Respect the Subplot

The following is an article from Drew Yanno's blog, The 3rd Act, which you can visit at http://drewyanno.blogspot.com. Drew is a screenwriter, screenwriting consultant and screenwriting professor in the film studies department at Boston College. Drew's book The Third Act: Writing a Great Ending to Your Screenplay (Continuum 2006) is available in bookstores and on Amazon.

How often do you think about subplots? I’d be willing to bet that if you’re an aspiring screenwriter, you don’t give much thought to your subplots. Dialogue? I’m sure that’s at or near the top of your list (it shouldn’t be). Structure? This should be at the top, but likely is behind dialogue for you. Subplots? I hear crickets. (more)

I tell every class the same tired line about subplots: “they add depth and texture to your story”. That’s like your mother saying you should drink eight glasses of water a day. You know it’s good advice, but you forget about it thirty seconds later as you order another Starbucks.

I bring this up because I’m once again analyzing the Hitchcock masterpiece Rear Window for my adaptation class. For those of you who don’t know, Rear Window is based on the Cornell Woolrich short story “It Had to Be Murder”.

The story contains most of the basic elements you see in Hitchcock’s film. The bones are there. However, the brilliant screenwriter of Rear Window, the late John Michael Hayes, supplied two of the best elements of the film version. One was completely absent in Woolrich’s story, while the other was only hinted at. Both involve subplots.

The first thing Hayes did was create a love interest in the character of Lisa played by the radiant Grace Kelly. There was no love interest in Woolrich’s story. A treatment written by Joshua Logan prior to the Hayes script did contain a love interest, but that woman did not remotely resemble the Lisa character created by Hayes.

The reason the Lisa character adds so much to the story is that she is a fashion model who desperately wants to marry Jimmy Stewart’s L.B. Jeffries, a photographer for some sort of Life Magazine. Jeffries thinks the marriage cannot work because she loves New York and the world of fashion while Jeffries loves being a photographer covering dangerous stories around the globe.

Which brings me to the second element created by Hayes. He spends time showing us all the other neighbors that Jeffries observes from his window, in addition to the murderous Lars Thorwald.

One is Miss Lonelyhearts, a middle-aged woman who lives alone and appears desperate for a husband. The next is Miss Torso, a beautiful and lithe dancer who appears to be single and hotly pursued by a number of men. Then there’s the songwriter struggling to write a sad ballad that causes Jeffries to surmise that he must have had “an unhappy marriage”. Next are the newlyweds who can’t keep their hands off each other, while across the courtyard is a middle-aged couple comfortable enough in their relationship to sleep outside on the fire escape to beat the heat. Finally, we have the main plot involving Lars Thorwald whose apartment is across from Jeffries’ and whose marriage is so bad that Thorwald chooses murder over divorce in order to be with his paramour.

Notice how each of these characters is at a different place in the “marriage” gradient, from “no prospects” to “lots of prospects” to “newlyweds” to “lasting marriage” to “marital discord”. All on display for Jeffries, who just happens to be pondering the prospect of marriage himself, as he wonders about the suspicious actions of his neighbor Thorwald. That my friends is “depth and texture”.

Later on in the story, when Lisa performs a “dangerous” task for Jeffries (entering the murderer’s apartment), Jeffries comes to realize how much he loves her and how capable she is of facing danger with and for him.

Of course, in the end the murder is exposed, Lisa is safely back in Jeffries’ apartment, and they are well on the way to marriage. As it should be, the denouement revisits all those neighbors, with some unexpected results.

The lesson for you, the aspiring screenwriter, is to respect your subplots. They often make the movie. If you think Rear Window is unique in this regard, then go back and take a closer look at Thelma & Louise, Good Will Hunting, Rocky, Moonstruck and Casablanca, all of which were vastly enhanced by their many and rich subplots.

For a hint on how you might do this with your script, examine your theme and then try to find a way to make your secondary characters’ stories reinforce or underscore that the theme. The audience may not even get it on a conscious level, but trust me, they will love it. I’m not suggesting that this will be easy or that you won’t have do so some considerable rewriting to accomplish it.

However, if you get stumped, just do as John Michael Hayes did: take a look out the window.