DZ-120: Subtext is Overrated!

Chas, when you said it off camera and then Stu stole your thunder,
I immediately went, oh yes, that's absolutely right.
And now that I think about it, I go, is it?
Hi, I'm Stu Willis.
And I'm Chas Fisher.
And welcome to Draft Zero, a podcast where two emerging filmmakers and a special
guest in today's episode, try to work out what makes great screenplays work.
One established screenwriter. And just before we introduce him to let everyone
know, today we brought our guest on in particular to talk about subtext.
We're going to talk about what subtext means to us.
In particular, I guess, how to make it work and whether it should be an objective at all.
And to do so, we're looking in particular at the films of Michael Clayton.
Yes, Michael Clayton is back after last episode, written and directed by Tony Gilroy.
We're looking at Inglourious Basterds, which we've done a whole episode on Tarantino,
but I'm not sure if we've ever done Inglourious Basterds in particular,
written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
And then we are doing the fabulous, more recent entry into this particular group,
The Substance, written and directed by Coralie Fargeat.
Yes.
And that voice you hear is this established screenwriter. It is Tom Vaughn,
screenwriter and teacher.
Tom, if you don't know him, he's quite active on social media.
And I started reading his tidbits about screenwriting and went,
oh, this is a guy who kind of aligns with the way I think about screenwriting.
And I signed up to his excellent newsletter, Story and Plot.
And he wrote this incredible article on how subtext is overrated.
And here we are, almost a year later, we're trying to organize it,
having and talking about it.
We have Tom on the show to join us talking about Subtext. Welcome.
Thank you. Yeah, it's been a lot of direct text trying to get a meeting going.
In our defense, even though you've written a film that was shot in Australia,
which is The Great Winchester, you're actually based in Texas.
I am. I am based in Texas and dying to get down there to film another movie, hopefully pretty soon.
Awesome. And maybe the fact that you obviously have a passion for horror is
maybe the reason I align with your take on it, because I think some of those
more visceral genres require a certain approach to screenwriting.
And that is reflected in this conversation around subtext.
So I'm going to start with my kind of biases, because I think we should define subtext.
Sure I love that you're starting and not asking our guest what his take on subtext this is very draft.
This is true maybe we should cut this and we go tom why is subtext overrated no.
I I want mine to be a reaction okay.
All right so Stu you go.
Okay so it's not what is subtext it's more
like why I'm interested in this when I was a beginning screenwriter
I wrote stuff and I kind of struggled
with the idea of subtext and I was making stuff where characters
kind of talked around each other and it didn't really sound natural and
it was overly loaded or overly laden with
symbolism right I kind of made stuff
like a little bit indecipherable but I thought it
was like subtext sure and I've taught screenwriting and seen
that same problem with kids it's like how do you kids I
mean they're young young adults and it's like how do you teach people to
think about subtext so there's that element of like at the beginning of
your screenwriting journey but I think as I've gotten older
and more experienced it's less about that and more about how do I write the
subtext on the page what are the tools that I can use to kind of I was gonna
say the implicit explicit in a way but we'll get to what I mean by that what
about you Chas what kind of brought you to to wanting to discuss this with Tom I.
Think I'm just going to be a bit literal for a
second subtext is whatever text
is going on beneath the text so what
do we mean by text I'm like we're talking about film
and tv what are the characters literally doing
and saying and is there any other meaning underneath
that beyond the literal beyond what they're doing and
saying and that to me is subtext and there's I think when when subtext is done
really well in a scene where and we're going to look at this incredible scene
from Michael Clayton where two characters are talking around something but the
audience understands so clearly what they're actually talking about,
that it can be seen as subtle and deft and awesome.
But I think there's a lot of work going on under the hood of those scenes that
is not like a writer just going, oh, I need to be more subtle or something like that to-
to make subtext work. So not to bury the lead. All right, Tom,
reaction time. What's your take on subtext?
I think they're both fine takes. I think the literal take is definitely what I tend to think about.
I know when I'm writing, I've been writing a long time.
I used to find subtext fun, you know, a lot like Stu of like,
okay, this is part of the job.
And now I don't think about it at all. Like I never, it never occurs to me about subtext.
It's just not parts, it's just not part of my scenes anymore.
And I think someone who would read my scenes or, you know, watch these movies
would think, oh, that subtext.
Because just like from the literal, you know, explanation that you had,
it was just like, well, it's just what's not being said.
But for me, it's, it's just
tactics it's just tactics and fear it
is how are you trying to get what you want and what
are you willing to reveal to the people in the room yeah and so it comes out
sounding like subtext but from a dramatic standpoint everyone in the room knows
everyone in the audience knows just that that scene for Michael Clayton everyone
in the audience knows exactly what this scene is about,
And it reminds me of the old Billy Wilder line of, it can be subtle as long as it's obvious.
I bet it's actually so good.
So you start out when you're writing and you want to have subtext and you hope
that you can sit there with the actors and explain it to them.
And they go, oh, I see. That's great.
And that's actually bad writing.
It's actually not particularly interesting writing from a dramatic standpoint.
So you know when I approach a scene it's it is what are they revealing what
are they willing to reveal what do they want what are they trying to get what
are they willing to reveal and it is it is either a tactic to get what they
want or a tactic to avoid what they don't want yeah.
And I think before we jump in uh for the for your benefit tom sue and I have
had several explorations on tactics in previous episodes,
which is, we've never discussed it in this context.
So just to say that we're really on board that approach.
It even happened in a recent workshop on a piece of work of mine where people,
I've got these moments where the characters build up and they let loose the truth of themselves.
And I believe it was Stu. If not, I make Stu the villain of all my stories but
he said oh we can do that yeah oh yeah we can but she was like
So why did they do that? What are they trying to achieve?
What is their tactic in revealing the truth of themselves?
What is it they want that they've been left with no other recourse other than
to reveal the truth of themselves? I'm like, damn it, those are really good questions.
It's a good model.
Arthur.
I mean, what I like about your take on tactics there,
which is what are they trying to reveal or not reveal,
I like that as a simple way of thinking about it in the same way that another
thing that I think we can explore in these scenes a little bit is this idea
of the emotional event, which we got from Judith Weston and we did an episode with her.
Gosh, she's great.
Yeah. And I love that she's got this beautiful, complex story about emotional events.
She's like, the simple way of thinking about is this relationship close?
Are these people closer or further apart at the end?
Right? And that's a simple way into thinking about it. And so,
coming back to what you were saying about tactics, and I'm going to quote your
own article on this, which is subtext is not the goal, right?
It's a byproduct of other goals.
And I think sometimes the emphasis on thinking too much about the subtext is
it feels artificial because it's not what the characters are doing.
And so, when you're thinking about it from what are the characters doing,
subtext is going to emerge because, as you say, it's the result of the subtext,
how they're trying to get what they want, right?
Yeah.
But I want to connect it to what Chas has kind of said earlier,
and he actually said it off mic.
Oh, you're going to steal my observation.
That there's the subtext that the characters are in control of,
which is tactics, and the subtext that the filmmakers are in control of.
And then I've got irony and dramatic questions and kind of emotional events
as kind of the tools that the writers are in control of.
I mean, in some ways, the emotional event is the result of characters seeking what they
what they want. But I think the idea of how you dramatize that is something
that the writers can put on the page.
And I think what's important about, and we'll see if it bears true,
the importance of tactics is that should be on the page, on the actual screenplay page.
And I think irony is built structurally.
And so as much as we're talking about these small scenes and
it's the Michael Clayton it's the scene when Karen is kind of basically asking
for a hit to be taken out in Inglourious Basterds it's when Shosanna is confronted
with the killer of her family and we and her are trying to work out if he knows
who she is and the substance substance well,
it's when we she turns into a giant gooey monster you know but there is interesting
thing in that Because I think that's more, I think we're going to leave that
at the end, because I think that's more about the filmmakers trying to communicate something else.
And so that is shifting subtext into this idea of maybe symbolism or theme.
Yeah.
These other ways that people think about subtext.
Because when you said it, Chas, when you said it off camera and then Stu stole
your thunder, I immediately went, oh, yes, that's absolutely right.
And now that I think about it, I go, is it? Wait, what did you mean? Like what?
And like now it's one of those things of like a light bulb went off and then
it's just slowly, okay, I'm going to need you to explain this now.
Like give me an example of subtext. I will say things, I just had this little
moment because I will say things in social media and I will say things that
I've thought about and I will state and then someone will immediately say, hey, give me an example.
And I get angry. Like I just did some work. You can do a little bit of work in this conversation.
You know it could be a back and forth uh so I just caught myself going give
me an example of what you mean.
Well I this might be a good segue to uh
to go into these actual examples but
I'm going to bury the lead Michael Clayton is a really clear example of both
characters are talking around something they are very deliberately choosing
what to say and what not to say yes and the subtext is between the two of them
it's understood between the two of them and it's understood by the audience as well, right?
In Inglourious Basterds, we are not clear on what the characters,
we're very clear on what Shosanna knows, we are not clear on what Landa knows,
and to me it's very much all the text of that scene is them literally talking
about Strudel, and the subtext of it is...
For the audience. And it's also for Shosanna in terms of her trying very hard
not to say something, but we're really not sure where Landa sits.
And that's where the drama and the tension of the scene comes from.
And then I think when we'll get to the substance, you said off mic,
I don't think there's text.
The endings of the substance, the text is don't take unknown substances.
And if you happen to turn yourself into a hideous monster
don't then go and host a new
year's televised live event that's what the text is
saying right but the subtext is
really screaming at you that it's about beauty standards and what we're prepared
to go through and we'll get into that more but that's Sue and Elisabeth in the
Substance are not aware of the subtext that is being screamed at us right by
the film by the text by the filmmakers okay.
