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What Is an Intertitle?
An intertitle is a text card inserted between images or scenes in a film. It can present dialogue, identify a time or place, summarize an event or add commentary. Intertitles are strongly associated with silent cinema, but films with synchronized sound can use them too.
Dialogue and Narrative Intertitles
Dialogue intertitles give the audience words spoken by a character. A film might show someone beginning to speak, cut to the text, then return to the conversation or the listener’s reaction.
Narrative intertitles provide information outside the spoken exchange. “By morning, the station was empty” tells us when the next scene takes place and what has changed. The same information might instead be conveyed through action, a dissolve or a new establishing shot.
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How They Affect the Edit
A full-screen card temporarily replaces the moving image. Its position and duration therefore affect the scene’s rhythm. Allow enough reading time for the text and audience, and check that the surrounding shots make the speaker or context clear. There is no single duration suitable for every card.
Typography, borders and background design can contribute to a film’s visual style. Legibility still matters: decorative lettering or long paragraphs can slow comprehension and interrupt the scene.
Intertitles vs Subtitles and Captions
An intertitle occupies its own interval in the image sequence. Subtitles generally appear over the moving image and represent dialogue or a translation. Accessibility captions can also identify speakers, music and meaningful sound. A chapter card is a type of title card; it can function as an intertitle within the film.
Historical and Modern Use
Silent narrative films used intertitles to supplement performance and visual storytelling, although filmmakers differed in how heavily they relied on them. Synchronized dialogue reduced the need to present speech on separate cards; it did not eliminate on-screen text.
Modern uses include chapter divisions, time jumps, historical context, deliberate pauses and silent-film references. The useful question is what the card adds at that point in the sequence.
Related Terms
Silent Film Films made without synchronized spoken dialogue; screenings could include live music, effects or accompaniment.
Title Card A text card inserted into a film.
Exposition Narrative information provided to the audience.
Visual Storytelling Conveying story through images rather than dialogue.