Emotional Subtitles index

This evening I rewatched Annie Hall once again. I had last seen it in 2011, and as always with this film, I gained emotional insights from it that I had completely missed on all previous viewings.

Annie Hall is one of those great works of art that changes and grows as you yourself change and grow. It has the capacity to illuminate life in many different ways, depending upon where you are in your own life when you see it.

One of the many wonderful formal innovations in this film is Woody Allen’s use of subtitles in a scene that takes place soon after Annie and Alvy have first met. As they each lurch their way through an awkward conversation, the subtitles clue us in about what they are both really thinking.

I found myself thinking that it would be wonderful to have an “Emotional Subtitles” option while watching such a movie on-line. The text along the bottom would simply tell us what the characters are actually thinking and feeling.

In a really good film, this text would rarely be the same as the words coming out of their mouths. In fact, a reliable indicator of a bad movie is that people say exactly what they are feeling.

Maybe we could rate films by how thoroughly their Emotional Subtitles would differ from the spoken dialog. In films with a high ES-index, this difference would be large.

Alas, films with a low ES-index often make a lot more money at the box office. Especially if they have fancy special effects. Sigh.

2 thoughts on “Emotional Subtitles index”

  1. I often find myself thinking that it would be wonderful to have an “Emotional Subtitles” option sometimes while having conversations with people. The text along the bottom would simply tell us what they are really thinking and feeling. 🙂

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