Okay all right uh I see what you're saying I I I would definitely I like this
way of thinking but I I can certainly say like I wonder if we're just robbing theme and tension.
From their.
Own definitions and calling it subtext probably.
Well I was just because I was going into this like broad thing like what is
the text underneath the literal meaning of the scene in front of us.
And it could be that for, when you look at it from a character perspective in
the Substance, there is no subtext.
They are doing exactly and saying exactly what they mean and want.
There's zero subtext from a character perspective. I think there is a lot of
theme and a lot of tension coming through that has nothing to do with the characters.
So, I mean, that's why for my, you might be right, maybe using the subtext is
the wrong word. And certainly talking about subtext in just a character context
is going to make better scenes.
So maybe from a craft perspective, we could limit it that way.
Yeah, because when you did say it, and I immediately thought of Inglourious
Basterds, because the narrative in our head is different from both of their heads.
Yes.
And so that's kind of what I clued in with what you were saying.
It's like, okay, is that what he means by that? Because we have a very different
set of what is going on than each character does.
Yeah, exactly. And look, ultimately, it could be that we're talking about narrative
point of view here in terms of what does the audience know with respect of the characters.
So in Michael Clayton, both characters and the audience all know exactly the
same amount of information.
Whereas we'll get to the Big Print of Inglourious Basterds. Sorry,
we call Action Lines Big Print here in Australia.
Oh, I did not know that.
We get a lot of listeners going, what is this big print that they're talking about?
But the action lines in the script of Inglourious Basterds, and we'll get into the nitty gritty of it,
They are reinforcing the narrative irony all the time.
It's like hitting us over the head. This is what you, the audience,
know that Landa may or may not know, but that Shosanna very much knows.
Yeah.
So, just to unpick at this idea a little bit, because I think it will be useful.
I've had the advantage that I've had time to think while Chas talks.
And not listen to me. And Iota.
No, because you asked for an example about the separation between subtext for
the audience and subtext for the characters, and why don't we just call it theme?
And I just think there is this line between moving from character into theme,
and I think it's how divorced we are maybe from the experience.
As you were saying, Tom, it's about the story in your head and the story for the characters.
And an example of something which kind of leans more into the subtext from the
filmmakers, I think, is the Zone of Interest, right, which has got this very
interesting effect between here are these characters.
And it's a World War II movie, for those who haven't seen it,
about the people that built the concentration camps, Auschwitz in particular,
and we're seeing their ordinary lives that we never see over the wall, etc.
So, there's this tension between what the characters are trying to do,
the ordinariness of what they're doing, and our understanding of the larger
story, and the tension between that.
So, how the film is being told to us, for me, kind of has a subtextual element
that is obviously thematic, but sits somewhat more closer to the kind of stuff
that we're talking about.
It's almost like the tactics of the storyteller, as opposed to the tactics of the character.
Right.
Might be a way of thinking about it. And you could just call it,
as you say, theme and meaning.
And there is obviously something very useful about that. But...
Not everyone's going to be as precise as their terminology as us,
and you may be in a development meeting where someone goes, oh,
we need to work on the subtext here, and what they're actually talking about
is how the audience interprets the meaning of your story as opposed to talking
about the dramatic events within this scene.
Sure.
So, I'm not saying we're going to be able to cover both fully,
but I think The Substance does do some good stuff on the page that helps you
understand what it's trying to say.
And I think the Inglourious Basterds does some good writing on the page as well
that helps us understand that story in our heads.
So I think that to me is actually a really great way of thinking about it.
The irony requires us to have the story for the characters and the story in
us as the audience and being aware of them both may help that stuff work.
Yeah, it's a great example, a zone of interest of us having a view of it 50,
60 years later when we know, gosh, it's 80 years later, of what that is.
And then, you know, some of those tales that tell their structure backwards
also have that same thing where we know the ending of this and the characters do not.
And then, of course, there's no greater example of that than the ultimate filmmaker
subtext film of Planet of the Apes.
Yeah.
Where they end it. They don't know what happened It was earth the whole time
I don't know if you guys do that Earth the whole time Not.
In the Tim Burton 90's version.
No subtext in that movie Zero subtext in the Burton film It.
Was like plot twist Alright Well let's dive into the Examples.
Michael thank god Look I got a situation Arthur Edens just stripped down naked
in a deposition room in Milwaukee.
You are the senior litigating partner of one of the largest,
most respected law firms in the world.
You are a legend. I'm an accomplice. You're a manic depressive.
I am Shiva, the god of death.
I'm Michael Clayton. You're late. This is a $3 billion class action lawsuit.
The architect of our defense has been arrested for running naked through a parking lot.
He's building the case against you, North. Nobody's going to let him do that.
Let him? Who the hell's going to stop him?
I spent 12% of my life defending the reputation of a deadly weed killer.
Arthur. No way! They killed the Michael.
You, North, need to know he's under control. They've been shook up.
They need to be reassured.
What are you telling me? That I'm counting on you. You're not going to say...
Just that it was something that would win the whole case. I'm not the enemy. Then who are you?
Michael Clayton is a legal thriller about the titular character.
Michael Clayton, he's a fixer of a big New York law firm.
He's played by George Clooney. The law firm's biggest case is a class action
lawsuit with a company called U-North that make a weed killer.
The weed killer kills more than weeds.
Yes.
It's kind of the key thing.
Yeah. The lead litigator for the law firm that Michael Clayton works for has
decided to defect to the other side.
He's learned so much about U-North and has had a crisis of conscience that he's
actually going to release to the world just how evil and terrible U-North is.
Yeah, he's found a document, an internal document. This scene's actually about
Arthur, not Michael Clayton himself. It's about Arthur played by the late, great Tom Wilkinson.
He has discovered the smoking gun, effectively, of the document where U-North
knew their weed killer killed people and they decided to not do anything about it.
And they've been surveilling him. U-North have been surveilling him.
Yeah. And so, I mean, we discussed at length in the previous episode about how
Tony Gilroy is a humanist and just sees so much,
even in his quote unquote villains or evil people, he loves bringing out their humanity.
And this scene is actually about the general counsel of U-North,
Karen, played by Tilda Swinton, and the man that she has hired, the leader of the team,
Mr. Verne, to surveil Arthur.
So, that's the context of the scene that we're coming into.
Maybe we should listen to the scene. It is short.
Yeah.
It seemed to warrant my company.
You have to contain this. Contain? Right. Well, that's my question.
What are the... What's the option that we're looking at along those lines?
You're talking about the paper, the data?
Well, I'm wondering if there is some other option. I mean, something I'm not thinking of.
We deal in absolutes. Okay. I understand that. I do.
In the material of the papers, I'm not a lawyer. We try. We do what we can. The other way?
It is the other way.
Maybe you want to bring Don in on this. No, this has nothing to do with Don.
He's busy. This has nothing to do with Don.
Do you think it's doable?
Yeah, we have some good ideas. You say move, we move. The ideas don't look so
good, we back off, reassess. Okay.
Is that okay? You understand her okay?
So, Tom, why did you choose this scene? Why is this your example?
Primarily because it's full of subtext.
Yeah.
To me, this is the quintessential example of what we think of as subtext,
where they are talking around a topic, and it goes to what I tend to think of.
They have a tactic. She has to pretend she's not talking about what she's talking.
And he has to pretend that she's talking about something else when they both
know what they're talking about.
And she's like, one of the lines that I love about something I haven't thought about,
you know, like such a great, like pretending that she's not the one offering,
I'm not initiating this conversation, but she absolutely is.
And so, to me, it is, I want the option of, are we going to kill Arthur or not?
And I want that on the table because all the other options are not acceptable.
But the tactics are, is I'm not willing to admit that I'm initiating the conversation,
just in case I'm being recorded.
I have the same, like, my emails are full of subtext because I write every email
with the assumption it will be made public.
Probably sensible.
Yeah. Like, I have no idea where this is going to be.
So, like, I may get vicious emails from directors and stuff.
And my reply is always, well, I'm just going to assume the producer is going to read this email.
So, this is what she's doing.
Now, a good question about subtext is, is she preparing herself so she can convince
herself later she didn't do it? She didn't make this choice.
And I think that's another layer of...
Of subtext that we don't often think about. I just said we, I don't often think about or discuss.
But I know, like, I can convince myself of a lot of things. And I can certainly
convince myself of the righteousness of decisions.
And I know, I am sure I've got stories of bad decisions that I have done that
I have mentally scrubbed over the years.
Where it was, well, I had to do that, or I didn't mean that or that was an accident
when it really wasn't an accident.
And we can convince ourselves of these things. And so like I'm curious of here
of is this just as much for herself to deny that she initiated the idea?
Even though in this moment it is purely like she's conscious of it, she's very aware of it.
I think so, yes. I mean, I think it's an interpretation but I think part of what makes this scene,
fun and it's a fun scene is
because you've got this thing of they have to they're talking around
this issue but they actually need a uh a clear
understanding of what like how to do it so it's how do you talk around about
what we is but make sure we're on the same page because there's no walking this
back you know and it ends with Verne the uh the corporate spy I guess saying
you know you mean okay you understand or okay proceed yeah.
It's great great line.
But I think that's what makes the scene fun because they've got the tactics
but kind of the obstacle is them the fact that they have to talk around it so
they're talking around this issue
and their obstacle is they're actually talking around this issue yeah.
The.
Subtext is the.
Problem.
But okay so there is very clear subtext they are not talking about putting a
hit out on Arthur in the words that they're saying. So, that's the subtext.
They are arranging and discussing and workshopping, putting a hit out on a human
being without talking about that at all. So, there's text and subtext.
However, the text...
Is not something else entirely, which is what we have in the Inglourious Basterds
scene where they're talking about arranging a cinema and talking about Strudel.
They're not talking about anything else here. They're just trying very hard
not to talk about the subtext.
