WHO IS THAT MASKED MAN?

Deborah Elliott-Upton

Tell the truth: If you saw someone on a television news program wearing a ski mask, bandana covering his face or even a Halloween mask when it isn’t Halloween, would you question his honesty? What if he tries to cover his face with either a jacket or his hands, would you assume he is guilty of something? It happens every day on various televised news accounts. Usually the person is at least suspected of being guilty of a crime if he is accompanied by a police officer. But in this country, he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, right?

Body language is a thinly disguised masking, too. Do we believe it when we see a defendant cry in court?

In fiction there have been several heroes that wear masks to protect their identity. I’m thinking of the Dread Pirate Roberts a.k.a. Wesley in “The Princess Bride,” Don Diego de la Vega as “Zorro,” a number of comic book heroes and the most famous masked man of all time, the Lone Ranger, portrayed by Clayton Moore. And who can forget Don Juan Demarco? Was he guilty of being insane or simply a romantic who was telling the truth while masked?

Fictional characters often wear invisible masks hiding their true self from others and themselves, sometimes without their even being aware of the fact. I think this is a common thing in real life, too.

One of my friends admitted she is different around different people. Who isn’t? Would a character would react differently on a Saturday evening opening the door and finding his beer drinking buddy to when he opened it and saw his clergyman. Or what if it was his mother or his mistress? Aha, see where I’m going? We all wear masks occasionally. And that’s okay. It makes us three dimensional.

There’s nothing worse than reading about a character that is boringly flat on the page, his dialogue meaning exactly how the words are defined in Webster’s. When characters say one thing and mean another, there is a dance that excites the reader. Consider the witty repartee between Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity.” I adore that movie. The writer put the words and actions on the paper, but the actors sold that to an audience who couldn’t wait to hear the next exchange.

Dialogue is so much more than what is said. It is how it is said. In a film, it’s easier to convey because we use all our senses to catch the nuances of the actors and we can discover what we believe is the truth of the wording. When we are surprised by a twist ending, perhaps the mask has slipped and we saw what the writer wished us to see at that moment.

A good writer should allow us to see beyond the mask, and isn’t it a delight when we do?