In Search of a Memorial to Film Extras: the Lew Wallace Study/Museum

A few weeks ago a friend and I drove to the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Wallace authored Ben- Hur. I thought of the trip as a kind of pilgrimage to the extra, since Wallace's novel is a veritable petri dish for anonymous crowds. The novel's epic sweep compelled readers to envision its images more spectacularly, first as a Broadway play (replete with a chariot race in which the horses ran upon hidden treadmills!), then as silent films in 1907 and 1925, and then in the 1959 version starring Charlton Heston. Though the 8,000 extras in William Wyler's Ben-Hur would later be outnumbered by the 300,000 appearing in the funeral scene in Gandhi (1982), the statistics only tell part of the story. The real measure of Wyler's epic vision, is the way it turns even Jesus into an extra. Filmed exclusively from behind, and once with his hand holding water to the mouth of the thirsty Ben-Hur, the son of God is not given a single line of dialogue in the entire movie. He is as silent as his father! The actor who plays Christ, Claude Heater, went uncredited. We can picture the anguished preparation by actors who anticipated trying out for this part, rereading the bible in search of invisible stage directions on how to play the role, some approaching the part via method acting, others taking a more Stanislavkian angle. But Wyler took a different route: he got his Jesus through Central Casting.

Of course, there's an irony to this, since most of us remember Charlton Heston's performance rather than those non-roles of countless anonymous figures over his shoulder. In an essay on Heston in the Cahiers du Cinema, Michel Mourlet declares, "Charlton Heston is an axiom. He constitutes a tragedy in himself, his presence in any film being enough to instill beauty." According to Mourlet, Heston is a self-sufficient mechanism. But if Ben-Hur lacked extras, wouldn't it be indistinguishable from Omega Man ? If Heston is an axiom, what kind of mathematical function is the extra? (See the next post about my answer to this).

The conflict between worshipping the celebrity and overlooking the extra is played out in a small room off of the Wallace study containing wardrobe from the 1925 and 1959 versions of Ben-Hur. Under a Roman soldier's helmet from the Wyler film, and next to a box of Ben Hur cigars and empty Ben-Hur Cologne bottles (in case you want to smell like the film) rests an information card:

(All exhibit photos by Stephanie Cain, Visitor Services at the Lew Wallace Study&Museum)

How does the exhibit present the two pieces of wardrobe differently? The information card mentions that the wristband was "worn" by Francis X. Bushman (Messala); the soldier's costume and sword, belonging to the no-name extra, are "from the 1959 movie." Implicitly, the wristband belongs to the celebrity, whereas the soldier's uniform belongs...to the movie. The first was worn by a man whose middle name began with X. The second belongs to nobody, an X (the X-tra, who belongs to the film). The information card says the wristband was "worn" but the extra's sword was "used." How was it used in the film? Was it used the way the empty bottles of Ben-Hur cologne were used? Obviously, this sword chopped no heads, but the point is that the extra's gear is consigned to a status of utility, whereas the co-star's wristband achieves the status of possession or expression.

Elevated on a glass platform, the wristband is displayed as if it were an historical relic. The still from the film shows Mr. Bushman's wardrobe in action:

Still from Fred Niblo's 1925 Ben-Hur: Bushman on left wearing wristband

"Francis X. Bushman's wristband"

It is impossible to match the Roman soldier's costume displayed in the exhibit with a particular actor, however. That body of the actor has become "generic." Here is the display and a still from the 1959 film:

The display of the soldier's uniform in fact comes closer to visualizing how it actually appeared in the movie. This is because the extra of Ben-Hur is only the fulfillment of his wardrobe, a living mannequin for the army gear of antiquity. The background characters are there only to display the work of the wardrobe department. Unlike the stars of the film, they can never appear even semi-naked. Heston's privilege as celebrity is to go draped, to be stripped down as a galley slave, and end up wearing the garments of a charioteer. The extras are condemned to their threads, like prisoners to their uniforms.