And I think, Tom, where you're coming from in terms of the character's internal drama about,
is she avoiding talking about this, not just in case she's being recorded,
but is she avoiding talking about this because she internally does
not want to be as a person responsible for murdering another
person I think is very deliberately structured
by Tony Gilroy by how we leave the
scene because like you've you've just pointed out she
says okay and Vern comes back saying you mean okay you understand or okay proceed
yeah yeah and then she doesn't answer the question and the action line that
Tony Gilroy has written that we leave the scene on is Vern nods full stop, but hanging full stop.
Where are they? Question mark.
Still waiting for an answer as dash, dash, we cut out of the scene.
So he is very deliberately left us as the audience.
And he's telling us as the reader that he's leaving us going,
she has not confirmed in words that she is going to be responsible for the murder of a person.
It's not in the movie but I'd be
very curious if Gilroy would write the sequel to this scene where Vern says
she told me to do it and what would her reaction be like what what would like
what would she say like like what would like I didn't tell you to do it we.
Were we were discussing stealing the document.
Yeah it's like my god man I was yeah my god what do you what were you thinking
but you told me no I did not yeah.
Yeah because it's it's in the response to and and
it's in parent the use of parentheticals throughout this
script and in this scene is so fantastic you know you mean okay you understand
or okay proceed parenthetical silence and then Vern saying maybe you want to
bring Don in on it so she doesn't respond the silence she's made he's he's feeling
the silence and he we get his interpretation of what that silence means immediately,
which is maybe we need to talk to Don about this,
right? So obviously you're meaning you want to continue.
He's got such clear beats in his scene. He's such clear what emotion causes
and creates the next beat.
He's as good as they come with that.
Oh yeah, Tony Gilroy. I thought you meant Vern, but you actually meant Gilroy.
Speaking of subtext.
But I mean, I think the structure of the scene, speaking of that,
is really interesting, right? So we start with them listening to...
Arthur. Vern's like, you know, I wanted this to bring this to your attention.
He wants her to give him some instructions or directions, right?
And she's like, yes. And the big print just emphasizes the awkwardness of this,
an awkward beat, people, cars, life going by, right?
And then Karen is like, asks him to contain it.
And so the first kind of, the first third, I guess, The beginning of the scene
is them listening to Arthur.
The second little section, the second beat of this is Karen trying to get Vern
to realize what she's asking.
Right.
And then when he understands it, what he's asking, he's, he's seeking confirmation.
Right. And then that last little beat is him seeking confirmation of,
do I understand you correctly?
That's kind of like, to me, how I interpret the structure of the scene.
The midpoint is, I mean, I'm using the terms loosely, but it's like,
to me, the midpoint of the scene where the scene hangs is when Karen says,
and the other way, and Vern says, is the other way.
And it emphasizes the heaviness of this, because in the big print,
there's not much action lines or big print in this scene.
But after he says, is the other way, the big print is heavy pause,
life passing all around them. And I like that the script slows down for a moment, right?
It could just use the word beat or put it in parenthetical, but they want to
put you in the action line because they want you as the reader to sit with the implication of it.
Right?
So, it's a great bit of writing because this is like the storyteller subtext, right?
They're using that tool to make sure we understand what she's got into it.
So, we kind of catch up to Vern. I mean, I've seen this film a few times now,
so it's hard to know what that first time experience was.
But my memory is you're probably experiencing this scene more with Vern, right?
You're coming in, he's giving it to her.
You're kind of catching up to what she is saying with Vern.
And then you're like, oh, okay, this is what you're asking for.
And I think that line kind of does that.
Definitely. I mean, I love, because you're right, as they're starting to talk-
She's trying to ask Vern, can you kill Arthur?
And Vern thinks initially that she's talking about the report because she's
saying, you know, you have to contain this. He responds, contain.
She says, right, that's my question. Having not asked a question at all, I do enjoy that.
Short of whatever else, something more, what's the option for something along
those lines? That is just like word salad.
That means absolutely nothing. thing and Vern
responds you're talking about the paper the data and
so she's she's got to keep word salading
at him until he understands and you
know you're talking about parenthetical Stu the next one is one of
the best parentheticals I've ever read karen says that there's
a more limited option is what I'm asking and then in parentheticals it says
cold sweat fumbling something I'm not thinking of and like tom you you brought
up that line before because it's like I want I'm trying to tell you something
and I'm trying to tell you that I'm not thinking about it at all and.
Then I love that Vern says we deal in absolutes which is like stop with your
word salad but again that creates the the subtext of the scene is.
That he.
Is probably want something more explicit right and I think he is growing frustrated with her.
Yeah and that's why he asked whether she should bring don in like well.
It's it's like she's trying to inception him or.
Something you.
Know.
Something I'm not thinking of.
Yeah so it's his idea as you say it's like her I mean maybe that's part of the subtext of the.
Scene the tactics.
Is she wants him he she's trying to incept him so it's his idea and he knows
that that's what she is trying to do yeah so he wants her to be explicit but he also works for her.
And also that moment down there and end the other way is the other way. They've done it before.
Yeah.
They've done it before. Maybe not together, but Vern has. She hasn't, but Vern has.
Because end the other way is the other way. That's not someone who's never had to make this choice.
And how much you get from that one line to read into that. I mean, this is just.
Yeah.
And clearly Don has previously instructed him to make this choice in the past.
He's like, maybe we should bring in the guy who will just tell me a yes or no answer on the murder.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
He's busy. He's very busy. He cannot. He's too busy to order a hit.
Yeah, yeah.
And scene is a total of like a page and a.
Quarter, maybe a page and a third, and that it has three such clear movements
in it that are so dramatically powerful, without them at any point ever saying
what they truly mean is incredible.
Yeah.
And coming back to subtext as a result, we had to lay a bunch of groundwork
about what the story was, Arthur, the implications of this information, right?
So when we come into this scene, right, the audience is able to put together
the pieces of what she is asking for, because we actually understand what's
at stake for her as well, right?
Yeah.
And we kind of understand, we've already seen Vern and his kind of like ruthless efficiency.
He's the kind of guy where the other way is the other way, right?
And we've seen all that. So, this scene can have these characters talking around
each other and we fully understand what it is, what they're asking. And it's interesting.
It's such a weird way to talk about it. But when we edited the previous episode,
we played the trailer for the movies or sections of the trailer as a way of
introducing them. And I watched a bunch of trailers for Michael Clayton.
And even though this is a scene that everyone remembers from the film,
it's not in the trailer. Because I don't think if you have the information,
you wouldn't know what they're talking about.
You need the information beforehand to understand the power of those words.
And it might very well be why subtext is essentially dead in movies, is because...
You just can't get a trailer full of subtext.
No.
You can't market subtext, man.
You have to market it by saying it's overrated. And then hopefully people read
your newsletter and listen to a podcast on it.
Every line is literal.
Yes.
Coming this summer.
I mean, Chas ended up reading. I did my usual thing.
I send Chas an article and then the knowledge that he'll read it and then summarize it for me,
which is there was the article on the new literalism, talking about The Substance
and this trend to have an absence of subtext in modern movies.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that in The Substance. Yeah.
Because that was one of the examples the writer was calling out.
I just want to note that Stu sent Chas an article about how The Substance has
no subtext. And Chas responded with, I want to talk about the subtext in The Substance.
This is a direct FU to either you or the writer of this article.
And I don't know which one.
But this scene is as fabulous as it is.
Because to Stu's point, the work that's gone in leading up to the scene is that
we all have the same amount of information.
The audience and both characters uh Karen
comes into the scene catching up to us yeah but
Vern and us as the audience we know
what Arthur's plan is and Karen learns that information at the very beginning
of the scene she's hearing the recording that they have so that's the the pre-work
that has gone into a scene like this is putting all all of us on the same like
orienting us as an audience And then Tom,
your, your description of their tactics is like how the tactics can be summarized
so simply, but it's so beautiful.
It's like, how can you have a meeting which needs a decision when no one in
the meeting can actually talk about what the decision has to be or how it can be brought about?
Yeah. Everyone wants everyone else to make the decision of the thing that they can't even talk about.
Yeah.
Sounds like every meeting in front.
But but sublime just because and it's just because of those to your point Tom
I don't think Tony Gilroy sat
down and said I'm gonna write the the best subtext ever yeah this scene,
It evolves so beautifully from the tactics that the characters are adopting.
Yeah.
Coming back to the structure, because I've looked at it again,
the subtle shifting tactics.
So, you know, she brings up this containment thing. So, her goal is to get it
contained. Her goal for the scene is to get it contained.
And then she realizes when Vern says contain, she needs to get him to understand
what that means, right? And then that beat from contain question mark ends with
the, is this the other way, right? That's the end of that first section.
She then asks him, do you think it's doable?
And then that other beat is the, will she get him to agree to it?
And that ends when he, Vern nods, the scene ends with Vern nodding.
He's agreed to what she's asked.
Well, to my mind, they do actually want two different things.
As soon as they understand what they're talking about, which is most of the
scene, is them gaining a mutual understanding of what Karen is talking about,
and then you've got the decision.
But in that decision, the two characters want two different things.
Karen wants Arthur killed, and Vern wants Karen to take responsibility for the
decision of killing Arthur.
Yeah, even though Vern is already like, we have some good ideas.
Yeah.
They've discussed it.
You mean okay you understand or okay proceed.
Yeah yeah it's such a good scene and and just from a writing standpoint or a
writer's standpoint you just have this scene on your board that says,
Karen makes the decision and and then it's just like well how much fun is that
going to be to write and then you just go in knowing this is going to be this
and this is this tactic and this is this tactic,
and then probably made the decision, and obviously I don't know,
but probably made the decision to
in the writing of the scene that we were going to cut out before she actually makes a decision.
Because otherwise, there's no point to this scene.
