Extra at the Sixth-grade Disco

There is no greater film title than Saturday Night Fever. Growing up I was not immune to this ailment: in sixth grade I attended a compulsory disco dance class, held not at Club 57 but at the church in the town where I lived. I overcame my awkwardness and won first prize, an LP sized single of Andrea True's More More More.

This song makes me recall how much young adolescence felt like a profound fear of extrahood- a state of being marginal but feeling like we are too much on view. Do we each mature into our movie or do some of us remain mute backdrops to our own lives? The sixth grade disco extravaganza visibly demonstrated this situation: after the lesson part had ended and the music began, we all stood petrified with our backs against the wall. It was as if we had all become the pimply subjects inside some spinning church-sized centrifuge.The music blared but none of us could break the silence.

My feet couldn't understand the song, and neither could I. I had no idea what More More More was about. I whistled the song and would even sing it in blissful ignorance of what was going on inside it. How do you like your love? Was love something served another as you would coffee? What was all this stuff about getting the action going and getting the cameras rolling: Baby you know my love for you is real. Even the individual words I understood made little sense to me in the context of the song: how was love real (wasn't it always? why did it need cameras?) The song played in my head because it gave me the inkling of some mysteriously adult way of living and talking to other people but also some promise (within the song itself) that I could stop being an extra and somehow get in on the limelight: the song, so full of steaminess, says turn me on and turn the camera on.

Into my 9 year old imagination the song wormed by means of  a series of tiny nudging movements, identical to the the ones that Andrea True is making in her music video. Just imagine her boots performing a gradual excavational process downward into my cranium and you get the picture.

Songs heard when you are young seem like the script from the world of adults and that had mysteriously ended up in the hands of an extra, namely myself. The nostalgia I feel over this tune is in part for the mute wonder I had for it as I glued my back to the walls inside the church. It struck me then as an obscure guidebook to sex and love and language that I couldn't read but committed to memory anyways.

My partner with whom I won the competition was Amy Clark, whose gyrations made her pigtails move like they were part of a cheerleading demonstration. Amy, if you are out there, I want you to know that I am through listening to the album and would like to swap it with the one you won that night.

Eating Extras: The Guy one Booth over in Goodfellas

A diner scene in Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas encapsulates the potentially disruptive presence of the extra. Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) meets Jim Conway (Robert De Niro) for lunch. Liotta's character gathers that he is about to be "whacked" because he is given a solitary task: to kill someone else in Florida. (This is the brutal adage of mob existence: to be alone ensures one's death.) As Henry takes the assignment he looks not only at Jim but at the rather corpulent extra over Jim's shoulder:

                                  
Henry says Jimmy wants to sit near a window to keep watch over whoever might be coming into the Diner parking lot. It's interesting that Jimmy doesn't bother to look over his own shoulder. For in this scene the internecine war is not between rival gangs but between extra and star. Here the leaders are "tailed" by the extra in the next booth over.

What tensions or struggles result from the strange proximity of this chomping extra? He listens and at the same time seems not to listen. He isn't tailing our two heroes but he does seem bored, like any person alone at a diner, and casually overhearing the conversation at the next table. His active jaws express all the anxiety that goes unarticulated by the main characters, who keep cool exteriors even as they assign executions and think about death. "He was jumpy. He hadn't touched a thing," observes Henry. The mobsters come to a diner but neither eat nor talk frankly. The extra behind De Niro does both at once: he eats frankly.

The extra eats, and in doing so gives this scene its real bite. When we get a freeze-frame of Jimmy's face, the blurry jowls of the man over his shoulder give the picture its ominous and unsettling quality.The extra embodies that thing about Jimmy that Henry cannot bring into focus, cannot pinpoint. As Jimmy conveys the details about the task, the extra chews as if he too were dispensing something rather than digesting something. The matter-of-factness of the extra is what De Niro (and his character, Jimmy) can only aspire to.

At the very beginning of the scene, Scorcese's signature tracking shot cuts through the crowd of the diner as if it were Moses parting the sea. In the clip above, a man at the counter gets up as if to leave but then quickly scoots forward in order to make room for Scorcese's dolly (the shot impedes his exit). Scorcese  habitually demonstrates his tracking shot "mastery" by moving the camera through the busy back rooms crammed with people not in the limelight (the kitchen area of the fancy club in Goodfellas, for example). In the conversation at the booth, however, Scorcese's camera stops cutting through the extras and gets assaulted by one. This extra doesn't pretend to eat (like an actor) and doesn't pretend not to eat (the way De Niro does), he just eats. His eyes wearily search the room as if he were looking for a way to put his finger on the joy imparted by this presumably greasy food. The solipsism of the happy eater is well known. It says: this plate I look into is the center of my world; I couldn't care less about the acting going on the booth next to mine; I will even look into Scorcese's camera as I sit here and digest, thank you very much.

 .

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.

A New Wave Cameo

So a friend of mine sent me this photo the other day: can you guess what it shows?

If you said, "The finest displays in the Fust Electronics store in Etoy, Switzerland" or even "the cashier in Fust electronics" you would not be wrong. But you also would not be right.

For that man in the deep recesses of Fust is none other than Jean-Luc Godard buying a printer cartridge on July 26, 2012, at 11:05am.The image captures something about which I previously had no curiosity: what does Jean-Luc Godard look like reaching? Godard is not a tall man. So he purchases batteries the way others might strain to pick an apple from a tree. This man who has done wonders to record the incidental gestures between people on film is here frozen in a bizarre moment of pricing. Cell phones do this to even the greatest figures, resizing them to fit our civic and commercial spaces, making everyone seem smaller and the atmosphere more attenuated. Cellphone photos make the world resemble the interior of an airplane: both spaces uglify people. Cellphone images scrunch everyone into the least glamorous corners of the visual field: it visualizes us (even great directors) as extras, supplements to the society of the spectacle.

