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WRITING THE SCREEN PLAY 215
—should be quite fruitful in supplying any number of these inverted tags and formulas to the screen-play writer who conscientiously desires to write realistic dialogue as it is spoken by real people.
For it is only with realistic dialogue that the actor, through the screen-play writer, can hope to establish contact with his audience, so that what he says will give them the effect of having been spoken by him for the first time, instead of having been memorized and rehearsed time and again. It is only solid, realistic dialogue writing that can furnish a sense of immediacy to what is being said.
Overtones. Although the screen-play writer should be vitally concerned with realism in his dialogue, he must consider other dialogue requirements which should accomplish their purpose without detracting from realism. One of these important considerations is the matter of dialogue overtones.
In music, overtones are those residual higher tones that continue after a certain, complex tone has been sounded. In dialogue, overtones are those residual ideas that are connoted, or suggested, by a statement not directly describing the overtone ideas. Thus even the most vacuous of remarks can be charged with a significance that is not immediately recognizable in a line of speech.
For example, take the simple word "no." Stated plainly, it implies what it means— a retort in the negative. But this word may have many derivative overtones. "No," in reply to a startling statement would imply disbelief. In an unsure reply to a question, the "no" would be given an overtone of halting dubiousness. "No," in reply to a question calling for a strong negative answer, would be given with emphatic crispness.
In the sentence, the same principle applies. The statement, "Well, I think I'll leave," could be applied to dozens of varying situations but with varying overtones. Consider the long-hair music aficionado, who is being bored at a be-bop concert. His manner of saying, "Well, I think I'll leave," would vary considerably from the manner in which it would be spoken by a man who suddenly sees his girl's husband enter a room in which the husband's head had just been gayly festooned with horns. Consider, also, the difference in overtones in the same line spoken by an escaped convict who is surrounded by the police, and is about to take another French leave. And how would that same line be spoken by a