Unless the point was is he had this idea for a scene where they had to talk
about a hit but couldn't talk about a hit.
Which I tend to think is less likely. That tends to be the way you're going to execute a scene.
But every now and then, of course, you have this idea of how you're going to
execute a scene and then you... And then that becomes like, where do I put that scene?
Yeah.
Because she doesn't make the decision.
That's actually a really profound revelation. The idea that the scene works
and is in the movie because she doesn't make the scene.
It doesn't make the decision. On screen.
Well, I mean, obviously someone makes the decision.
Someone does. Later we learn, yeah.
Arthur gets killed in a very chilling sequence that's trying to replicate real time.
And and apparently that makes the hit on Michael much easier to choose too yeah.
Well we we never see that is we never see a similar scene about Michael we just.
See yeah yeah and.
We understand that that's what they're they're doing with the car bomb.
She goes from like not being able to say it to just like now she's got a game of thrones hit list yeah.
She general counsel Cersei to uh.
Yeah and it's still it's one of my favorite lines from this film is later on
where he's like I'm not the guy you hit I'm the guy you buy off like yeah I'm
so obvious like like I'm so corrupt and so obvious how could you make this mistake now.
I'm conscious that we've got you for another little over another hour Tom so
I think we should move on to Inglourious Basterds we're.
Gonna be dropped into France dressed as civilians. We're gonna be doing one thing, one thing only.
Killing Nazis. Yes, sir! Members of the National Socialist Party conquered Europe
to murder, torture, intimidation, and terror.
And that's exactly what we're gonna do to them. We will be cruel to the German
and through our cruelty they will know who we are.
They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled,
dismembered, and disfigured bodies they're brothers we leave behind us.
And the German will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty
their brothers endured at our hands and our boot heels.
Nazis ain't got no humanity they need to be destroyed each and every man under
my command owes me 100 Nazi scalps and I want my scalps,
nine nine nine nine nine nine sound good yes sir.
So as I mentioned before the Inglourious Basterds scene
that we're talking about is the infamous strudel scene but just
to set up a little bit Inglourious Basterds
is the World War II fan fiction
by uh Quentin Tarantino it's possible
it's in my top three Tarantino films so I really really is it really yeah I
really really like Inglourious Basterds but as is Tarantino's want it it follows
a number of different storylines that all happen to conveniently come together
in a glorious climax of violence and fire,
but this particular scene, the film opens with Colonel Hans Landa, who's an SS,
his nickname is the Jew Hunter played by Christoph Waltz.
Murdering the- There's some subtext for you.
Murdering the entire family of Shosanna.
And a few years later.
Shosanna is being wooed. She's moved to Paris.
She's assumed a new identity, hiding her religion and her ethnicity.
She's now inherited a cinema in Paris and she is being wooed by a Nazi sniper called Fredrick.
He's also becoming a movie star.
Yes, Fredrick has become the star of Goebbels' latest propaganda exercise.
And Fredrick, as part of his attempts to woo Shosanna, wants the premiere of
Goebbels and his movie to be at Shosanna's cinema.
Now, the context of this scene is that Shosanna has just been told by a Gestapo
major to get in a car and she has no idea where she's going.
And she shows up at a famous Parisian cafe and there is Goebbels and Fredrick.
Now, I think the scene that we particularly want to talk about is the final
third of this scene, but we recently did an episode on Adolescence, Tom,
the Netflix show, and we talked a lot about French scenes where the scene changes
by the entrance and exit of characters and that is definitely the case with this scene.
Oh, yeah.
There's an initial scene between Goebbels, Goebbels' French translator,
Fredrick and Shosanna, and then Landa appears.
Ah, Landa, there you are!
He comes into the scene, sits at the table.
There's then another scene with this new dynamic introduced by Landa.
And obviously Shosanna trying very hard not to react to the fact that her family's
murderer is sitting next to her.
And then even more terrifying, Goebbels and Fredrick leaves.
And Landa asks to just have Shosanna stay behind.
So that they can have just a one-on-one conversation that is the final movement
or the final French scene within this larger scene.
Is that a reasonable summary of where we're going to?
Yes. I think it's worth noting that his justification is a security concern.
Yes.
I'm just going to quote one bit of Action Line, which is, the SS officer sits
down and it's our old friend from the first scene, Colonel Hans Landa.
Fredrick introduces Emmanuel. This is Colonel Hans Landa of the SS.
He'll be running security for the premiere.
Close up on Shosanna. A bomb is dropped and detonated behind her eyes.
But if she gives any indication of this, her war story ends here.
The SS officer who murdered her family takes her hand and kisses it.
So like what what we were saying earlier Tarantino is screaming to us the subtext
of this scene in the action lines.
And and what's interesting is in the actual movie itself he turns the music
up to 11 at that moment too oh.
It's in the movie that's what.
You read this and you watch the movie and it's close up you're like yep I I
I will tell my students as I teach it's interesting I never made this connection
until just now but I will tell them like a director,
a director has this great tool of music,
in their movie and you don't have that and so your action lines have to play
that role in your movie it has to play the
role of the musical score and that's exactly what he does here when he says
the monster that killed her family that's the text version of the music,
that the score turns up in that moment in the movie.
I actually like that way to think about action lines being the music,
because it's something that Chas and I play with a lot,
is revealing the interiority of characters in the action line or clarifying
them in parentheticals or in big print.
And some people ask us why, and I think now I can give the answer.
It's like, it's the score, right?
Yeah.
If you need to turn it up to 11 or if you need to cut it,
right you know you need to kind of un you know drop the
sincerity or whatever it is that you're playing with you kind of actually have
to use your big print to to do it and sometimes it's the fix I'm on our own
script there was no for the producer saying this beat is awkward and it's like
yeah yes the beat is meant to be awkward and so we just wrote awkward beat,
great right as the parenthetical before the dialogue so
it's not like a huh it's like a oh that's that is
deliberate that is the point and I think
what is interesting about Tarantino unlike
Gilroy is he definitely writes a
lot of his writes a lot of quote-unquote music into his big print yeah and it's
funny that how much he plays with that so you've got the narrator telling us
things that are going on you've got the the flash cut to Goebbels having the
affair with his translator, right?
They're not making that as a subtext that's played within the scene.
They are telling the audience that this is what's going on.
But that's important because it means that when we see their relationship,
we're not trying to guess.
We're not being pulled out of the scene trying to guess whether Goebbels and
his translator are having an affair.
We know they're having an affair and therefore we read into their interactions, right?
Oh, I was like, I like the switch from the script to the movie too.
Because in the script, the focus is on her when they're having sex.
Yes.
And in the movie, the focus is on him making very pig-like noises. Very exact.
And it's it's just a like a like I'm just sure they just discovered that that
this is that was more interesting and more dehumanizing of Goebbels or like whatever it.
Is it.
Was just an interesting change from the first version of the movie to the final version of the movie.
It is it is it is a interesting change and I think it kind of also reflects
that in terms of the the tactics of the scene Goebbels in this first section
and we do want to talk more about the strudel but Goebbels is basically an egomaniac
right he's a narcissist and the whole scene is actually about him just talking about him and.
His spider-like fingers which is just a great line.
And but I think what's interesting about that is obviously it has this point
where he's trying to go to the this idea that Shosanna will host the premiere
right and so that's kind of the tactics of all of that and it's And it inflates her importance.
It inflates Fredrick's importance from his egomania.
And motivates it. It's great.
I mean, a couple of times it does point out in the action lines that as if Shosanna
has any choice. I think it's twice throughout the scene.
They are Shosanna something. And in the action line, it says as if Shosanna
has any choice in the matter.
And that's a similar thing is not replicated in the movie, though.
That's what's kind of interesting.
Oh, it isn't.
No, because the question is there, and it is a commentary on the moment that's
from Tarantino, but not Tarantino, the director.
Because it's not a moment in the movie. Like, we understand of like,
hey, would that be okay? And she goes, uh-huh.
And then, of course, we go, well, of course, she has to agree.
But there isn't that emotional beat where it's, well, of course,
like, I don't have a choice.
So it's just a it's it's an interesting commentary that has no dramatic equivalent
when the film is executed.
Okay so I'm I do want to
get into the strudel but I do want to because it is
interesting it's like three pages of Goebbels waxing lyrical
right yeah what makes it and and you know obviously Tarantino
is an incredibly gifted dialogue writer but I think he's incredibly gifted at
drama which is why his dialogue is good what is Goebbels' tactic here if we're
talking about like what is subtext is the result of these of drama what's his
goal here what's his tactic here well.
He's certainly uh aggrandizing himself just like the narcissist of of taking
over the table uh but it's also interesting a lot of it's cut
A lot of this doesn't make the final cut of the film.
So at some point, you might very well have had Tarantino going,
what the hell is this all about?
Let me just go ahead and cut it. There is a difference between scenes that are
full, long scenes that are full and are dense.
And then there are long scenes that are just long.
And it's kind of I I think
if you like history and you're interested in this sort of thing and but like
lucky kids like all that stuff this is what I'll there is irony to like I'll
be remembered for lucky kids of course you know like that but there's a reason
why it's cut from the final film and.
Maybe it's the absence of subtext right the.
Oh yeah as.
Soon as she realizes that she's not been brought to the cafe to be interrogated
and executed as a Jew in hiding,
as soon as she realizes that, the narrative tension somehow somewhat leaves the scene.
Yeah.
And that it's all about Fredrick basically trying to convince Goebbels to use
her cinema and Goebbels, I think, just toying with Fredrick.
Which- Yeah.
Doesn't sustain itself for three pages.
Well, especially not when Shosanna is our point of view character.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because she is completely incidental to what's going on in terms of the tactics
of the people in the scene.
Like Shosanna's tactic is, I need to say as little as humanly possible.
And the other two are the ones with an objective. And it's only when Hans arrives in the scene that,
The subtext is reignited and it's just reignited pretty much through dramatic
irony, through narrative point of view.
