Semiotics.  I’d forgotten all about it.  I remember it being part of my studies when I was at university, and no doubt I’ve been applying the theory throughout my work over the years, but I hadn’t ever given it a passing thought until recently.  The subject had stayed dormant in my mind until it came up during a gathering of friends on Halloween.  We’d had a trio of classic thriller movies playing silently in the background – Scream, American Werewolf in London and The Cat & The Canary – the kind of films which lend themselves well to the discussion of semiotics, since they’re loaded with clichés and visual signs.

semiotics
plural noun [treated as sing. ] the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

Then, a few weeks ago, it sprang to mind again, while I was watching an episode of Screenwipe.  Charlie Brooker took a serious angle for a change, and the entire episode consisted of sit-down interviews with a range of TV writers, including Russell T Davies and Graham Linehan, who is responsible for writing two of my all-time favourite comedies: Father Ted and Black Books.

(Some kind soul has diligently put that entire 50 minute episode onto YouTube for your viewing pleasure.)

Late on in the episode, Davies went on a rant about the perils of writing bad dialogue, and overloading it with too much exposition – trying to explain everything through the words of the characters.  It took me aback for a moment or two, because I suddenly realised that’s how I’ve been writing for years!  It made me cringe to think of some of the scripts I’ve written in the past, which I’ve stuffed full of bland exposition and lame dialogue.  Some of the early drafts of Gan Yam were full of crap lines like “Alright, sis” and “I’m off to see my folks”.  Ugh – it makes me want to curl up under my desk just writing them now.  The final draft wasn’t a whole heap better.  Even the opening gambit between the two lead characters include this horror: “blimey, we haven’t seen you in ages”.  What was I thinking!?

There are other bits of that script which I’m proud of though, and they are generally the bits where there is no dialogue at all, and the story is told with pictures.  There are a couple of sequences which are jam-packed with all sorts of speedy story-telling, character connections and hints of back-story.  A picture can indeed paint a thousand words, and that’s where semiotics comes in.  By using recognisable signs and visual indicators, infintely more can be conveyed within the frame of a picture than by trying to explain through words alone.  Sure: emotion can be conveyed through the skilled dialogue of a writer, and the expression of that dialogue by a skilled actor.  But you can create many more nuances of emotion by keeping schtum and instead stimulating the audience to create their own, more personal, subtle and intense emotions.

That’s where my writing generally fails: when I try to load too much into the dialogue, hammering the plot home with a sledgehammer, rather than taking a more subtle, intelligent approach, leaving clues which enable an audience to put the pieces together themselves.

But, you can go too far the other way.  And that’s where Clint Eastwood comes in.

I want to like Clint Eastwood.  I’m not a huge fan of his acting roles – I’m sure he’s one of the all-time greats of cinema, but it’s just not really my cup of tea.  But I do want to be able to enjoy his directorial work.  I’ve heard and read great things about his directing skills, and the subject matter he approaches in his films should appeal to me – what with it being heavily focused on character stories.  But it doesn’t appeal.  And I couldn’t figure out why for years.  The last film of hisI’d watched was Mystic River in 2003, which won 2 Oscars, was nominated for 6 and received all sorts of plaudits.  But I just couldn’t get into it.  I don’t think it helped that it starred Tim Robbins, who (in my opinion) adds as much depth to his characters as magnolia-coloured wallpaper.

So, last night I tried again.  I sat down with good intentions to try to make my peace with Mr Eastwood, determined to enjoy his work.  The chosen film was A Perfect World.  OK, not one of his better films, but I thought perhaps it might be good to watch something middle-of-the-road, so that my expectations weren’t raised too high.

And it was kind of OK.  But, just like Mystic River, I couldn’t get into it.  It didn’t grab my concentration, and threw up very few surprises.  And that’s when it hit me.  Semiotics: Eastwood just uses them way too much.  He’s painting so much with the pictures he puts on the screen, that you you can’t fail to miss the direction of the plot and the story arcs of the characters.  It’s all there, with no subtlety and no restraint, and it ruins any notion of suspense or intrigue.  It’s not helped by the myriad of clichés and stereotypes which make up the cast of characters: the redneck cop who’s a good guy deep down, the ambitious, intelligent woman who battles against the oppression of her male peers, the slimeball Federal agent, the crackpot felon who moves and talks like a lizard and shows no remorse.  Within 10 minutes of viewing, you know all you’re going to know about all of these characters, and there’s not a lot to keep your interest in them.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh – maybe these characters were never intended to have too much depth.  Maybe their exposition was off-loaded early on so that more attention could be given to the relationship between the two central characters, and their story.  But, oh – those poor old semiotics reared their head again.  It was most obvious (and ruinous) when the character Mack appears – a friendly, black farmer who pops up out of nowhere in the middle of the night and offers shelter and food in times of trouble.  Like a Siren out of the night, I just knew it would turn bad, so I waited for 10 minutes or so, and a couple of withering looks later, sure enough: it did.

So what am I trying to say.  Well, first that I now know why Clint isn’t the director for me.  His storytelling doesn’t leave me with anything to work with; nothing to get my brain cells firing and engaging me with his characters or story.  I’m sure he’s a good director, but he doesn’t scratch my itch.

Secondly: this has made me realise the importance of semiotics: how it can work more effectively than the spoken word, but also – and perhaps more importantly – needs to be used intelligently and subtley if you’re going to avoid hammering your audience over the head with too much information.  In that case, you might as well forget the pictures and just write shitty dialogue.

So this is something I’m going to keep on my radar and read a little more about – not just with regard to moving image, but in a wider context.