That is why this photo is a bit ironic. Godard is the director who first welcomed the obscenity of the public into his films. He exorcised filmmaking from the studio system and allowed his actors to intermingle with passers-by in the street. In many scenes from A Bout de Souffle (Breathless), people on the sidewalk gawk at the camera. Such incidences would absolutely mar a standard Hollywood production by reminding us that we are watching a movie. Yet in Godard's film, these looks only help establish the indeterminate and elusive nature of what is unfolding. Like us, these extras seem to be asking what is going on between these two people? and why is the camera filming this? These questions are posed mutely, by the sidelong glance and over-the-shoulder profile of the extra:

Man passing by on left turns head toward  Belmondo/Seberg to ascertain what is happening...

...and the woman on left does the same.

Breathless constitutes a minor archive of such Epimethean looks. Pedestrians walking around the scene compulsively look back at it. This turning of the head suggests an undigested perception of events: "Am I missing something? What did I just see?" These are our questions too. We might say that the lightness of Godard's film is registered in the simple fact that no extra breaks her stride to stare at the production. Breathless doesn't impose on its spectators: peripheral figures are free to go.

Godard's film does away with the morality of Hollywood cinema and the hierarchy of its production. This is conveyed by comparing two images, First an image from the film of Belmondo and Seberg walking down the Champs-Elysees:

...and an image of cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Godard following the two with the camera hidden in mail cart:

This photo depicting the "making of" Breathless is indistinguishable from the first image, a still from the movie itself. That is, the director and cinematographer slip surreptitiously into their own film, posing as mail men. They look incidental, not essential. They capture these amazingly intimate and amorous images by inserting cinema's technology into the apparatus of the mail deliverer (and thereby presage the cellphone which can record and send images almost simultaneously). Alfred Hitchcock posits himself in his own movies as an extra who garners all our attention and lust for detection. By contrast, Godard (and Coutard) form an image that is consonant with the one they record. They do this by assuming the guise of the everyday (the mailman). The image they deliver to us (the film itself) has the initial look of something that deserves only negligible attention, like last week's food circular.

An interview about teaching cinema on Psychanalyse.lu

The website Psychanalyse.lu has an interview with me about teaching Bad Film in my classes at Purdue University.
The interview is conducted by Luc Kinsch, who has also written a prologue to our discussion.
Here's the link:
http://blog.psychanalyse.lu/teacher-of-bad-film-2-pedagogy/

When an Extra's Life is Short.....

The Wizard of Oz is the closest thing we have to a mythic movie. Like stories of Mount Olympus  passed on from teller to teller in ancient culture, this movie is the work of an amalgam of directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Richard Thorpe and King Vidor all had a hand in making the film. The mythic element pertains to the reception of the film as well: watching Oz has become an annual ritual and it is rumored that Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is secretly synched with its images.

Among the myths attributed to The Wizard of Oz is the story that an extra committed suicide on the set: a Munchkin supposedly can be seen hanging from a tree in one of the scenes. Forced to live in the background (literally "overlooked" in life), act in the background, and frequently confused with the background, a Munchkin seems to have decided to take his or her life in the background. (Ironically, Munchkins die in the same place Elephants do.) If Pink Floyd's album hypothetically immerses us further in the Oz saga, this myth introduces a hiccup, a strange aftertaste, into our appreciation of the film. A Youtube video brings the hanging victim to our attention:

 

The Munchkins in Oz are quintessential extras: they appear only in large masses and much of their appeal derives from how they are marked as belonging to a group (the Munchkins speak exclusively through the "fashion statements" of their clothes, hair styles, and type of flowers growing from their shoes). The Munchkins lose their cuteness when they step out from the dwarf throng:

As they separate from the crowd, Munchkins look not like toys but like mere people with uncontrollable tics, the survivors of deep trauma, the adults who emerged scarred from their childhood within a Henry Darger drawing. Munchkins get more horrifying the more we see them alone. This dynamic fulfills itself in the single Munchkin, the solitary extra, who is elevated not into celebrity but on a gallows. From a distance we must imagine a most unsightly scene of a crime: the bulging eyes, the signature cowlick now drooping forward over a ravaged smile, cheeks the color of his ascot, the Munchkin erection, the body suspended from a branch on a fake tree. It is this hypothetical sight to which all the other Munchkin faces in fact seem to be reacting.

The Youtube clip shows us the focus and speed at which we need to see the film in order to perceive the single Munchkin. It is not coincidence that this speed also destroys the song and dance numbers of the film.

The fact that the Youtube video is a hoax does not lessen its relevance. Even as a trick it reflects our desire to see the solitary extra make a statement, and turn their life (and death) into the means by which they do so. Kept from the script, the extra instead just leaves a body, a corpse. Is a suicide marring the backdrop of this film the only means of protest available? Does this figure give vent to that unhappiness that only shows itself indirectly, in the twisted and frozen visages of the Lollipop Guild? This is the extra's revenge: to wander away from the set in which they function as plasticene ornaments and appear, unscripted, in another scene where they can finally dramatize their mortality.

This fabricated image of a Munchkin suicide is cinema's answer to the distorted shape that appears in Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors:

When seen from a certain angle, that shape becomes a skull, a messenger of death into the worldly power of the men depicted in the portrait. The hanging Munchkin is no less a trick, and injects a new angle into the landscape of the Wizard of Oz. In cinema, death arrives not via the trompe l'oeil (a distorted icon of vanitas), but as a dead extra lodged in the background of a musical number, a background actor whose body swings from a branch like an offbeat pendulum.