I mean, he literally interrupts the scene in the script.
They call out the fact that the uniform half enters frame, the bottom half of
the uniform enters frame.
And then he kind of takes over from that point of view.
So, we should dive into this back half of it.
It's.
Just interesting interrogating that and it is good to realize that they did
cut most of it yeah probably because that subtext isn't as strong to hold it together there's.
No drama there.
So I've already mentioned the the bomb going offline then
once Goebbels and Friedrich and Francesca leave I'm
just going to read the action lines again because Tarantino is
telling us as the reader what we already
know but he's like drawing our attention to it because like this is
why the scene is going to be you're going to read dialogue
about strudel but it's going to be tense as fuck
uh so everybody says their farewells colonel
Landa offers the young Jew in hiding a
seat at a small table in the outside patio area of
Maxim's the fluency and poetic proficiency of the SS Jew hunter's French reveals
to the audience that his feigning clumsiness at French with monsieur LaPadite
in the film's first scene was simply an interrogation technique.
So he's setting us up for the scene.
Yes, but also that no one in the audience got.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, like this is like, it can be subtle as long as it's obvious,
but this was not like no one picked this up at all. No one.
But what you do get is why does he want to talk to her?
He suspects that you actually kind of get the obvious part of all of this. Yes.
I mean, what they're setting up is that what he's telling us in the action lines
is he is a skilled interrogator, and this is going to feel like an interrogation,
which it does, from Shosanna's point of view.
She is unaware and desperately wants to know, am I sitting in an interrogation or not?
And it means-
means that when he just starts like, have you tried the strudel here?
So it goes interrogation technique. Have you tried the strudel here?
Right. Like on the Big Print, you feel the tonal shift, right.
Which may be reflected in the music.
Right. So as much as you're saying that no one in the audience got this subtle
bit of, I mean, this is to me like directing the actor.
This is a great bit of direction for the actor, which is Christoph,
your, your French in the beginning of the film is going to be clumsy.
It's not going to be clumsy here. That's something the audience is going to
hear, but it's not going to be, and that you can play, but it's not going to
be something that they're consciously aware of.
But what it does do on the page is mean that there is a tonal shift to the second
half that says, this is an interrogation.
It's going to feel like an interrogation, which it does.
I think in the way it's shot and probably the way its music is played,
it feels more of an interrogation.
I certainly remember the first time, this is one of those many tense scenes in this film.
It's like the underground bar scene is the other big one that we also considered doing.
The tension just ramps up and it's just people having normal conversation.
But you can really feel the tension here.
Because we know she's a Jew in hiding. And that's the important thing from the earlier beat.
It's reminding us of the reader, what's at stake for her, right?
And the irony, what she's trying to hide and not reveal.
So, that's kind of the coming back to the tactic. This isn't the tactic of what
she wants to reveal. This is the tactic of what she doesn't want to reveal.
And then us filling the gap of him.
What's interesting is we don't actually know why he's there.
He just says he wants to discuss a security concern.
So we kind of feel the void of information.
I, I,
I, and I'm certainly not being critical of Tarantino, who is certainly one of our best writers.
He's just one of our best writers. But, like, of the three interrogation scenes,
this, to me, is the least effective.
You're right.
Like, the opening one, the opening one is incredibly effective.
Like, that's, to me, it's one of the great scenes in cinema.
The scene at the bar, which as you start to suspect that this officer suspects
this officer isn't who he says he is.
Both those scenes, people were asking questions in an effort to get more information.
Whereas in this scene, I think it leans way too much on we know that she's a Jew. We know who he is.
But he seemed somewhat uninterested. And he says, this is a formality.
And of course you hear that and you think, well, that's probably not true.
That's probably an interrogation technique.
But it seems at the end of the scene that that was in fact true.
Yeah. He suspects nothing.
He's unaware, suspects nothing, makes no decisions or choices that lead him
down one path or another path.
He is just being polite.
To the girl that gerbils. And so to me, there is a potential of tension that
never fulfills itself and then falls flat at the end.
This is interesting because I think this kind of connects back to a somewhat
similar version of the zone of interest thing.
This is subtext, the filmmaker's subtext, right?
Yeah.
In a way that, as you say, we're interpreting his questions as an interrogation
And Tarantino's working very hard for us to feel that, to the point when he
orders the glass of milk.
And I remember that moment when he goes, oh, can I have a glass of milk?
It calls back to the beginning of the film when he does the same thing,
when it actually writes in the big print.
Considering that show, Sanna grew up in a dairy farm, and the last time she
was on a dairy farm, her strudel companion murdered her entire family.
His ordering her milk is, to say the least, disconcerting.
But did you feel that in the scene?
I found it disconcerting.
Okay.
Yes, I did. The first time I saw it, I did find my tension ramped up.
But as you say, that's not a tactic from him. That's her experience of it.
Yeah.
And the ending of the scene is her literally having pissed herself.
Yeah.
Because what I think the filmmaker's intention of this, the subtext from the
filmmakers or the storytellers point of view, is to make us realize how under
threat she is in every part of her life.
That these guys are scary even when they're
not trying to scare you for someone like her yeah and
I think for me it works like that but it's an interesting this is an interesting
I think this is that other type of subtext you know it's not theme it's not
meaning it's the storyteller trying to make us feel something in a particular
way uh in this case I think to help us empathize with her yeah.
It's it's it's one of the reasons why just filmmaking is just so damn hard.
Oh yeah you know Like.
It is just so much harder than it looks. Because I...
I think the experience he wants the audience to have is the experience you have
and the experience that I had was oh this is going to be another tension like
this is going to be another,
and then it feels like a letdown and
then I had just read the script from you guys so like I only
knew the movie up to this point which kind
of shows her a moment of like that tension
and fear releasing which I I just
from a personal standpoint would like to have seen longer I would
like I thought I thought it cut too short on just
how of just what that would be like
to try to pretend to keep
a secret and hold that tension and then
you have a single moment where you're it's allowed to go yeah
I I would like to have seen what that looked like like a little longer but I
like what you're saying to me the scene where oh my god is this interrogation
this interrogation is this interrogation
and then the realization of no he literally is just asking formally.
And and to have that my god he was
just being like going through polite and
she practically vomited you know and she peed herself in the script yeah yeah
and if I had felt that version of the scene which I think is what you're saying
you felt that version of the scene then it would have been I was like oh my
god what a great scene but it's why filmmaking is so hard of like how do you,
give everyone in the audience the experience you want to give them while everyone
in the audience feels like they're the only ones who had that private experience,
without everyone having different because then if everyone's different you're
not in control you're not telling a story and he's like obviously one of our
best so it's just difficult craft yes.
It's to put it in the context of like what works well about this and not is
again he hasn't gone into it going Landa is talking about something else he's
not he is pure text he is talking about strudels and cinema security there is no subtext.
Yeah whatsoever.
To to the dialogue that that Landa is in control of.
Yeah right.
And this is where we're talking about the subtext of is it the characters are
aware of it which is what is in Michael Clayton versus the irony created by the filmmakers and the,
I think potentially what you're missing, Tom, is Shosanna's tactic is to not give herself away.
Sure.
She desperately wants to know what Hans knows.
And in fact, this is once again called out in the action lines.
So, right after that line that, Stu, you read out before about how disconcerting
the ordering of the milk is.
It says, the key to Colonel Landa's power and or charm, depending whose side
you are on, lies in his ability to convince you he's privy to your secrets.
Right. So Shosanna desperately wants to know, do you know who I am?
Right. But that's in the text of the script. Is that in the scene?
Well, I think it is in the scene. Like she's fearful, but.
Because if he knows who she is, what's the point of the scene?
Well, I think he's established with us in the first scene that he likes toying with people.
So, you know, this is obviously a direct callback to the first scene.
Is he toying with her or is he not?
Yeah.
And I think potentially the issue that you're missing that you feel in those
other interrogation scenes is that Shosanna's tactic here is to not reveal herself.
She's got an objective, which is, I want to know, is this an interrogation or not?
But her tactic cannot go towards that dramatic objective at all.
She just has to hide what she's feeling. Whereas in those other two scenes,
Monsieur LaPadite has an objective and his tactic aligns with that objective
to hide the family under the floor.
And in the later scene, the Michael Fassbender character, I can't remember the
name of his character, but...
In that interrogation in the bar underneath, Michael Fassbender's character
has tactics to try and counter the suspicion.
He goes into a long story about where his German accent comes from and the actor
character is also playing along with that.
So, that's where the movements of
the scene and the drama and the tension can shift
within the scene because of the tactics available to
the characters so this this one scene there's no
dramatic movement we looked at a one page scene with Michael
Clayton where there was three dramatic movements in this
scene it is the same yeah drama throughout
it's just tension which Tarantino is a master I'm not saying that that's a negative
thing like he can sit in tension for so long but maybe that's what you're missing
in comparison to those other scenes is maybe the lack of tactics available to
the characters and as a result of
those lack of tactics there's a lack of dramatic movement to the scene I.
Really like your comment about the filmmaker's subtext here though like I think
this is a really good example of what I think I the light bulb went off when
you said of like here's here's the filmmaker's tactics because we eventually
learned Landa has no real subtext here.
Yes you.
Know like we eventually learn and he he is just a formality that this woman
was literally introduced to him by Goebbels.
Yeah.
You know, like he's not looking or thinking anything, but he's polite and,
you know, he forgets the cream and so there's all these long moments of like,
don't do the strudel with the strudel. So,
So to me of like, oh, well, like we're being told their subtext by the filmmaker
because she's trying to figure out what the subtext is.
Yeah.
But in actuality, there isn't the subtext.
Yeah.
And so I guess what I wanted to me to have felt that was like when it was done
to have understood that from the scene and watching the scene rather than a podcast discussion.
