This idea is a callback to my post earlier on the scene in Annie Hall with the subtitles. I would like to go further into that concept, of narratively motivated subtitles. As we saw in Annie Hall, subtitles do not just have to be for translating foreign languages or establishing place and time. In Annie Hall, they’re used for making explicit the subtext between Alvie and Annie, but presumably they could serve many other functions.

Alongside subtitles, intertitles are also a possible subject to consider. Obviously, intertitles are fairly rare in modern film, so it might be hard to find examples of them, used narratively or not. However, back in the silent film era, intertitles frequently were used narratively, to explain the characters’ inner states or to provide parenthetical asides. It would be interesting to consider why cinema abandoned this perfectly viable narrative technique when sound came around.

It might also be possible to draw in some art history, drawing a parallel to the development and segregation of the word and the image in more traditional arts: many older paintings feature substantial text, which later fell out of a vogue. For some reason, the intermingling of text and image is frequently treated as infantile (see children’s picture books, or most people’s attitude toward comics). Why is this, and why has this trend seemingly infected cinema as well?

My one concern is just how much research material I can drum up. I would definitely need to find several more films with narratively-significant subtitles or intertitles, and I’m not sure how much has been written on the subject. A quick search of books on subtitles only seemed to get stuff on translation in film, so it might be difficult to find much work to draw from.