In Defense of Exposition: The Things That Must Be Said Aloud

If you were to ask any screenwriter what the most important rule of storytelling is, chances are that the screenwriter would respond with the old adage of “show, don’t tell.” It’s a golden rule for a reason, as cinema is first and foremost a visual medium, and thus there is an undeniable satisfaction to seeing a story being told purely through the visuals and the actions of the characters. Think of the legendary “Married Life” montage sequence in Up (2009), a virtuosically devastating depiction of a relationship across time that is presented entirely without words. Consider how the whole “Dawn of Man” prologue of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) unfolds entirely through perplexingly intriguing visuals that only in retrospect become clearer as thematic road signs for all the evolutionary notions that the film is interested in. Or how about a suspenseful film like No Country for Old Men (2007), a film with so little dialogue and with such a disciplined usage of silent visuals in order to create tension that there is practically no audible score throughout all of its runtime.

So with all those examples of great cinematic storytelling and many more to choose from, it’s only logical that the complete opposite approach would be typically seen as lazy and ineffective. I’m referring of course to the writing technique of exposition, in which a character explains factual or logical information for the sake of the audience’s comprehension of the narrative. This is a method that is perhaps inevitably looked down upon, and admittedly it is often used in a rather clumsy manner, as the audience is either repeatedly given information that they already know, or the film gets so needlessly convoluted with technical jargon that it ultimately disrupts the forward momentum of the story.

However, I want to talk about the cinematic instances where exposition is not only helpful, but actually necessary to the story at hand. To me, exposition is just like any other tool in writing, it has its uses as well as its limitations. There’s a delicate art to the way exposition can be deployed, and what better way to show that than through a written explanation of that art form.

The Matrix (1999)

At this point, the concept of The Matrix has become so ubiquitous and influential that it’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for the first audiences to see the film back in 1999, without a clue of what they were getting themselves into, only to have their minds blown by the frankly overwhelming amount of complex ideas that the story contains. Within the first hour alone, the film explores the malleable nature of one's reality, the debate of free will vs. predetermination, the power of belief in the unproven, and the importance of feeling comfortable with one's identity. 

How does the film manage to cover all of this material without becoming a dry philosophical lecture? It primarily does so by marrying expository dialogue with fittingly representative visuals. When Morpheus explains to Neo that the Matrix is merely a computer-generated simulation, he does so in a desolate white room called the Construct, in which any conceivable scenario can be visualized. In that same scene, when Morpheus shows Neo what the real world actually looks like, and we see what a post-apocalyptic wasteland the Earth has become, Morpheus’ explanation pairs perfectly with the somber visuals, making us instantly understand the principal conceit of the film. It also helps that the protagonist Neo is a classic audience surrogate, a newcomer who is getting introduced to a whole new world of endless possibilities, slowly but surely getting the hang of how it all works.

It’s the most classically designed version of the Chosen One narrative, with a perfect balance between its more expository moments of world-building and the action-packed sequences that follow. It knows just when to reveal crucial information to the viewer, and when to just let the spectacle take over for a bit. And it’s a testament to the Wachowski Sisters that as iconic and memorable as those action scenes are, the aspects of the film that have arguably lingered the most in pop culture are its innovative ideas.

Back to the Future (1985)

This is a great example of how exposition can work wonderfully if it is delivered by a tremendously entertaining character. Given that Back to the Future deals with time travel, it would be very easy for a story like this to become incredibly confusing and incoherent, making it harder for the audience to connect on an emotional level. But wisely, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale chose to give all of the film’s expository dialogue to the character of Dr. Emmett Brown, an eccentric scientist who manically explains all of the time travel mechanics of the film in his introduction scene (to say that the script of this film is insanely efficient is basically the same as saying that fire is quite hot).

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Christopher Lloyd’s performance as Doc Brown is that he actually makes you enjoy all the expository dialogue. Whereas in other films the audience would lose interest and wait impatiently for the action to pick back up, in Back to the Future there is no such moment of disconnected boredom. Every scene where Doc explains something to Marty (who is another great audience surrogate) is both incredibly easy to understand as well as very amusing, as the film maintains a largely comedic tone that helps to keep the proceedings light-hearted, even as the stakes of the story remain high and the darker moments of the narrative coexist.

It can be easy to forget that exposition does not have to lack personality or feel lifeless just because the information at hand is factual. Doc Brown is a reminder of how much a beloved character and a committed performance can elevate some fairly complicated material to the realm of total accessibility.

Zodiac (2007)

Now here is a film that feels like it is almost entirely composed of objective information, and even though I have seen it multiple times, I still don’t really know how it manages to keep the viewer’s rapt attention for its entire runtime of two and a half hours.

Zodiac is a highly detailed account of one of the most infamously unsolved cases in American history, the Zodiac Killer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay area throughout the 1960s and 1970s. As the story unfolds through the perspectives of three protagonists (an obsessive cartoonist, a weary detective, and an overconfident journalist), the audience is practically bombarded with all kinds of names, dates, locations, ciphers, and countless pieces of evidence that are vividly depicted with masterful precision by David Fincher at the peak of his directorial powers.

It is one thing to present all this data in a coherent and organized manner, which this film accomplishes without breaking a sweat. But what I truly consider to be a magic trick is the way in which this film actually gets its audience to be so invested in this case, so in the weeds about every suspect and clue, that by the time the cartoonist presents his elaborate theory to the detective at the end of the movie, it’s only then that we realize how much information we have retained, and how much more information you want to look up as soon as the film is over. That right there is pure storytelling sorcery as far as I’m concerned.

So next time you watch a film, and you get to a scene that involves expository dialogue, take a moment to consider not just what the information even is, but how that information is being delivered. At the end of the day, as much as our actions speak for themselves, words can sometimes carry just as much resonance. All we have to do is listen closely.