I wanted I wanted that I wanted to understand it in the moment and go oh that's
poor like like she thought she was an interrogation and she wasn't and what an awful awful life,
so like now that we talk about it it's like oh yeah this is this is really good
you know like okay but again it's like going back to it can be subtle as long as it's obvious,
of what is the experience, what is the shift and the change in the scene.
And it always feels, because it's just for fun, because you're just,
we're talking about Tarantino.
So like we're talking about, is it a 99 out of a hundred or is this a 98 out
of a hundred? And like, that's the debate.
Yeah.
I mean, and it is interesting just coming back to this filmmaker subtext Because
unlike Michael Clayton, he is doing a lot of work and he's writing a lot of
music in his action lines here.
Yeah.
Because he's wanting an effect that isn't arising from the drama of both characters.
Like, I certainly think we need to understand what she's thinking on the page
for him to have the effect that he is looking, which us sitting with her,
believing something is an interrogation when it is not.
And I definitely lean a little bit more into the Tarantino, you know,
that's what I've learned from reading Tarantino scripts is this kind of writing
of sometimes you just got to write in the- Oh.
I think you should. Yeah. You absolutely should.
This is the guy from the beginning of the film that murdered her old family.
Absolutely.
Because you will remember that when he sits down, you will recognize that face
because there is a literally a face to it.
Whereas on the page writing Colonel Landa has none, brings up none of those emotions.
No, watching a movie and reading a script are two different experiences,
and you have to create that experience of the movie for the reader. Yeah. You have to.
You have to. I mean, that's absolutely the best writing advice I was ever given
back when I was at the VCA, which is the film school I went to,
was write the experience.
And I've clung to that ever since. And in fact,
I think our podcast is all about that and maybe why we like what you write about
screenwriting and what you talk about because it's the same thing it's how do
you recreate the movie experience on the page yeah and this is,
Tarantino trying to do something because he has this idea in mind of and it's,
We're talking about the experience for the audience. I do think it's about putting
us in the experience of Shosanna as well.
And he is writing about it as it's not that it's scary for us.
It's that it's scary for her. This is the guy that murdered her family.
She is feeling anxious, all that stuff. It is about how his presence makes her
feel. But as you say, there is less shift.
There's less complexity in the shifting here. It's him sitting in the tension.
There's a couple of shifts, but they're very small. is she kind of blabbers
a bit and he says, there's no reason to feel anxious.
Yeah.
And then she shifts to very short answers, right, in response.
But he doesn't seem to pick up on that.
You know, it would have been interesting if he's like, you've just gone from
blabbering to being really short.
And then when they bring up Marcel, her African projectionist,
and he picks up on that and he talks about the Negro, et cetera,
et cetera, the tension rises again.
Yeah.
But then he's like, oh, yeah, no, I can see how that works. and then it dissipates.
So you've got these ebbs and flows, but it's not like these shifts in the same
way that we see in Michael Clayton.
Yeah, it doesn't escalate. It shifts, but it doesn't escalate.
Interestingly enough, all The Substance does is escalate in madness.
That is a pretty amazing segue. Well done, Stu.
So can we move on to The Substance, Tom?
Yes, let's go over the 67 pages of The Substance that you sent to me.
I've only highlighted one page.
Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?
Younger, more beautiful, more perfect.
One single injection unlocks your DNA and will release another version of yourself.
This is the substance.
A perfect balance of seven days each. The one and only thing not to forget.
You are one.
You can't escape from yourself.
There's been a slight misuse of the substance.
No!
This balance is not working!
Would you like to stop? Would you like to stop?
I'm fine.
To be clear so we were we came
into this with Tom's article is called subtext is overrated and I was like all
right what's what film is an example of how subtext is overrated and I to put
my cards on the table I really love The Substance but I also think any criticism leveled at it,
like in this New Yorker article,
that it is obvious is fair.
It is the most obvious film I think I've potentially ever seen.
But why is obvious a criticism?
And that's where I disagree with the whole premise of this article in the New Yorker.
But they were like, Anora and The Substance are too literal.
They're the new literalism. they're very obvious but then was like but Conclave
and Furiosa by contrast uh like the films that we should aspire to to have with
more sort of subtlety and grace I'm like Furiosa.
That is a an odd mix in
that for it is such an odd criticism of
calling something obvious it's bizarre
to me now untruthful uninteresting
so obvious to the point where I didn't believe
the moment like I get that but
that's the problem isn't obvious the problem is you didn't believe the
moment like it didn't make you feel anything um
and and so you know translating that or interpreting that as obvious is I I
don't want to dive down the argument or like down this road but It really is
such an elitist interpretation of it should like some people shouldn't get it.
I should be the only one who gets it.
And if other people get it, it bugs me.
That's kind of like the heart of an elitist argument.
Yeah, well, I think there seemed to be a conflation between subtlety and originality, right?
That because there's no audience reaching for meaning, that means the experience
is uniform and unoriginal.
Whereas the substance, I mean, we should probably summarize it at some point.
And Stu, you've seen it more recently than me or Tom, if you're keen to have
a go at summarizing the substance by all means.
But it was a completely original experience for me.
Yeah. From every perspective. How it was filmed, how it was told.
There's certainly thematically, I would say, maybe it's not the most original,
but it's universal and it's a tale as old as time.
It is the heart of human nature of feeling like you're aging out of life.
And what do you do about it? Do you embrace where you are or do you try to recapture youth?
And it's told from the perspective of a celebrity, but that's also just a plain
old, you could have a midlife crisis.
You could have told that exact same story from a 52-year-old.
You could have told the exact same story, and they do, from an 80-year-old who does it.
And then they get to the younger version of themselves.
And to me, what makes it original is how they told this story.
And how surreal the editing is.
Like the choices it makes, all the things that it doesn't even bother to explain.
And just to be clear, I know you guys are both, we've got an Australian phrase
here, Tom, maybe you know it from your time here of paying that you both are paying me out.
You're both teasing me for choosing 67 pages of script.
But what I really want, my experience of the film was when I was watching it,
was that it ended multiple times.
It was almost Lord of the Rings in its like, oh, and here's another ending and
here's another ending. I kept expecting a cut to black, and then there was another
sequence where it was making the exact same point, but just as due to what you said earlier.
Yeah.
But it escalated, so it just kept ending, escalating, ending,
escalating, ending, escalating along the same point, and it was just hammering home its meaning.
In some ways, it's by the by. I actually found the script, reading the script
ending was a lot more of a forward, cohesive experience than the ending of the film itself.
The one thing the script did is ended up making a joke of the Flash titles,
you know, because we've got the three characters and it kind of introduces their
names in these big, bold fonts.
And then Monstro Elisasue is kind of on the screen. And in the film, it's the last one.
But at the end of the script, that actually turns into a gag because every version
of her that falls off gets its own title card.
And in some ways, that actually makes it feel more cohesive to me.
But I think what I kind of reacted to in this sequence, what I reacted to was
it still tried to give us insight and access to the character.
Definitely.
Of these 60 billion pages you've sent us, Chas.
What I picked up on was just after it introduced the text, I actually love that
it actually uses the giant font.
It uses literal big print in the actual script. and uses like big Helvetica
font against black in the script to give us that experience.
But it's this bit after we've introduced the monster. So she's,
she's cloned herself using the technology.
Should we summarize the.
Oh, I thought we, I thought, sorry.
No, we kept, I kept talking. Chas offered, do you want to summarize it?
And I said, I have an opinion instead.
So, uh, I, I would be happy to try to summarize this and I'd be curious, curious.
It's, It is about a celebrity fitness trainer who is on TV and played by Demi Moore.
And she gets older and she gets older.
And it's very, very clear they want to replace her. I believe she even gets fired.
And she gets a message about the substance, which offers her essentially youth back.
And she takes the substance. She injects herself. So.
Just kind of throwing herself into the void, no real idea of what's going to happen.
And as a result, a younger version of herself crawls out of her back.
And there are now two versions of herself, herself and a quote-unquote better
younger version of herself.
But they are different people, but yet they are the same spirit.
And as the movie keeps reminding us and them that you are one, you are one.
But you can only be conscious in one, only one body can be conscious at a time.
But as the younger version keeps grabbing more and more of her time,
she is stealing time from the older version of herself and then mutating her
body more and more until she turns into a, you think,
the total monstrosity and then uh her younger version of herself until the younger
until the older regular monstrosity is like I've had enough and she tries to kill the other version.
Yeah I mean they both try to kill each other so and.
Then she when she realizes yeah they kill each other or try to kill each other.
So so the the the Demi Moore character is called Elisabeth and the younger better
version played by Margaret Qualley
is called Sue yeah and yeah I mean it's it's a wonderful scene it's.
Even more surreal than the scenario I just gave you.
Yeah I mean surreal is right maybe maybe this film doesn't have subtext because
it has because it's surreal it's.
A very dreamlike it's a very dreamlike it's it's edited like a dream it ends
like the final final phase of a of a bad nightmare.
Yeah but in amongst all of that in these multiple endings in this long extended
sequence where the film ends sue you were observing that the the the Big Print
or the action lines of the script still are trying to put us in the characters
understanding or perspective So.
The moment I'm reacting to is we see this vicious, violent fight between Elisabeth and Sue.
Ugh.
Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Ah! Ah! Ah!
Elisabeth lies dying. Sue kind of goes to do her New Year's Eve party.
And that, in a way, acts as a talisman in the film. There's basically a billboard
sign, the world's biggest billboard, right out her window.
That she always glances to. And
it's interesting looking at the script as they've cut dialogue from it.
There's these people that call her and stuff. And now she just needs to look
at the billboard and we get everything we need from it.
Uh, and she goes to the new year's party and she starts literally falling apart.
Teeth fall out, her ear falls off. So she comes back with this plan to make
a better, younger, younger and better version of herself. And this is the young Sue.
