his skill in bargaining irrelevant trials – which is obviously his daily bread. Kaffee overhears him and the audience understands that fate has given Kaffee a miserable picture of his own self. This encourages Kaffee to face his fears and act like a man.

  In a magnificent scene from Munich, Avner (the main character
) finds himself talking to an Arab terrorist. The Arab does not know that he is talking to one of Mossad’s agents. An informer who has offered to ← 128 | 129 → shelter a Palestinian commando in the same apartment an Israeli commando is hiding in produces this incredible situation. To avoid a massacre, the Jews pretend to be members of a European leftwing extremist group, while Avner pretends to be a German RAF terrorist.

  At night, while the others are sleeping, the two commanders talk to each other about their own wars. The Palestinian (unaware of whom he is speaking to) attacks Avner’s country. Avner indirectly tries to defend his own cause, saying that the Palestinian war is unrealistic, utilizes the wrong methods and has been a no-go right from the start. The conversation allows Avner to legitimize the bloodshed in his campaign. The Arab terrorist, unknowingly, has forced him to face his need, which is to reconcile his love for his country with justice. While the Arab terrorist is unaware of the man’s need, Avner is. Fate, through an unknowing stranger, has placed this vital question before him. This is also a case of manipulation, as Avner uses a false identity. The subtext, however, is linked to the moral content of the dialogue and the relevance of this content to Avner’s life.

  The irony of fate is a form of refined subtext that an author uses to motivate the audience to delve deeply into the meaning of the story. The dramatic and moral meaning is revealed without jeopardizing the realism of the plot. Fate, in fact, is a part of life, whether it be real or fiction.

  Deep, non-shared subtext, is an extremely emotional form of unspoken meaning which increases empathy for the main character. Since the other characters are unaware of the predicament troubling the protagonist, he appears all alone and burdened by inner conflict. The audience understands his loneliness and knows what the protagonist knows. The audience also knows his fate.

  The irony of fate thus creates implied meaning that is both effective and stylistically commendable. For this reason, we have dedicated two extensive analyses to the subject before bringing this chapter on subtext to a close.

  Crash. “Is there a problem, Cam?”