11 - A Career in the Movies

Paris 2010 --On the set and ready to go! (photo Yves de Marseille)

    
     Figuration is what it's called in French.  

    Fee-guuu-rahh-see-ohhn.  Bit parts and faces in the crowd.  In Hollywood they called it extra work, but I think it definitely has a better ring in French. 

    I used to dream of being in the movies.  For a long time I was bored with my office  job at UNESCO and imagined a kind of stimulating parallel life working with a film crew.  

    Actually, it started long before that.  When I was about ten, I wrote to Hollywood proposing my services.  In those days I aimed high; I was thinking more about being a child star, though I did point out that I would be agreeable to smaller parts.  I no longer remember to whom I wrote, but think it was someone at RKO Studios.  Don't ask me why.  My letter remained forever unanswered, but that didn't stop me from recounting various fantasy versions to friends, mainly that I had heard from an important producer who would be letting me know when something turned up.

     When I started the art business, I had a client-friend, Yves, who was a successful set designer.  Over the years I followed his films, and I shared with him how much I would have enjoyed being a part of his world.  It was implicitly understood that whenever I took my retirement he would use his influence to find me extra work.  

     I guess I'd have to say that for much of my life the idea of working on a film set had become a special, if odd, dream.  Everything about it appealed to me.  Not the movie star kind of glamour, rather the stimulation of associating with interesting, creative people, participating in the making of something permanent and unique like a motion picture.

     (I once had a psychiatrist acquaintance in New York who occasionally filled in as a spear-carrying extra either at the Metropolitan Opera or the NYC Ballet.  Whichever it was, that always appealed to me as the epitome of a certain eccentric worldliness.)

     So when the time came and I was able to leave UNESCO, I did all the necessary paper work in order to be employable. Yves was in touch with the top casting director for extra workers.  He explained I would need a press book with plenty of photos, and then he would speak to his contact about me.

     My neighbor, Annie Tresgot, the documentary film maker, agreed to take photos of me.  Unfortunately, by the time we got all this done, Yves was considerably less enthusiastic about my chances.   He started talking about hard times in the industry, and I understood that my future in the movie business was not looking so promising.

    I nevertheless did send off my resumé, along with the photos, and I waited.  And waited!  In fact, I waited for over five years.  Then one day Yves came for lunch, and he was reporting on a new film he would soon be starting.  It was to be a four-hour television movie based on the writings and life of Marcel Proust.

     Out of the blue, he remembered my enthusiasm.  Better still, he volunteered that he could probably find me a few days work on the set when the production moved to Paris later that month.

     And he did.   Convoked by the casting agent and the production company, my hopes were surpassed: I was assigned an actual role, that of an old British general, and though without spoken lines I was to be prominently featured in some of the film's most important scenes.

     Two of the most iconic moments in Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" are the Duchess of Guermantes' grand dinner and its lead-in reception.  I was in both, and to cap it all off, I was assigned a place, both at table and during the reception, next to the star.  That way I figured my moment of glory would be less likely to end up on the cutting room floor.

     Once on the set, I quickly realized that the glamour I had imagined was, to say the least, illusory.  We spent an inordinate amount of time waiting between takes; in fact, most of our time --hour upon hour-- was spent doing nothing. The worst part was the weight of my costume, replete with tassels and sword.  After an afternoon standing in the summer heat, fully dressed in formal military garb, I began to really feel my almost seventy years for the first, though not the last, time.

     The actress portraying the Duchess of Guermantes just happened to be the daughter of the director; she exuded a keen sense of her star rank, and she didn't waste any time in idle chit-chat with the rest of us mortals.  Whereas just about everyone else was deprived of all extraneous 21st Century paraphernalia --watches, telephones, magazines-- Ms. Star did as she pleased.  During the long waiting periods she was generally glued to her cell phone.

    An inveterate eavesdropper, I found it relieved the monotony listening to her conversations.  At one point she received a call from London, and to my surprise her English was virtually perfect.   Afterwards, I asked how it was that she spoke my language so well.

     Her reply was one for the annals. "Please don't speak to me, I am trying to concentrate," she snapped.

     I didn't let this somewhat humiliating social rejection get me down, as I immediately sensed an unspoken support from other members of the cast, and it was abundantly clear that the star was held in no esteem. 

     The banquet table was set in the elegant manner befitting the world of turn-of-the-century French aristocracy, and the meal was catered by a specialist film food company.  It looked fine, but after a few hours at "dinner", you can hardly imagine how unappealing can be a plateful of gooey boiled fish and cold soggy Brussels sprout purée!   As the filming continued intermittently throughout the afternoon, I soon caught on that no one was really eating.  We would just keep putting bits of bread on our forks, and nibbling from time to time.  It looked exactly like the fish and tasted less dismal.

     I may have had no lines to memorize, but I was certainly not reduced to silence.  The banquet was intended to be a sophisticated and merry affair, so after many of the clever Proustian bon mots were uttered, the rest of us were told to emit great guffaws of laughter.  Between nibbles of soggy bread, I thus spent most of an afternoon howling with laughter.

     As I was in a state of rather foolish excitement when the movie was finally premiered on television, the ensuing disappointment was all the greater.  As it turned out, I didn't much like the film at all, and the fact that my presence was virtually non-existent did nothing to endear me to it.   You could sometimes glimpse my shoulder or the back of my head, occasionally a long shot where I was fairly unrecognizable.  The director had opted for extreme close-ups of the principal characters, particularly at the dinner.  The result was that the old general had pretty well disappeared.

     Still, the experience was fascinating in its way, if not quite up to expectations.  No calls from Hollywood, that's for sure, not even another local movie proposal.  Never mind, it's something I always wanted to do, and I did it.  Another project ticked off the old bucket list.


Your input is welcomed:  frank.pleasants@libertysurf.fr

CROSS REFERENCING … a look at other postings

 Annie Tresgot is also featured in "Best and Worst [hotel movies]," Hotel Musings No. 19  (to access, click on highlighted title).

 [NOTE:  All Europe will soon be on vacation, so there will be no new posting for August.  See you in September!]