So Sue injects herself with the, the substance and we have a horrific thing
and she emerges as like a Cronenbergian monster, right?
Like straight out of, I was going to say Rick and Morty
because the Cronenbergians are in rick and morty but
they got their name from someone I don't know who they
would call cronenberg after and we get
the monster Sue right and so
in the script and I love this in the script they have literal Big Print
they've got in giant white text against a
black block monster Sue and they use this
device uh in the script which I love it
is the experience of the film in the script of how impactful
those moments are a monstrous vision a being
with a hybrid face shapeless and hideous chaotic cellular
growth body parts placed haphazardly all the wrong places this
is how they describe describe her but then we have a
moment when she looks herself in in the mirror and she
wipes her mouth and turns her head from right to left as she looks at herself
in the mirror she's strangely calm as if this monstrous vision didn't scare
her almost fascinating her as if it pleased her as if she was truly seeing herself
for the very first time and finally accepting herself.
And then it says a little bit later on, because we see her try to get ready
for the New Year's Eve party,
she has the exact same gestures of vanity as if everything were normal,
which is even more weird and scary, giving her completely monstrous appearance.
So there's two things going here. There's the subtext for the actor,
which is you're going to look at yourself and you're going to accept yourself,
even though you're this monster. And then there's this Big Print,
which I understand now what it is.
It's this kind of filmmaker storyteller subtext, which is, this is going to
be weird and scary because she's acting if everything's completely normal and it isn't.
And so it's telling us in the big print.
And yes, this is literalism, but it is actually a pretty good indication of
the tone she's going for in this end part of the film.
And it is fascinating to watch because for me, my experience of this,
I didn't get the idea that Monster Elisabeth was accepting herself truly.
What I got was the disconnect between her unable to see what she looked like, right?
And the weirdness of it, right? And for me, the film didn't completely stick the landing.
I was confused by what it was trying to say because it's this idea of she's
going through the routine and she is acting like nothing has changed, right?
And she goes up on stage. So I guess I did get that from a plot point of view,
this idea that she's going to go, that she's not shocked by her hideous anymore.
I'm so happy to be with you tonight.
But then everyone turns around and calls her a freak and attacks her.
The monster!
Shoot the monster! It's a freak! No. Shoot the monster!
Don't whisper! Monster!
And ultimately she dies on her
star and so the film was kind of saying to me
that she was wrong to to finally
accept herself and that really she should have stayed herself
as Sue that's kind of the complexity like I wasn't sure what the the meaning
of the film was in that contradiction right I mean that's just a personal experience
from a writing point of view what I picked up on is it still gave us access
to character and it gave us the tonal aspects,
the, the, the film make, the storyteller's subtext.
He was trying to bring that out on the page. So we understood the tension.
Yeah. And can I, can I highlight one other moment that I thought was excellently
written, which was before she converts into the monster, when Sue has murdered
Elisabeth and she's gone to the studio and bits are starting to fall off her.
And the action lines read, her toothless smile gets bigger and bigger like the
black holes of a harmonica, a black hole into hell.
She stares down at the three teeth in the palm of her hand, the enormous and bloody roots.
It's as if her hidden dark side was suddenly coming to light.
So, yes, it's not necessarily playable. It's telling us what the metaphor is.
It's telling us, the reader, the meaning that we might not get from screen.
But it is what I find interesting.
And in a film that's so much about theme, it is still deeply focused in what
this means to Sue or to Monstro-Elisabeth.
Eli Sue. um but yeah Tom what because I don't think you hadn't seen The Substance
until I suggested it for this.
Uh topic I I can't remember the chronology but I I I certainly I think it was
somewhere around the same time so I either had just seen it or this motivated
me to like oh damn we're gonna talk sometime in the next 18 months I need I need to re see this movie,
Yeah, I still am,
On the fence about this As far as the subtext goes Because I don't think The,
Like the filmmaker And what's going on Everything seems to be completely in
sync to me And I love it Don't get me wrong I love it But I still feel like,
Maybe, um...
You know, like there is certainly these moments of like she puts a picture of her old self on her face.
Right.
Like there's clearly and and this is total denial. She's in total denial of what's going on.
And but then everyone kind of buys it for like when she enters,
like they accept that she has this picture on her face.
So that was kind of
when like you would think it was when the person crawled
out of the other person's back that I
would have went oh this is a surreal story but it
it really was it it wasn't until
like there was just moments of no no obvious
emotional truth to it where I
went oh this is very dreamlike this is
surreal this is this doesn't care anymore
this only cares about the raw emotion not
necessarily the emotional truth of plot or anything like that so you know like
you Stu I I did not get the sense of acceptance I got the opposite sense of
denial yeah of I will just put a picture on my face and pretend that that's me.
And, you know, there's no good reason from a story point of view to just hose
down that house with blood and gush other than just punishment.
You know, like you're involved in this too.
Like the audience is just as at fault for all of this.
Not only not only you're applauding but your
sudden hatred as well and so everyone here
is going to get what they deserve uh because plot wise that it makes no sense
you know like there's just there's there's not enough blood in that little body
uh but it's like so for me as far as like the subtext goes I definitely lean more into I think this is,
I define theme as the ideas and values that are rewarded or punished within
a movie and within a story. And that's it.
You know, like characters behave a certain way and certain actions are rewarded
or certain actions are punished.
And whatever those ideas and values that get you to the end is essentially a theme.
And if you want to make a thematic statement out of it, you certainly can too.
So uh to me this this third act is pure resolution of a thematic statement yeah.
Yeah so that's what you mean by the word punishment she's
not I mean she has literally punished them by spraying with blood but you're talking
about the the consequences of this thematic idea being explored the values ends
up in the people that follow those
values being punished for those values right is that what do you mean.
Yes rewarded or punished but yeah
like you look at her decisions of she was unable
to accept herself right like
and she was punished for it and in the
end all these people uh who put who
put this value onto we just want
we're going to throw away the old one we want the new one um
and so that value is
is essentially punished now you could certainly reward that
with irony and go well that wins you
know like valuing that but they don't really go that
way of like it like we've we got rid
of the old person and we all were rewarded for it
and so like there isn't that thematic
statement about yeah that wins that point of view
wins always get rid of the old person you
know like that's so like
I still struggle whereas like with the Tarantino scene
like that that idea of filmmaker storyteller
subtext rings very very true and and it's such a great way to look at it I never
looked at it that way before and I really appreciate it this one I still struggle
because it's everything is so in line with itself uh thematically that I feel
like it's it's broaching into that territory yeah.
I I guess maybe what it is is just irony Right?
Irony, the structure, is something that the filmmakers have control over.
Right? We have control over tone, but we've got control over irony.
So...
There's obviously irony at work with Inglourious Basterds. We've got the story
in our head of we know who he is. We know she is.
You know, so we've got the two stories coming back to where we're in the beginning.
Right. And there is a slight disconnect between the story in our head and the
story in his head. We're kind of filling the void of it.
And here there is irony in which the script is trying to paint for us,
which is that she's acting completely normally, even
though it's really weird and gross and we can interpret that in in
at least two ways which is she's accepting who she
is or she's in denial of who she is
yeah I don't think there is I don't think the film tells us which one that is
I think probably I read it like you was denial I think that's a better word
uh even though the script's saying that she's accepted but I feel like that
is kind of sitting as a just a tool right like in some ways is a theme or is it subtext,
does it matter I'm not sure right like this this.
Is all fun conversation.
Does it really matter like yeah as a
story as a as a as a storyteller both
as a screenwriter and as a director it's about what tools can I use
to create the emotions that I want right and what's interesting
is there is kind of an absence of tactics here not
quite true like she's definitely trying to not reveal something
about her I love that idea of tactics is about not
revealing stuff so her tactics is when
her teeth are falling out she tries to in the script they cut
it out of the movie in the script she tries to glue the teeth back in yeah right
so she's trying to not reveal that she's falling apart until she can no longer
do that and she goes to go and find a new tactic which is inject herself with
substance so there is stuff going on and then I suppose her then dressing herself
up in the dress and sticking the face on is this tactic,
of my goal is to still do the show. So it's,
in there but it's not um there's no oppositional force yeah you know there's
no Vern that she's trying to convince you know there's no opposition to her
like the ad just lets her in as you say I mean I kind of buy that the idea is
thank fuck the talent here is just go go go go go go,
someone else someone else makeup will deal with this wardrobe will deal with
what they turn up with I'm just the ad I get you to sit right yeah okay.
I mean the in the script I can't remember if they've edited it out of the movie,
but the AD letting her in is a fantasy.
It's what she's imagining happens when she knocks on the door and then it comes
back and she's still outside the door and the action line of the script actually
calls it out that the fictitious bubble has been burst.
But I do think there is an antagonist. The audience is the antagonist,
right her tactic is to stand up on stage and
say love me the looking the way that I do and
she wants them to explain she wants she's trying to explain she's trying
to tell them it's still me it's still Sue it's still the person that you love
yeah and they're they they can't and
they they turn on her but that that's getting it's
so sort of not the point of what the
the text is trying to tell us that like who
Monster Elisasue like Sue I think I think
you're right it's only after you pointed out to me the biggest contradiction
within the story as it's being presented to us is her stapling the face or sticking
the face of the Demi Moore of Elizabeth onto her face if she had truly accepted
herself and loves what she was seeing she wouldn't.
Yeah do that so the I
think the script is telling us that Monster Elisasue accepts
us and I felt watching it that it
wasn't so much denial just like it was compulsion like I have to go to the show
even though I now right look like this like the the I have no choice so it's
interesting that we've all got different reads yeah of that ending so.
Much for obvious Yes.
Yeah, exactly. I was thinking the same thing. For a film that's meant to be
literal, we're all like, oh, subtle interpretations.