The display of the sandals drove this point home to me:

As with the paper that we find in newly purchased shoes, a crumpled sheet has been stuffed into the sandals to keep their shape. In some ways I see this crumpled linen as a stand-in for what the extra is: he is there to give form to the figments of the wardrobe department. He keeps their shape instead of being given form by his fashion (as in the case of "Francis X. Bushman's wristband"). The extra is living stuffing, living sheet. Celebrities are allowed to bear their bodies and in the process become ghosts, immortal spectres. The extra, on the other hand, only becomes an imitation ghost, a man-sheet, one crafted by the costume department. But as anyone who has needed a makeshift screen for a home movie knows, the sheet is the best surface on which to project.

In downtown Crawfordsville there is a late 19th century building slated for destruction. It once housed the Ben-Hur Life Insurance Company and still bears its logo: a relief of a chariot race.

                                                        

As I left the town I whether the wristband or the soldier's uniform had instilled a greater sense in me of the Ben-Hur Life. The logo of Wyler's film is the same as the one for the Insurance Company building slated for destruction: in our memories it has imprinted the image of a the star wrestling with his horses and against his opponents in a death-defying chariot race (an insurance salesman's greatest dream and greatest nightmare.) But the extras, the indistinguished funereal slate, are the surface on which that celebrity is written. It is they who encircle the figure, support the action, and catch the light, even off the street in Crawfordsville.

The Deaf Extra

What function do extras serve in musicals? Singin in the Rain (Donen and Kelly, 1952) has attained the status of classic in part for the way its stars (Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds) monopolize screen movement and subsequently our attention. In many musical sequences in the movie, only the stars seen to hear the music that makes them dance. The hierarchy of star and extra performs the same function as an Ipod, isolating and privatizing sound. In the following scene, for example, Cosmo (O'Connor) sings to Don (Kelly) about the overriding imperative of the entertainment industry: make them laugh.

                                            
The division of labor in the classic musical resembles the one instituted by Odysseus on his boat: desiring to hear the song of the Sirens (who traditionally lured sailors to crash their boats on the rocks), Odysseus plugged his rowers' ears with wax and tied himself to the mast. While the master listened and emoted to song, the rowers had to keep their heads down and could not even tap their feet. In Singin' in the Rain, the extras exist in a similarly noiseless space. Each extra seems imprisoned in a separate chore, subordinated to cadence of broom, dust brush, and carrying of props rather to the rhythm of song.The deftness of O'Connor is offset by the deafness of these stagehands.

What's the effect of this juxtaposition? Do extras resist performance entirely, even if they seem to be doing assigned tasks that reflect no cognizance of the action at hand? What's interesting is how unresponsive they seem to the musical that is happening around them. This unresponsiveness to the effort at humor (or making others laugh) never achieves deadpan status (a badge reserved for the unsmiling co-star listening to the jokester) and is held one notch below decisive inexpression. The film's myth rests on the illusion crafted between working and expressing: just think of how much mileage Gene Kelly gets out of an umbrella by not using it to keep himself dry. In 'Make Them Laugh," sweeping the floor is pointedly contrasted with the way Cosmo dances and, on his knees, walks in place on it. At one point however the belabored extras seem to cross the line, or attempt to do both: they throw Cosmo off the board they are carrying in beat to his song. My grandpa said go out and tell them a joke...(workers tilt the board). Does it reflect their proletarian annoyance at this fop making their task heavier? Do this gesture merely shore up the lead (does Cosmo become funnier?) or to send Cosmo a message (do they become more serious?) Do they dispatch of Cosmo in order to make the joke at his expense (constituting a temporary strike against the production we are seeing) or to his profit (to throw the dancer off balance and thereby reaffirm his grace)? The film makes it difficult to decide on the upshot of the extras' motion to throw the actor aside: it is not even clear whether this constitutes a rare instance of workers showing good timing or whether it is yet another testament to life forced to live by the clock.