And maybe that was the point of the ending.
What they're trying to go for is to escalate into that kind of more what we
would, what Chas and I would call a thematic sequence.
That there's kind of like a Brechtian distancing effect that's meant to make
us go, what is this all about?
What are you trying to say? and have those discussions about,
you know, on another level, it's younger Sue.
It would have been interesting if it was younger Sue stapling,
like she stapled young Sue's, young Sue's, there's only one Sue.
Instead of Elizabeth's face, it's Sue's face. So it's, you know,
Sue has always been like, I'm the young person, I'm amazing.
Suddenly getting the experience of being no longer wanted, right, and desired.
But I mean, I think it's the symbolism is there. It's women destroying themselves
and their bodies to appease others, you know, appease this kind of patriarchal,
misogynistic culture, right?
And in the script, and I don't think it's as much in the movie,
like Alan in the script clearly gets fired for what he has done.
So, as you say, he is punished for the consequences of his decisions, right?
But I don't think it changes anything. I mean, maybe that's the cynicism of
the script, right? that Alan is now, he's just going to get replaced by someone else.
They'll find someone else new and younger to replace Alan.
Yeah.
And they're all just going to forget who Elisabeth is.
I mean, I love the symbolism and the imagery of the star that it opens and closes with.
The star on the sidewalk, the overhead shock, amazing.
Oh, yeah.
And I think this is part of what makes this film work, is the two previous scenes
that we did are very dialogue heavy.
Right?
We're now doing something that's very imagistic. And I think part of what makes
its power is that it's...
As you say, it's all text, but the text isn't words. It's not what they're saying.
The text is in the imagery and the symbolism it's choosing to use.
Yeah.
And still, certainly there's so many memorable scenes in this movie.
But the one, my favorite scene is when she can't go out on that date to meet
on that date. She can't bring herself to do it.
That's the one that really sits with me.
And of.
Like it's how and he was kind of too late at that point but like it would have
been a different outcome if she was able to do it.
Yeah definitely because that was so we're talking about a scene where Elisabeth
the Demi Moore character has actually bumped into an old I think high school
uh friend and he's asked her out on a date and so that is like and.
She decides to call him so that's early on and then she kind of is confronted
with people saying you have no value and she realized this is a guy who has
specifically said to her you're still the most beautiful person I've ever met.
Yeah so.
She decides to call him in a moment of connection right or seeking connection
and we feel hopeful for her yeah.
And then she stands the guy up.
And she she looks amazing she looks great yeah she she
can't she can't force herself to leave the apartment despite looking
amazing because she can't reach the
standards of beauty that she once had and that
Sue has and it is devastating but you know talking about the argument like if
she had accepted herself looking the way she looked and left then she would
have been rewarded for for doing so and instead she is punished for buying into the yeah.
That is an amazing scene and that is a scene with with subtext.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Right? Because she can't confront the truth of who she is in that particular
scene. And what is interesting is, I mean, we've chosen the ending for a particular
reason because it is pushing more into the thematic.
Yeah. And, like, so much of subtext is your fear, you know, of,
like, what you don't reveal.
And so, like, because we tend to think in terms of tactics as what you want.
Yeah.
Which is true. Like, that's vitally important. But, like, a lot of times the obstacle is your fear.
You know like that and what she wanted was
a connection but her fear was stronger
yeah and and like you were you were it was so painful to watch because you knew
like just get over it yeah he's kind of weird like he's not he's not the superstar
you normally but like he actually likes you and thinks the world of you yeah
uh and she can't she just can't do it.
You're still the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world Okay.
Hello. Hi, Fred. It's Lizzie.
Hello sorry I mean I'm in shock
oh wow wow wow
I I thought I'd never hear from you again after oh gosh no no not at all I've
just I've just I've just been really busy lately so listen I was thinking that
maybe we could get together and grab a drink,
are you still there sorry I'm
I'm I'm in shock again I could book Luigi's at eight eight at Luigi's it is
I I will see you tonight bye okay bye.
So Tom I'm aware that you've got to go in three minutes
yes so how we how we normally end this
is uh did you take any key
learnings from this exercise now acknowledging that
we came into this with your tools from your
um from your uh blog uh and sorry your newsletter that we will if anyone wants
to find Tom's newsletter please check out the show notes but did this change
or expand your your views that subtext is overrated and it all comes back to
character tactics and fear uh.
I have not changed my uh my stance on.
That uh at.
All but to me like these are all good examples of of like how you approach it
and each time the story demanded the choices that were made in the scene And,
you know, you, like, where's the tension coming from?
Is the tension coming from the subtext where, like, thematically?
And so I think people get in trouble. We started talking about it.
Like, we opened the podcast with, you know, Stu talking about it.
Of, like, people, like, I want subtext in my scene.
And the scene will tell you if there's going to be subtext.
And how you choose to execute the scene will tell you. It is, it is...
Your tactic as the storyteller of whether you need subtext or not.
Subtext is a result. It's still just a result.
But I like your perspective of sometimes we give the audience subtext as filmmakers, as storytellers.
We imply a subtext that may not actually be there because of the way we constructed the scene.
Yeah. I'm not sure if I said this on mic or off mic.
But where I got to in doing this homework is there's subtext that the characters are aware of.
Am I trying to talk about something else than what I'm actually talking about?
And then there's the subtext that the filmmakers are in control of.
Am I wanting the audience to know that there's something else going on underneath
this scene than what the characters may or may not be aware of?
Like Hans Landa was completely oblivious to all the subtext of the scene in Inglourious Basterds.
Yes.
And I think focusing on what the audience is aware of coming into the scene
is just going to be way more powerful than focusing on the characters.
I mean, but maybe that's not fair. That was my understanding coming in.
But the Michael Clayton scene, the joy of that scene, why it's so exquisite
is purely from the characters and their tactics.
Right. But it's still there for us.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, which is why we're privy to the scene, which is why we're seeing it.
Yeah.
The most fundamental choice of a storyteller is what scenes are you showing
the audience? We show them that scene.
We don't show the scene when they're choosing to plant the car bomb,
you know, give the decision to kill Michael Clayton, right?
Yeah.
So, I'm going to end with, and I love doing this, this is the car bomb at the
end of the episode. I didn't mention it earlier.
One of the few good YouTube videos I've seen on subtext, and I would use it
for teaching, is from the best screenwriting channel, I think, on YouTube.
Because they basically think like how we think, which is called Raising the
Stakes. And they've got a video on what is subtext.
I may just define it as the gap between explicit meaning and implicit meaning.
It's my buddy Jonathan's show.
Oh, well, there you go. It's great.
Yeah. Jonathan's fantastic.
And what I like about this presentation is that subtext is a spectrum.
If it's just the gap between explicit and implicit meaning, right, it can vary.
And so I think the question when someone goes, this scene needs more subtext
is actually what that is storytelling questions about not adding more subtext. It's like, what?
Maybe it's missing emotional truth, right?
Maybe it's missing the reason the characters are choosing to reveal or not reveal information, right?
And so, it's going to go back to your characters or it's going to be going back
to what the audience knows and therefore, what do we need them to not say?
You know if the characters know this do they need to talk about it no but how
do we then tell the audience you know I think obviously we didn't answer that
question in the podcast we're at the end of it but I think that's kind of what
I would be would be thinking about yeah it's not I've ever gotten that note you're.
Not being obvious enough Stu.
Yeah I mean that's the that's the dilemma for modern screenwriters now all that
term you know people apparently are getting notes of like, you need to make this more obvious.
People are watching this while playing with their phones. But that's a discussion for another time.
And sometimes you do. I mean, it is, to me, it's the barrier of emotional truth is the criteria.
Make it more obvious is not a bad note.
Make it so obvious that you lose emotional truth is a bad note.
Yes. Yeah.
Sometimes being obvious is the emotional truth.
Yeah. Absolutely.
So Tom, I know we're just a couple of minutes over.
Thank you so much for joining us and sharing us. If you liked this format,
we would love you to come back on.
And if you can think of like another topic that you would love to explore with
these two random Australians.
Absolutely. Let's grab Jonathan. Yeah.
Oh yeah, that'd be good.
Because you were saying, like, what I think is the best channel on screenwriting
on YouTube. And I was thinking, I got to tell him about Raising the Stakes.
I had no idea that's who you'd mention. Let's plug his channel in the notes as well. He's great.
Yeah. Well, there you go. And the best newsletter on screenwriting is...
Story and Plot?
Storyandplot.com.
There you go.
And I agree well.
Thank you thank you so much thank.
You gentlemen thanks for getting up early.
I know what to do with myself.
Well I I'm going back to bed that's what I'm doing,
I've told my kids they can watch all the sunday morning tv they want I'm going back to bed,
but uh tom yes absolutely thank you
thanks as always to our amazing
patrons who bring you more Draft Zero more often and who in fact
weighed in heavily on the homework Michael Clayton was
selected by tom but the other two were uh
particularly the Inglourious Basterds uh scene was
a was a patron pick so you two can pick our homework pick our topics and uh
and generally tell us how you feel uh more directly than than other other forums
uh but in particular thanks to our top tier patrons who truly bring you more Draft Zero more often.
Alexandra, Jenny, Jesse, Krob, Lily, Millay, Paolo, Randy, Sandra, Theis, and Thomas.
Thank you so much, guys.
I hope you all feel like arguing with either Stu or myself about anything on
this episode or anything in general.
And you can find many ways of getting in touch with us at our website at draft-zero.com.
At the website, you'll also find the show notes for this and all our other episodes,
as well as links to support us and spread the word for free via a rating and
review on Apple Podcasts. Very important for spreading the word.
Or if you think that what we do here is worth a dollar or preferably more than
a dollar, then you can also find links to our Patreon page to support us getting
these episodes to you quicker.
Thanks. And thanks for listening.